Otherworldly Photos Capture Mysterious Phenomena in Upper Atmosphere

Transcient Luminous Events such as red sprites, elves, blue jets, halo or trolls are upper atmospheric optical phenomena associated with thunderstorms.

There are high-altitude lightning flashes rising above thuderstorm coulds up to the ionosphere (100km). These beams of light are called T.L.E. Lasting less than a second, these phenomena aren't easily visible with the naked eye. But astronauts of the International Space Station have seen them while being just above a violent storm.

These discharges produce a much different effects from the usual lightning discharges to the ground. Little is known about them due to the fact that they occur between 50 and 100 km above the earth's surface, too low for most satellites and too high for aircrafts.

The first image of a red sprite was accidently obtained in 1989 by Franz At the beginning of the 1990s, about 20 images have been collected from space shuttle by Vaughan and Boeck.

many images of blue jets have been taken from aircrafts (Wescott.. Blue jets appear to emerge directly from the tops of clouds and shoot upward in narrow cones through the stratosphere. Their upward speed has been measured to be about 100 km/s.

First eyewitness reports came as early as 1895 but they were only taken seriously in the 1990s.

Scientists think that as the air is thinner at this altitude, the electrical fields are so strong that they can ionize the air moleculeslike neon gas inside in a neon light. These are called red sprites because nitrogen (one of the main constituent of air), glows red.

As the red sprite reaches the ionosphere, it often produces a diffuse glow called a sprite halo.

In the main article there is a slide show and recordings (they record these TLEs) very interesting stuff.

"One of the neatest things about TLEs is that first image in 1989 was just a serendipitous capture," said amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft, who has been photographing the events for several years.

These things are so weird that probably lots of UFO reports came from their sightings. Lots of these seen from orbit as I recall.

here go look (and hear them)

source www.wired.com...

check out this video (not you tube so can't link)

Video: Lightning Sprites Caught Exploding Over Thunderclouds www.wired.com...

Enormous bursts of energy known as sprites, blue jets, and crawlers can be seen in this high-definition video, providing the most detailed recording of these remarkable events.

Sprite? Interesting never heard about those. Looks like a squid

reply to post by RUFFREADY


SnF RUFFREADY these aerial/cosmic Phenomena have always intrigued 1.

NAMASTE*******

Red Sprites, Blue Jets and Lightning

Upper-atmospheric lightning or upper-atmospheric discharge are terms sometimes used by researchers to refer to a family of electrical-breakdown phenomena that occur well above the altitudes of normal lightning. The preferred current usage is transient luminous events (TLEs) to refer to the various types of electrical-discharge phenomena in the upper atmosphere, because they lack several characteristics of the more familiar tropospheric lightning. TLEs include red sprites, sprite halos, blue jets, gigantic jets, and elves.

reply to post by RUFFREADY


Cool, interesting, and certainly worth learning more about. But, as referenced in the articles and other academia investigations, there are literally thousands of atmospheric happenings that most of us never even see or aware of. Yes, astromoners and other scientific professionals with telescopes who investigate the skies frequently have seen these anomalies many, many times. Interesting, but if you want to know more just search strange atmospheric conditions on google >>>> Strange atmospheric conditions

1 wonders have similar phenomena been observed on Jupiter or any other celestial bodies with atmospheric conditions?

I was flying a Sabreliner -8 powered at Fl450 (45,000 ft) and had to cross a rather nasty line of weather. The airliners below me were having to deviate hundreds of miles to get around the line of storms. I picked my spot to overfly the line and I was clearing the tops by 3000 to 4000 ft. I was cruising at .80 mach. Just about the time I crossed the line it was as if someone in the cockpit clapped their hands together loudly. The Mach speed went from .80 to .96....or 96% the speed of sound.

The Saber would talk to you when she was going to fast by starting a rumble that the faster you went the farther forward the rumble would get until she would depart or do very weird things other than fly.....

I honestly have felt for many years a Sprite went off about the time I was in the cone of it's trajectory...

I have flown over hundreds if not thousands of thunderstorms but that was the only time something like that ever happened. The airlines started including in their flight manuals to avoid thunderstorms by 25 N.M.

I have no doubt that if I would have been in a Lear 23, 24, or 25 the bird would have done a mach tuck (aircraft violently pitches over and breaks the tail off) and I would not be here typing this....Yes I flew the Lear jet too.

reply to post by 727Sky


Great account! Glad your here to tell it. I was flying to Guam (re-fueled at wake Island) and four hours out of Wake Island, we had a engine fire. Lucky it flamed out, and we went back to Wake for repairs. I was just 11 years old and my brother (was 15) said to me, "hey, look the engines on fire", I looked out the window and said wow....no body got too upset we just ate our lunches and went back to Wake on three engines. That was my third time in an air plane.




MATS

"This Douglas Model DC-4 was delivered to the USAAF as a C-54D-1-DC Skymaster, s/n 42-72525 on March 20, 1945 and transferred the same day to the USN as an R5D-3 BuNo. 56498. On September 18, 1962, the USAF and USN aircraft designation systems were combined into the USAF system and the R5D-3s were redesignated C-54Qs. This aircraft was assigned to NAS Agana, Guam in 1964.

Love seeing anything we've recorded of these events. Thanks for spreading!

First eyewitness reports came as early as 1895 but they were only taken seriously in the 1990s.

Always worth remembering.

reply to post by RUFFREADY


Very neat! Thanks for the links. My daughter and I really loved looking at the images. We used to live out in New Mexico for a bit and I totally remember the epic electrical storms but never had the opportunity to view a sprite (though I did see a bolt come down as wide as a car lane lol). Cool stuff!

There's another great website you can visit to see these strange atmospheric phenomena:

The Cloud Appreciation Society: cloudappreciationsociety.org...

There's also the story of Bruce Gernon, who became trapped inside a rising thunderstorm and only managed to escape through a rapidly closing gap in the clouds.

www.electronicfog.com...