I'm loving the comments on this video, with some great suggestions for follow-up episodes. If you want more in a series around atmospheric phenomena, please like and share this one, and I'll definitely do more. Also, carrying on suggesting! I'm making a list of potential episode topics...
I remember hearing that high altitude aircraft pilots saw these frequently, but never reported them due to fear of them being hallucinations and getting labelled unfit to fly
I think you're mixing up stories. Early astronauts saw flashes in their eyes because of cosmic rays (which are blocked by the atmosphere at low altitudes) but none of them mentioned it for a long time because the explanation of cosmic rays stimulating the optic nerve of individual astronauts wasn't obvious.
Did it come out the ground? Did it emit a flash as it propelled itself to space? It rain down particles and you were somewhere else for 20 minutes? Only the plants are luminous. This is what happened to me and others have similar from being in close proximity of the "natural phenomena".
I knew about all these atmospheric effects in the '90s in a program called "Raging Planet" that was on Discovery Channel. So, I'm pretty sure there was enough evidence back then.
You may have just answered a question I've had for close to a decade. I remember seeing something that I would describe for years like "a bolt of lightning that moved like a drop of water" and it kind of looked like these blue jets/starters. Although this traveled downward instead of upward, but it's the closest thing I've ever seen to date so maybe that was it.
Netflix has been doing a documentary on this for the last few years. It's about a place called the "upside down" and a lot of strange things happen happened with it back in the 80s.
When I lived in Hawaii .. during the summer at night we could look towards the horizon and see JUST the tops of huge thunder storms blowing far south of the island . When it was dark you could see the red sprites , it was so cool
@@cajunlady4893 they are so faint it would have required super special camera. I recall many nights sitting on the beach , a little drunk with French fries watching them.
Having spent a lifetime working as an airline pilot I have seen many a spectacular light display. Thunderstorms are the only meteorological phenomena that actually scare me and are best avoided . Some years back a South American airliner approaching New Zealand had a close encounter with a space rock entering the atmosphere. Those on board were not only treated to a spectacular flash of light but also heard and felt the sonic boom inside the airplane. Sure would be bad luck to be knocked out of the sky by a meteor.
@@mitseraffej5812 OK. I saw one explode directly infront of a friend and I walking one night. Maybe 2015-17 north east of Auckland. Though it may be related. My friend was convinced it was car headlights. The boom came seconds after and he said he didn't hear anything. The next day it was in the news. Although we stood next to each other we had totally different recollections.
In Kansas (USA) many years ago, there was a lady actually struck IN HER HOUSE by a meteorite and LIVED... Had she not been covered in quilts and blankets at the time, she probably would have died... and there WAS scandal and controversy around the arguments about whether it was just someone screwing around with a cannon or something for a while, BUT the local university DID confirm it to be a REAL meteorite... broke through the roof of her house and hit her on the couch below... SO it might have less chance than winning a lottery, but SOMEONE wins the lottery from time to time... remember that. ;o)
I love going through these comments and seeing everyone's experiences. I saw sprites above a thunderstorm a couple years back and when I told my family everyone thought I was seeing things, good to know I'm not losing it and these are real phenomenons
Grew up in Denver, and the late afternoon thunderstorms would drift way out into the plains as the sun set so you could see over the tops of them by night time. Would often see flashes of lightning on the horizon. I may have seen sprites and just didn't know it as a kid. It was the perfect opportunity too. Probably too much city light really. Either way, awesome video explaining these hauntingly beautiful phenomena.
These acronyms like SPRITE and ELVES are really mythological. They seem to be other worldly when seen. The world we live on is amazing on so many levels.
@@JohnGardnerAlhadis better fact: Put DMT in a pill capsule and ingest it. Better DMT experience and much longer. Just make sure you are in a positive state of mind and with people you are comfortable being yourself
Lightning is one of the things I'm most fascinated with. The beauty and power that come with it, speed and strength of nature. There is nothing quite like it.
There's also the newly discovered (I believe) "green ghosts" that happen along side red sprites. There's a great video by Pecos Hank on RU-vid showing the phenomenon.
Not exactly alongside, since it is all connected, but higher in the atmosphere. Ghosts have been documented in images further back, but were not noticed until 2019 by “Pecos Hank” Schyma and Paul M. Smith. The hypothesis is that ghosts are extremely high extensions of sprites, exciting oxygen in the lowest levels of the atmosphere where aurora occur (which is still way the heck up there), hence the green color. This hypothesis is unconfirmed, however, and would make an interesting doctoral dissertation. Somebody younger than me go for it!
