The loud, frighting bang against the living room window and a flash of light happened simultaneously. Something had entered the house and zipped past me into the dining room, then I heard what sounded like shattering glass.

What had come into my house? Although I didn’t exactly see whatever it was, my eyes had tracked its movement as it entered the dining room. Where was the broken glass? I got out of my rocking chair to investigate.

Earlier in the evening, ominous dark clouds had filled the sky. The air in my backyard was still, like it often is right before a storm. Standing at my back door, I studied the dark, roiling clouds overhead. Then my cell phone buzzed, and a business-like woman’s voice announced, “Attention please! Tornado warning in this area until 7 P.M. Take shelter now! Check media.”

Having to deal with something scary like an approaching tornado makes me think of my late husband. If he was still with me, he’d probably would’ve stood on the back deck and not retreat to the basement unless he saw, with his own eyes, a funnel cloud approaching. I didn’t want to sit in my unfinished farmhouse basement for three-quarters of an hour, so I compromised by wrapping up in a blanket and sitting in the stairwell to the basement. Fortunately, the power didn’t go out, so I had lights and WIFI.

The worst of the storm passed, so I returned to the living room where I sat down in a rocking chair across the room from the room’s large window. The drapes on the window were open a few inches so I could still see the flashes of lightning. On the television, a meteorologist was pointing to a map, showing where tornadoes had been sighted.

I wasn’t expecting anything to happen, but by chance I glanced at the big window just as a ball of light, about the size of a basketball, struck the center of the window with a bang and I sensed something zipping past me into the dining room and nearly simultaneously hearing glass break.

With my heart pounding, I got to my feet thinking, “Something bad has happened! I need to see what has been damaged.” The dining room contained a nose burning odor of burning wires or maybe sulfur, but the windows were intact, the lights and stereo continued to work. The phone sitting next to the stereo, however, was dead.

Returning to the living room, I checked the windows and found neither were damaged. The television and mini-split air-conditioner were unscathed. Going from room to room, I checked my entire house for damage. The only damage I found was a formerly new, but now burned-out nightlight in the upstairs All I found upstairs hallway. In the basement, I checked the windows and the fuse box. I turned on the furnace to see if it worked. The computer in my office worked, but the router box appeared to be totally dead.

I discovered what had made the mysterious breaking glass sound when I inspected the kitchen. Whatever came through my house apparently exited through the window over the kitchen sink. I have a row of small colored bottles lined up on the windowsill, but only the bottles in the center of the window had been disturbed. They landed in the sink with a noisy clatter of glass but hadn’t broken. All my appliances were working.

Returning to my favorite living room chair, I texted my daughters to tell them about my strange experience. One suggested that ball lightning was responsible for what happened.

The next day I confessed to my older sister, “I know it sounds crazy, but I suspect that a ball of lightning zipped through my house last night.” She didn’t laugh or look shocked.

Agnes nodded and shared a childhood memory, “When Casper, Rosie and I were children, we often played in the sand box during the summertime while Mom and Daddy milked the cows. We usually stayed outside even when it rained. One summer afternoon there was a small shower with some thunder and lightning. I just happened to look at the fence line between our place and the neighbor’s place and saw a ball of fire rolling along on the top wire of the fence. That frightened us, so we ran into the house.”

I have since bought a new phone and router box to replace the damaged ones. When I disconnected the phone, I found melted wires. Whatever had happened the night before was clearly not a product of my imagination!