The mechanisms for the explosive loss of plasma confinement that occurs in solar flares, magnetospheric substorms, tokamak disruptions and edge localized modes remain largely unexplained. Modeling the rapid onset of such events provides a considerable challenge to theory. A possible explanation for these events, nonlinear explosive ballooning, is discussed. In this mechanism a narrow finger of plasma erupts from inside the plasma growing explosively and pushing aside other field lines -- the instability spreads from a small region until it disturbs lines across a large section of plasma. The model predicts the observed features of some high beta tokamak disruptions and Edge Localized Modes.