I remember seeing my first ‘blue jets’ as a child from an airliner at night. I kept seeing this spray of light shoot upwards immediately after lightning strikes. I’ve seen them dozens of times since, I’m always looking for them. They don’t always occur. Internet didn’t exist then, but I remember that what little research I could find, scientists said they were ‘ unproven.’ And even this video says “recently discovered,” which is kinda funny because pilots have reported them since they first took to the skies. And I’m sure ancient peoples witnessed them as well when conditions were just right. Fascinating stuff.
A common theme is scientist think pilots are fools and rarely take them seriously. Rogue waves got a similar treatment, with albeit much more deadly consequences
Eye witness reports can’t often be submitted as “proof” of something. I guess when they mean “recently” discovered is that they have gotten picture/video evidence from reliable sources as to the existence of these phenomena.
@RCBones couldn’t tell ya, my only guess is that they had gotten sufficient evidence to be able to describe these phenomena in a way that makes since according to our knowledge of science.
its because people are so defensive against new ideas, absolutely stupid. should always listen to what someone has to say once without immediately dismissing them
Just recently there was a news about a gigantic jet blue lightning that shot straight up in space a few days ago. So i just had to look it up and found this video. Learned something new, thanks.
Pecos Hank, my fav storm chaser, has been discussing this phenomenon for a few years now. He's got some great vids on his channel if anyone is interested in further research.
blue jets, sprite, blue starter, gigantic jets, elves... sound like a futuristic Christmas themed story where the elves and a sprite fought or something. The Elves' gigantic jet destroyed the lone sprite in the blue jet
I've always spent hours watching the sky here in Maine, ever since I was a little kid. One of the most interesting things I've seen was a rapid pulse of vivid blue light late at night out of a mostly clear sky, it was very high up in the sky. It wasn't like a glow of daylight, it was tightly isolated. But the best part was immediately afterwards, where a very clear bright blue ring shot downwards from the epicenter, like a smoke ring of burning propane. A toroidal vortex of blue light. It was so beautiful and unique that my heart started beating pretty hard, it really surprised me! The whole event was over in a flash, probably less than a second. If I hadn't of been staring directly at the spot already, I'd of never seen it or thought it was just my eyes playing tricks on me.
@@voyaging4 I genuinely have no idea, I'll never forget it though. The closest thing I've ever heard is the elves phenomenon. Somebody else mentioned to me it might've been a small meteor exploding under just the right conditions as well.
You missed a recent thing that's being looked into called "GHOSTS" - Green emissions from excited Oxygen in Sprite Tops. Where a quick flash of green is observed above Red Sprites that looks a little bit like an aurora.
Pecos Hank has a few really good videos on Transient Luminous Events as well as lightning in general. Of course, he also has amazing storm chasing footage as well
"Pecos Hank" youtuber discovered "Green ghosts" in 2019. Check out his vid "NIGHT OF THE GREEN GHOSTS" published Jul 25, 2021. Nice compliment to this Astrum video.
I HIGHLY recommend you check out the Pecos Hank channel by Hank Schyma. He is a storm chaser based out of the US who has produced some of the most detailed images of transient luminous events I've ever seen. Actually just in general, his meteorology content is incredible. I would 20/10 check his channel out.
Just looked him up after reading and watched his green ghost vid with all the red sprites and subbed right away. Awesome stuff, thanks for the recommendation!
Interesting. I never knew about these. I have experienced an extended sheet lighting show ( horizontal instead of vertical ) that occurred at night in an almost cloudless sky. We lay on the beach looking up as the lightning flashed back and forth across the sky seemingly between the stars. It was totally surreal! Photos of the event made the newspapers the next day.
Wenatchee Washington used to have sheet lightning constantly when I was a kid. It was magnificent and beautiful. We seem to barely have any thunderstorms here nowadays. 🤨🤔☹️
@@lindakay9552 This was in Cairns, Australia maybe 40 years ago. I’ve never seen anything like it since. Not sure if it was a tropical phenomenon. I’ve seen sheet lightning but the almost totally cloudless nature of it at night was spectacular.
@@lindakay9552 wow I'm so jealous, in the UK we get plenty of rain and some thunder storms but they're never that dramatic, I think because we don't have the right geography for them
Lightning is actually usually extended more in the horizontal direction than the vertical, you just can't see it well because it's in the clouds. Lightning consistently extending horizontally out of clouds is pretty rare though.
I've never seen sprites but I have seen one blue jet, which emerged from a very active distant storm cloud that was producing some pretty spectacular lightning from my vantage point. The jet was bright enough for me to see it in the early evening summer daylight, and the sun apparently drowned out the color as it appeared pale-white, but it was an extremely narrow cone of light that shot straight upward from the top of the storm cloud. The flash was so quick that I probably could've blinked and missed five of them.
