Wandering or "demonic" fires can also be the harbingers of death. Such superstition, for example, is common in Great Britain. Therefore, the appearance of lights near the patient's home is a bad omen. Moreover, it is believed that these lights can allegedly indicate even the place of death of the future deceased; and the number of the wandering lights corresponds to the number of the dead.
Naturally, there are many stories that seem to confirm these superstitions. So, in one case, three pale lights were seen by eyewitnesses over a river near the town of Goldengrove. A few days later, the boat overturned in the same place and three people in it drowned.
The collection "Mosaic" by the English writer and researcher of mystical phenomena John Aubrey (1626-1697) tells the story of a woman who saw in the house where she ran the house, five lights in the room where five girls usually spent the night. The bedroom was recently plastered, so the fireplace was constantly burning to dry it out faster. And literally the next night, the girls were poisoned by carbon monoxide.
In many beliefs, the wandering fires are considered the souls of drowned people and people who died as a result of violence committed against them. It is not known for what reason, but they allegedly cannot find a place of peace and, angry, lure living people into a quagmire or try to destroy them in some other way.
In Slavic legends and beliefs, it is customary to associate wandering lights with the souls of dead people that appear over their graves. Moreover, according to Slavic legends, these lights appear after August 24, usually at night in swamps and cemeteries. Naturally, the unexpected appearance in such gloomy places of luminous balls, and this is the shape that wandering lights most often have, terrified lonely travelers who encountered this phenomenon. True, sometimes "demonic" lights resemble a candle flame, therefore they are also called "dead man's candle".
As for the color of the lights, it can be very different: ghostly white, yellow, bluish or greenish. Frequently, a wandering fire looks like a regular flame.
There are beliefs that some fires, for some unknown reason, are quite aggressive towards people or carry bad news, while others are even able to help in difficult times.
Of course, scientists tried to explain the appearance of lights by putting forward many hypotheses for this. In particular, the German chemist and industrialist von Karl Reichenbach (1788–1869), who was also interested in ghosts and spirits inhabiting cemeteries, devoted much time to the study of this phenomenon. The researcher even visited churchyards at night to make sure of the existence of cemetery ghosts. His acquaintance, who had the ability to see these invisible entities, also visited him once.
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This is how von Reichenbach describes in his book "Odo-Magnetic Letters", published in Kiev in 1913 in Russian, his visit to one of the cemeteries together with a friend who had the ability to see invisible entities: "Maid Leopoldina Reichel agreed to accompany me in dark night at the Grinzing cemetery, which lies in the vicinity of Vienna, not far from my place of residence. Indeed, she saw ghosts of fire on many graves; then, walking to the vast Vienna cemetery, she noticed the so-called wandering lights on many grave mounds. They made monotonous movements from side to side, like dancers or soldiers in training do. Some of these wandering lights were as tall as a man, others barely rose from the ground like little dwarfs. They all appeared only over fresh graves,on the old ones, there was no fiery guard. The maid Reichel approached them slowly and with trepidation. As she approached, human shadows scattered, and she became convinced that it was nothing but a luminous fog that she happened to see a thousand times in my dark room …
The second time, I sent four Sensitives to Sivering Cemetery. It was so dark that some of them stumbled and fell several times.
Having come to the graves, they all saw fiery ghosts there, some weaker, others more distinct, each according to the degree of his sensitive susceptibility. Fresh graves seemed to them covered with luminous air. Some of them drew various figures on these graves, and the lines drawn on the ground glowed even brighter. What is it? Nothing more than putrefactive miasms emerging from the graves and rising into the air: the wind plays with them, and fear creates a dance of living spirits from the vibrations of their air: these are carbon dioxide ammonia, phosphorous hydrogen and other known and unknown products of decay that develop odic shine. As soon as decay stops, at the same time the lights disappear - the souls of the departed are freed from the dust of the earth."
In turn, the famous French physicist Dominique Arago assumed that the appearance of wandering balls was caused by discharges of atmospheric electricity, which took a spherical shape.
Other researchers believe that fireballs appear as a result of phosphorus luminescence, third - spontaneous combustion of methane, fourth, the appearance of strange balls is explained by the bioluminescence of some plant and animal organisms. Newer versions of the appearance of wandering lights are associated with radioactive fallout, mirages, etc.
Among the hypotheses put forward, there are many that, at first glance, may seem almost absurd. However, upon closer examination, the original opinion begins to gradually change.
So, some modern scientists suggest that certain energy clots - by the way, recorded by special equipment in a range invisible to the human eye - appear as a result of human mental activity. And although these clots can have different shapes, they are most often spherical.
In the second group of hypotheses, the emphasis is on the fact that intelligent entities from other parallel dimensions appear in our world in the form of luminous balls. Moreover, they penetrate us with a variety of intentions, including for the restoration of wasted energy.
The appearance of luminous lights during a thunderstorm, magnetic storm or earthquake can be explained by the fact that it is during such phenomena that it is easier for them to penetrate into our world.
If we adhere to this point of view, then meetings with "intelligent" "fireballs", which are told by numerous eyewitnesses, will not seem very unusual. And there are many such stories …
Here is what, for example, the chief navigator of polar aviation V. Akuratov told about his meeting with a wandering fireball: “I got the impression that this ball, before exploding, carefully looked around and after some“thought”went to the radio operator, more precisely, to outlet antenna. But why? The actions of the brightly glowing ball are incomprehensible and inexplicable, they have something formidable, unearthly, defying human logic."
And these are the conclusions of a specialist in physical problems G. Likhosherstnykh: “When it gets into a room, ball lightning does not just move, but as if looks around and thinks: and in order to“chuck”, to surprise or scare. If this did not go beyond the scope of science and common sense, then they would probably try to apply the laws of psychology to it”.
And here is another case that happened to an employee of one of the Moscow research institutes. “At night I woke up from a strange sensation of someone's presence. I opened my eyes - in the middle of the room, at the height of a man's height, a ball, flickering with neon light, a little smaller than a soccer ball, hovered. I tried to wake up my husband - it's useless. Surprisingly, usually very sensitive in his sleep, that night he slept like a dead man. I had no fear. On the contrary, a pleasant warmth emanated from the ball, and there was a desire to come closer. Which I did. The ball hung from me at arm's length and seemed to breathe: it changed colors, some movement, flashes, moving bunches of light were guessed inside it. The feeling that he was reasonable and understood me was amazing. I even did an experiment - I asked him to move to another place, and he immediately fulfilled my mental request. After a while it began to melt, as it were, and soon disappeared without a trace … No, it was not a dream: after the disappearance of the ball, I looked at my watch and, so as not to forget, wrote down the time on a piece of paper - 2 hours and 48 minutes. In the morning I found a note in the same place where I left it. But the most amazing thing happened later: on that day I found an unexpected solution to a scientific problem that I had been struggling with for several months. I'm sure it was a hint from the night guest "…it was a hint from the night guest "…it was a hint from the night guest "…
But if we assume that the balls are indeed "intelligent" entities, then who are they and where are they from? There is an assumption that they could be angels. In religion, this is the name for certain intermediaries between God and people who bring divine messages and His will to man. The people sometimes consider the souls of the departed to be guardian angels, who look after the relatives who remain on Earth.
So, there are many opinions. Who is right? It's hard to say. Perhaps no one, and maybe, to a certain extent, both those, and others, and still others …