Ordinary white light, circulating in a spherical shell of highly compressed air is a basis of natural ball lightning. The circulating light manifests itself in many other different phenomena that are usually considered anomalous. One of these phenomena is the abnormal interaction with metal objects. In some cases, they burn round holes in metal sheets. In other cases, they leave craters. However, they do not leave any traces of melting. We analyze the reasons for this behavior and evaluate the energy stored in circulating light.
V. P. Torchigin (Mon,) studied this question.