S trange things are happening in some 70 – 100 kilometres downstream from the Vientiane – capital of Laos. In the nights from the muddy waters of Mekong river appear red glowing balls which quickly rise up in the air and disappear without noise (some, who manage to be close to the lights, report silent hiss). These mysterious sparkles are small, but sometimes they reach a size of a basketball.

Fireballs are observed in some 250 kilometres long sector of Mekong, Balls have also been reported rising from smaller rivers, lakes and ponds in this region.

Phenomenon of Naga fireballs is not too well documented in earlier times. Some say that Wat Luang temple contains centuries old written records mentioning them. There are mentioned also occasional written reports from British soldiers in 1960ies – although nothing concrete is cited. Numerous local people claim that they have seen the lights for all their life and their parents and grandparents did it as well.





Although the appearance of fireballs is celebrated at certain days in October, in fact this event is not predictable. There have been cases when the official festivity “ends without results” and fireballs come unexpected in another night. Many people have tried hard to see them for years without success, many are lucky and see them at first visit to this site. For example, in 2001 there were reported 3,000 fireballs, the festivity of 2004 was disappointing in this respect but in 2008 the illumination was excellent.

Scientific Explanation:





These are not some ghosts seen by occasional people and questioned by majority. Ghost fireballs of Mekong have been seen by thousands of people, photographed and captioned on movies and, after all, investigated by scientists looking for the explanation of this interesting phenomenon. Image courtesy: Tourism Authority of Thailand. some scientific reports mention an upward movement of gas bubbles in Mekong water. According to them – as the gas bubbles reached the surface, the gas started to burn and raised up like a glowing orange bubble.



Earlier some scientists considered that the most likely reason for flames is phosphine or methane, but later on this theory was neglected due to following facts: Phosphine is not a light gas, it is heavier than air. Naga lights though rise up in the air very quickly. When phosphine burns, it produces dense, white and highly toxic cloud. None of these effects (luckily) have been observed on Mekong.

Some consider that these igneous gases are somehow pulled out of the river sediment by full moon and some researchers even build up highly complex theories involving specific composition of gases in sediments coupled with the action of moon, ultraviolet rays, Sun etc. All of this at the end looks too laborious and unlikely.