I remember during the super storm Odette here in Cebu Philippines when everytime before the strong whooshing wind hits, a bright green light illuminates the sky in about five seconds. It happened many times during the typhoon's landfall in our city. I've never seen such magnificent and scary phenomenon.
It might have been electrical transformers catching on fire and exploding. They are filled with oil and when struck by lightning the copper vaporizes in a green color.
@@richardyarbrough5437 I would've thought it's an electrical transformer, too. But it didn't happen once. It happened all throughout when the typhoon made a landfall. I lost count how many times the green lights flashed across the city sky. But all of us witnesses can say it happened probably more than ten times. It started at around 4pm in my city and the green lights stopped at around 6pm.
This is so freaking cool to watch. These phenomena are visible to naked eye, although it happens in a matter of milliseconds, you can still visibly see it. Now I am curious if there are other cool phenomenas that are not visible with our naked eye that occurs almost all the time without us knowing.
The way patterns show up in all forms of nature is really mind boggling. Those sprites look just like a root structure. They generate the same structure in way less than a second.
Or blood vessels, or nerves. Everything experiences time differently. We know very little as humans and we know a whole bunch of information. You know there's just so much more though.
A rather beautiful episode. I've a PhD in designing lightning waveform generators for aeronautical applications. That was long-winded and practical. I prefer this video :)
I am a lighting observer without any equipment or HD cameras only my phone camera, Hearing about other events happens during thunderstorm has putten me through shock and a big smile, I must live at least one of those events
If this sort of elusive effects are produced by Earth's clouds and atmosphere, can you even imagine what kind of spectacular phenomenons are going on inside gas giants, that we could possibly discover in future.
Neptune and Uranus may have the same properties as a super fluid which electricity flows without stopping. They just haven’t gotten close enough to observe this because of how distant they are. Oh the storms there are probably amazing.
I like how the acronyms are a couple of letters caught in basically a sentence that make up the acronym. Like some scientist REALLY wanted to name them elves and sprites.
The weirdest lightning I’ve seen was ball lighting shooting across the sky whilst watching “Alien” at the drive-in theatre. That added an extra dimension of creepiness.
Love these! love the mysteries nature brings, and the magic it can create ^_^ Jets are reversed sprites? I once saw green lighting through a telescope in space, still have no idea what it is, can't find it online, it's pretty frustrating, it was beautifull... unexplained to me though
I was fortunate to see red sprites as part of a strong thunderstorm that I witnessed from the deck of a lake cabin in northeast Washington state several years ago. I couldn't believe my eyes and had nobody to confirm what I saw. I am a very aware and open minded person. I KNOW what I saw. It was marvelous!
Photos of sprites have been taken for years. The channel Pecos Hank has been making videos about these for quite some time. His tornado and wild weather videos are awesome!
This is really cool. I play Yugioh and Konami made an entire deck based on Sprites. They monsters even share the names of the different colors and are Thunder monsters.
I will never forget seeing and hearing ball lightning. I was maybe 100m away, it was a massive "light ball", I estimate 50m in diameter (probably more) when it "struck"/"went off". It was above ground maybe 200m high. the bang was intense, short and very loud. So loud I couldn't believe the windows in the area I lived didn't shatter. very impressive/scary.
I've lived here in AZ. in and out for most of my life, and I'm 58. I love sitting on the porch watching the Thunderheads massing on the horizon, and the Amazingly Beautiful light shows they put on, rapid series of lightning flashes all throughout the clouds. Lighting them from the inside, from internal lightning flashes. From top to bottom, just everywhere. And the occasional Red Sprite, or even a VERY rare Jet, lancing up out the top. I just sit in a wonderful, magical, spell-binding Amazement, of the Natural Beauty. I sit for hours at a time usually, and it only feels like its been a few min, just enjoying Mother Natures light shows. Its better and more relaxing than a Movie or T.V. all my oohs and ahhs, and wows, all in a quiet setting where I am, miles from the Epicenter. Its better than Meditation, IMHO.
This alone would explain a lot of UFO sightings along the years. I'd definetely be one to see these and assume I just saw an alien ship losing invisibility lol
this is actually one of the first off-topic vids that i have watched without seeing and/or realising the time! real great shiz right here bro, kudos to everyone in the process of making this one 😙
This was an unexpected. With so many awesome things to learn about the cosmos, there's still so much to learn about our home planet. I've always love watching lightening storms as a kid but these things are crazy! Always amazing videos.
Thanks Alex for astronomy and weather etc so interesting and accessible. About forty five years ago I saw ball lightening relatively up close (close enough for me). I have always said it looked like some sort of plasma. It was an odd looking ball about the size of a soccer ball, that 'bounced' a couple of feet from the ground. I still remember it like it was yesterday. If you haven't covered it, maybe it's worth covering?
