A device 10 for illuminating luminescent paintballs before the paintballs are projected down the barrel of a paintball gun includes a conduit 12 configured to form a forty-five degree angle to promote the arranging of luminescent paintballs into a single row as the paintballs "fall" from an enclosure and into the conduit 12 to ultimately exit the conduit 12 and drop into a discharge mechanism, a plurality of ultraviolet lamps 14 that are positioned about an inner portion of the conduit 12 to illuminate the luminescent paintballs thereby urging the paintballs to "glow" in the dark, a "horseshoe" configured bracket 16 that disposes the lamps 14 at preselected portions of the conduit 12 that maximizes the exposure of the paintballs to ultraviolet light from the lamps 14, a low voltage D.C. battery 18 and on-off switch 20 attached to an outer portion of the conduit 12, and an inverter 22 also attached to an outer portion of the conduit 12 adjacent to the battery 18, the battery 18, on-off switch 20 and inverter 22 cooperating to provide a stepped up R.M.S. voltage to the lamps 14. A hoper device 50 for illuminating luminescent paintballs before the paintballs are projected down the barrel of a paintball gun includes a hopper shell 52, top and bottom rows 54 and 56 of ultraviolet lights 14 disposed at preselected portions of the shell 52 to maximize the exposure of the paintballs 11 to ultraviolet light emitted from the lights 14, a pair of low voltage D.C. batteries 58 that supply power via a switch 60 to an inverter 62 which increases the voltage to a magnitude used by the lights 14.