James L. Tuck Los Alamos ball lightning pioneer

Summary form only given. James Tuck was well known for starting the Project Sherwood group at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in 1952. This group was formed to study and develop concepts for controlled fusion energy. In his later years after retiring from Controlled Fusion Division, he continued research at Los Alamos on the topic of ball lightning. He traveled widely giving lectures on both observations of others and his own experimental efforts. He collected anecdotal observations obtained from those in his lecture audiences during his travels and from responses from newspaper articles where he asked for specific information from ball lightning observers. He finally cut off this collection of data when the number of responses became overwhelming. Tuck´s primary publication on ball lightning was a short laboratory report (1971). He planned on publishing a book on the subject but this was never completed before his death.