The Naga Fireballs - Thailand & Laos Every year, around the time of the October full moon and at the end of the Buddhist rains, hundreds of red glowing balls of light are seen shooting up from the Mekong River before silently exploding in mid-air. Sceptics put the phenomenon down to a clever hoax, but there are records written by monks who witnessed the mysterious fireballs hundreds of years ago. To many of the thousands of believers who gather along the banks of the Mekong to view this amazing sight, the fireballs are the 6)..... (BREATHE) of Naga, a mythical serpent that lives in the river. "I've seen the Naga," says one local. "It was like a huge, silver snake swimming down the river." Others, however, believe that the fireballs are a natural phenomenon caused by methane gas bubbles escaping from the river bed.