Lost Journal Entry: 21st October 2002: Naga Fireball Festival. Phon Pasia. North-East Thailand

Every year, on the night marking the end of the Buddhist Lent, various sizes of fireball fly above the water surface of the Mekong River. Fireballs range in colour from orange/green to red and are sometimes seen in trails of up to seven balls in single file. They are absolutely silent in their travels, and both ascend and descend at a slow pace from many different places. This amazing phenomenon happens on the full moon in October.
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21/10/02: Get up early and help Sung unload a truck load of bottled water in a nearby town. Sung’s home has a water cleaning/bottling system.

We get back and go to the riverside, where we see the town start to get really busy.

At 5pm we see the start of the Naga ceremony with many people dressed in traditional cloths all painted in green. We don’t stay long and head back home for some rice whisky.

Later on it starts to thunder and rain heavily. We all run down to the Mekon in the pouring rain to see some fire balls rise out of the river. We saw about 12. If it was not cloudy and raining we would have seen many more.

Rare photo (from internet)

I’m absolutely soaked, but its worth it as what I saw was truly amazing. It’s completely natural with no explanation, and happens every year on the full moon in October at certain points on the Mekong. From what I observed they shoot up from only two places on the river, maybe a km apart.

We go back to the riverside later at 21:00 and see about 10 more. I think I managed to get a picture, not sure though. There was also some cool lightening.

Here are some links concerning the fireballs:

http://nationmultimedia.com/page.arcview.php3?clid=1&id=68722&usrsess=1
http://travelmax.statravel.co.uk/sisp/?fx=event&event_id=95377
http://www.tw.co.th/cgi-bin/festival.cfm?f=41013
http://www.tatnews.org/emagazine/2215.asp