The genesis and characteristics of ball lightning are explained in the frame of a new self-organization physical scenario suggested by laboratory investigations of formation and stability of self-consistent extended macroscopic space charge configurations. These are known as fireballs in dc gas discharges and as plasmoids in gas discharges sustained by a radio frequency electric field. We justify the proposed explanation with a test experiment able to simulate step by step, under controllable laboratory conditions, the succession of physical processes whose final product is a gaseous stable flaming globe revealing characteristic usually attributed to ball lightning. Although involving energies much lower than that developed in the Earth's atmosphere during thunderstorms, the described experimental simulation evidences that self-organization is, very probably, the most suitable natural phenomenon able to explain the ball lightning appearance. ¿ 2000 American Geophysical Union