Sprites, Blue Jets, and ELVES: Are We Talking Thunderstorms or Fairytales?

Throughout history, eye-witnesses have reported seeing “darts of light”, “rockets”, and “flames” above thunderstorms (Boeck et al. 1998). Were they random acts of nature? Completely made up? No, they were likely Transient Luminous Events (TLEs): lightning-related phenomena that despite their fantastical names, are as real as you and me.

Before getting into TLEs themselves we first must discuss positive and negative lightning. Negative lightning is negative charge that is transferred from cloud to ground and is most common. Comparatively, positive lightning comes from the upper parts of a thunderstorm, making up less than 5% of strikes and having the potential to be up to 10 times greater in peak charge and electrical potential, since they must burn through more air before reaching the ground (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 2023).

Moving on, there are many types of TLEs, as seen in Figure 1, but the most discussed are sprites, blue jets, and ELVES. Sprites appear above thunderstorms, sometimes in clusters, with their tops appearing red and shifting to blue at lower altitudes, as seen in Figure 2. Spanning 50 to 90 km in altitude and lasting only several milliseconds, sprites are associated with +CG, usually appearing a few milliseconds after a strike. A temporary electric field is created from the remaining charges, heating up electrons to create sprites, as seen in Figure 3 (Pasko et al. 1997). However, it is important to note that sprites are not produced by all thunderstorms, even ones with many +CG strikes (Lyons et al. 2003). Sprites were first videotaped accidentally in 1989 and were later confirmed using video cameras on several NASA Space Shuttle missions (Boeck et al. 1998).

A second type of TLE, blue jets, propagate upwards from active thunderstorms at more than 100,000 m/s and can reach heights of up to 40 km or more. They last 100-200 milliseconds and unlike sprites aren’t associated with a specific CG (Lyons et al. 2003). The existence of blue jets was confirmed during the summer of 1994 when a very active thunderstorm was recorded by two aircraft flying around the storm which captured the jets on camera (Boeck et al. 1998). There are 2 other types of jets: blue starters are jets that make it only a few kilometers from the top a thundercloud, while gigantic jets begin as discharge between the mid and upper levels of a cloud, continuing to propagate upwards, reaching around 70 km in height, as seen in Figure 4 (Siingh et al. 2012).

Finally, the Emission of Light and Very Low Frequency Perturbations From Electro-magnetic Pulse Sources (ELVES) is an outwardly expanding donut-shaped region between 80 to 100 km in altitude that appears above thunderstorms (Boeck et al. 1998; Lyons et al. 2003). ELVES are so brief at less than 0.5 milliseconds that they are not visible to the human eye and are difficult to capture even with a camera (Lyons et al. 2003). They are the result of a powerful lightning discharge current, positive or negative, that creates an electromagnetic pulse which heats up the atmosphere (Siingh et al. 2012).

Overall, TLEs are fascinating split-second events that remind us just how beautiful, dangerous, and electrifying nature can be. So, the next time you find yourself thinking about a fairytale, try looking above a thunderstorm for sprites, blue jets, or ELVES.

References

Ayers, Nichole. 2025. Photograph. X. https://x.com/Astro_Vapor/status/1940810789830451563.

Boeck, William L., Otha H. Vaughan Jr., R.J. Blakeslee, Bernard Vonnegut, and Marx Brook. 1998. “The role of the space shuttle videotapes in the discovery of sprites, jets and elves.” Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics 60 (7-9): 669-677. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6826(98)00025-X.

Lyons, Walter A., Russell A. Armstrong, E. A. Bering III, and Earle R. Williams. 2000. Photograph. Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union 81 (33): 373-377. https://doi.org/10.1029/00EO00278.

Lyons, Walter A., Thomas E. Nelson, Russell A. Armstrong, Victor P. Pasko, and Mark A. Stanley. 2003. “Upward Electrical Discharges From Thunderstorm Tops.” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 84 (4): 445-454. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-84-4-445.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Last modified 2023. “The Positive and Negative Side of Lightning.” https://www.noaa.gov/jetstream/lightning/positive-and-negative-side-of-lightning.

Pasko, V. P., U. S. Inan, T. F. Bell, and Y. N. Taranenko. 1997. “Sprites produced by quasi-electrostatic heating and ionization in the lower ionosphere.” Journal of Geophysical Research 102 (3): 4529-4561. https://doi.org/10.1029/96JA03528.

Siingh, Devendraa, R. P. Singh, Ashkok K. Singh, Sanjay Kumar, M. N. Kulkarni, and Abhay K. Singh. 2012. “Discharges in the Stratosphere and Mesosphere.” Space Science Reviews 169: 73-121. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11214-012-9906-0.

Wang, Xin. 2024. “Sprites Dancing in the Dark Night.” Photograph. Amateur Photographer. https://amateurphotographer.com/latest/photo-news/red-sprite-lightning-wins-top-weather-photography-competition/.