UFOs, Red Sprites, Blue Jets, Elves, Sprites, Halos and did I mention TIGERS.

Elves are rapidly expanding disk-shaped regions of glowing that can be up to 300 miles across. They last less than a thousandth of a second, and occur above areas of active cloud to ground lightning. Scientists believe elves result when an energetic electromagnetic pulse extends up into the ionosphere. Elves were discovered in 1992 by a low-light video camera on the Space Shuttle.

Red Sprites can appear directly above an active thunderstorm as a large but weak flash. They usually happen at the same time as powerful positive CG lightning strokes. They can extend up to 60 miles from the cloud top. Sprites are mostly red and usually last no more than a few seconds, and their shapes are described as resembling jellyfish, carrots, or columns. Because sprites are not very bright, they can only be seen at night. They are rarely seen with the human eye, so they are most often imaged with highly sensitive cameras.

Blue jets emerge from the top of the thundercloud, but are not directly associated with cloud-to-ground lighting. They extend up in narrow cones fanning out and disappearing at heights of 25-35 miles. Blue jets last a fraction of a second and have been witnessed by pilots.

Quoted from here.

Click here for more information on Transient Ionospheric Glow Emission in Red or TIGERs. So they show up in infrared.

Ok? what about the UFOs I hear you say? Well after reading through the discriptions I realisied I had heard these descriptions before. For example, the famous teather incident here....

shows strange objects around an energy experiment.

And here

Also where it is quoted that they sometimes resemble jellyfish, just like a ufo story from England recently.

John Harrison, another witness, described how he looked out of his landing window and saw a “massive ball of light with tentacles going right down to the ground” over the wind farm. He said: “It was huge. With the tentacles it looked just like an octopus.”

Found here

I was wondering wether there is some type of field possiblely magnetic that creates or facilitates the creation of these objects, in a way, similar to the way solar flares are arced over the suns surface. From a scientific point of view they have no explaination to account for these objects and from the other point of view it must be ALIENS!!!

Well I make neither assumption.

I think that as a natural unexplained phenomena they require more investigation as they are quite exotic and therefore made lead to a deeper understanding of the forces that surround us.

I would gladly appreciate any addition to the content posted here like further images, videos or research in this area.

[edit on 27-2-2009 by bharata]

[edit on 27-2-2009 by bharata]

Wow! That is just beautiful and awesome! I had no idea such things existed and am amazed.

great post!

Thank you, much appreciated.

Here are some more videos.

Sprites






Blue Jets



Please excuse the music

Some information on sprites.

The mechanics of sprites With negative cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning strikes, electrons move from the clouds to the Earth (and, by definition, current moves upward). In a positive CG, electrons move upward.

While all of this might be interesting to devoted lightning researchers, red sprite aficionados are most curious about the physics happening above the clouds. And the new research, produced by Stanford University's Christopher Barrington-Leigh and colleagues, changes the perception of what's going on up there. "Our observation of negative CG sprites suggests that the normal mechanism for sprites does not depend greatly on the sign of the charge moved by the lightning, but only on how much charge is moved by the lightning," Barrington-Leigh told space.com. "The scarcity of negative CG sprites must then lie in the fact that most negative CG lightning just doesn't often move enough charge around." Every second of every day, on average, lightning hits Earth about 50 times. Barrington-Leigh points out that the majority of that activity involves negative CG strikes, of the type he's just observed to be associated with red sprites.

This raises the possibility that sprites may be far more prevalent than previously suspected. The possibly higher frequency could alter our understanding of numerous upper-atmosphere phenomena. Some researchers have speculated that sprites might create nitric oxide, which destroys the protective ozone layer.

And there are other possible relationships. "We have seen evidence that sprites, and the electromagnetic pulses from lightning, may be able to both increase and decrease [respectively] the populations of high-energy particles in the Earth's radiation belts," said Barrington-Leigh. "These remarkable effects could thus affect the rate at which satellites in low- and middle-Earth orbit are being bombarded by electrons." It's also possible that similar discharges might occur on other planets -- Jupiter and Venus being likely candidates. "Differences in how the analogies to sprites and lightning appear in other planetary atmospheres could serve as a diagnostic for the nature of extraterrestrial ionospheres, atmospheres, and electrification processes," Barrington-Leigh said. "The study is quite significant," said Matt Heavner, an atmospheric electricity researcher at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.

Heavner, noting that we still understand very little about the lightning that comes out of the bottom of clouds, said knowledge of red sprites is growing rapidly, considering researchers have only been on the trail for a decade.

Found here.

And another site with nice photos and information.

More Pics and Info here.



[edit on 28-2-2009 by bharata]

First I must say those are some beautiful...shapes? In the picture. The eve and sprite look quite eerie I have to admit, if I saw those two conjoined in the midst of the night I would think that something from Independence day was going on

Sadly the videos seem to freeze up Firefox for me so I shall politely have to pass on at least the remaining few for now (I saw one of them). From the gist of it, it's rather hard to say as I re-watch the first one I'm wondering if this is perhaps zoomed in or something of the sort? Some of those things whizzing by seem like they might be of dust and grain that is usually floating about out there from the birth of our solar system. Perhaps it is because I am unable to see the rest of the videos I am more than likely missing something.

Third and last thing, does anyone know if NASA has continued doing something like this? The concept behind it seems like it would be of great benefit to society to try and move away from gasoline to something else. I'm just wondering if they have scraped the idea or if they are just bidding time for later.

[edit]
Star & Flag.

[edit on 28-2-2009 by Nurii]

reply to post by Nurii


In the tether incident above it could be dust particles but look for the videos on Youtube and Google by David Sereda, in his videos he measures some of the objects to be over twelve miles long. So if they are not UFO's in the sense that most people think ( ALIENS!!) then what are they?

But any way this thread is about TLE's as a possible explanation.

reply to post by Nurii


Chun Li is cute.

Nawww, those are all sensationalized 'swamp gas' explanations, imho
'The Man's gotta trick us all somehow, right?


In all seriousness, some amazing pics and vids at the links provided.
Great thread OP.