My grandpa once told me he saw ball lightning when he was young, that a bluish sparkly ball flew through the house he lived in with his parents, and after some zig-zagging in front of the house it flew away and crashed into a nearby river.
@@TobiasDettinger there exist a few short video clips on RU-vid that may be this- no verification that I know of, but some attempts at debunking by video experts.
And that was one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while. You’ve totally earned your entire 1 million followers with such fantastic content. Congratulations.
Fascinating. Thanks for this. As other viewers have mentioned, these phenomena do seem to evoke mythological or folk tales. Could people in the distant past have witnessed such phenomena in the skies of antiquity, free from city lights and pollution, and have incorporated them in their mythologies? It would also be interesting to do a video focusing on atmospheric phenomena on planets and moons in our own solar system! Thanks again. Great presentation, as always.
I've been in to lightning for decades, and I had no idea of these particular variations. Pretty incredible. I want to know more about the Elve(s). Really trippy.
This video is so interesting!! I like to put on science videos to help me start up for homeworks and this channel is a gold mine! I had never heard of these phenomena before, I will be sleeping happier.
When I was stationed in Iceland I got to see the Northern Lights. Absolutely beautiful. Presently I live in the mountains of Western NC at just under 5000 feet. Thunder storms are a lot closer to us than at lower altitudes. BTW, yes, our power system has been hit.
Great video, there's also a mysterious ground effect lightning known as "ball lightning", also near impossible to find footage for but hopefully that also comes soon
@@Fish-cj4ub They have been reported way before the science fiction genre got invented. But there are probably many different phenomena (including hallucinations) lumped together under the umbrella term "ball lightning". It's not easy to prove the existence of THE ball lightning, when A ball lightning can be a wide variety of different things.
I've been fascinated by the phenomenon ever since I first found out about it, some years ago. I read that pilots had known about them for ages, but hadn't been believed when they'd reported them. [bit like reporting UFOs!] It's a whole new field: not only the how and why of the phenomena themselves, but how they interact with the atmosphere, maybe regulating or stabilising it in some way. And this has been going on for probably billions of years! Please can we have more or the same, or similar.
The longest known continuous bolt of lightning as far as I am aware which we can confirm was 153 miles long. There is a photo of it from afar, and it knocked two radio towers out at the same time, and you can see this in the photo.. But how long did it travel before reaching the first tower, and how did it jump so far without grounding out.. it was wild stuff.
When I was 13, I was on a flight to Atlanta. We flew past a thunderstorm, and out the window, I briefly saw a gap between two layers of clouds. There was what I called "purple lightning", flittering between the layers. Now I think they might have been these blue jets.
Ok, so it’s been a while since I’ve seen some original scientific concept, and this absolutely blew my mind. What an amazing video, and thank you for introducing me to the deeper mysteries of our atmosphere.
This was awesome. It’s so fkn cool when u hear about some new discovery in science or anything. Geographically, astronomically, etc. absolutely amazing lol
One of my favorite creators, Pecos Hank, is a storm chaser, photographer, and musician. He's got videos about TLEs and photos he's taken of them. I was half expecting to see his name credited with some of these photos. i learned a lot about them from this video. I enjoy taking photos of the night sky. I am hoping I can get some pictures like this one day. If you want to see more of these, Pecos Hank's channel is amazing.
For more film of sprites, elves and some spectacular storms of all kinds, check out Pecos Hank's channel. He's a storm chaser with decades of experience and works with meteorologists to understand the causes of destructive tornados.
I've seen these images in old photos I looked at as a kid. I don't remember but I'm 99.9% sure I've seen these sprites photographed decades ago; just that, nobody knew what they were and assumed the camera had an issue taking the photo.
I remember seeing one of the video's from Pecos Hank, where he showcased massive red sprites, and documented an rare occurence when the red sprite reaches high enough to once again change colors to green, he called them ghosts.
One time, observing a distant storm in Brazil, I saw numerous blue jets happening above the anvil. That's the only time I've ever seen those. Never saw sprites.
Actually Pecos Hank (his YT channel) actually captured this phenomenon about 2 yrs or so ago. Check out his channel...he has some absolutely incredible videos.
Hank Schyma, avid storm chaser, posted a video about sprites around 3 years ago in his channel Pecos Hank. It's a great video with a lot of footage and plenty of explanations. In the footage, he observed an uncommon greenish afterglow that occurs at the top of a sprite, just seconds after its dissipates. Apparently, that was the first ever footage caught of the phenomenon, and promptly called them "Green Ghosts". Very interesting stuff, and highly recommended video and channel for those meteorology geeks like myself.
honestly the jellyfish red sprite photos in this video are terrifying. i know they are just light phenomena but the way they look is so unsettling it triggers my fight or flight response, and believe me, im all out of fight.