Lumps of ice falling out of the sky – what is their origin?

Former SIS member and long time deceased, Eric Crew, in a paper published in Speculations in Science and Technology volume 5:1 (1982) page 67-75 (is this journal still in existence?) with the title, 'Localised violent air disturbances apparently caused by lightning' in which he describes lightning as an atmospheric electrical discharge in which the voltage gradient responsible for the discharge exerts forces on the electrons and positive ions tending to cause movements in opposite directions along the discharge channel. In his supplementary notes to the paper Crew refers to CER Bruce and articles published in Electronics and Power concerning electrical discharge phenomena such as lightning. Bruce claimed that in the atmosphere of distant stars and galaxies electric charge accumulates as it does also in the atmosphere of the Earth, by meteorological and other processes, the discharge giving rise to extremely high temperatures in the channel accompanied by powerful emissions of light and other radiation etc. After Bruce died Crew had a short paper published in Nature in 1974 describing the work of Bruce, titled 'Lightning in Astronomy' and somewhat later, another paper in the Observatory (Feb, 1981)- but both papers were largely ignored at the time.  However, what would be the reaction nowadays as telescopes are picking up strange behaviour in far away galaxies that appears remarkably close to what Bruce, and Crew, foretold some 30 years ago. A Dr LH Worth wrote letters to Nature (1972) and Weather (1973) and New Scientist (1973) describing a blast of hot air he encountered on a mountain top within sight of lightning. When Crew read about this he made a connection with the Bruce hypothesis and himself wrote several letters in response – none of which were published. Crew then described a fall of a large lump of ice 9 minutes after a single stroke of lightning, a story that appeared in  several newspapers. Crew went on to say this was connected to both Bruce and Worth's observations and the ice was formed by the lightning as described in his paper (above). Crew also published on a similar subject in Electrical Review, 'Atmospheric mysteries and Lightning' (Dec, 1976) and the Journal of Meteorology (1977), and in the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society 21 (1980). 'Meteorological Flying Objects' which was quite fascinating as he offered an explanation in terms of physics for an origin of UFOs. The paper also discussed ball lightning, ice falls of an unusual natures, and the possibility of damage to aircraft from such phenomena.