The lightning origin of life theory postulates that billions of years ago a lightning bolt (or intense period of electrical activity) hit a warm pond or primordial soup and thus triggered, sparked, or activated the first reactions of life, or something along these lines.

“The original spark of life may have begun in a warm little pond, with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts, lights, heat, electricity, etc. present, so that a protein compound was chemically formed ready to undergo still more complex changes.”