Nashville, Tennessee – The next time a powerful thunderstorm rolls across the East Coast or Midwest, something extraordinary could be happening high above the clouds while most people never notice.
Towering over some of the region’s strongest storms are rare electrical flashes called Transient Luminous Events, or TLEs. These bizarre atmospheric displays include red sprites, blue jets and elves, phenomena so unusual that many people mistake them for UFOs or camera glitches when they first appear in photos.
According to the National Weather Service, TLEs occur far above ordinary lightning, often between 30 and 60 miles above thunderstorms in the upper atmosphere. Unlike traditional cloud-to-ground lightning, these electrical discharges travel through extremely thin air, creating shapes that can resemble giant jellyfish, upside-down trees or glowing red tentacles suspended over a storm.
The most famous TLE is the red sprite, which often appears moments after a powerful lightning strike below. Some sprites stretch dozens of miles across the sky and can tower higher than commercial airliners fly. Their crimson color comes from electrical energy interacting with nitrogen molecules in the upper atmosphere.
Other forms can be equally dramatic. Blue jets shoot upward from thunderstorm tops like giant electrical fountains, while elves create rapidly expanding rings of light that can spread hundreds of miles across the edge of space in less than a second.
Scientists did not officially confirm the existence of TLEs until 1989, making them a relatively recent discovery despite occurring throughout human history. Today, advances in digital photography have allowed storm chasers across states from Missouri and Iowa to Tennessee and Kentucky to capture these elusive events more frequently.
While their appearance can be startling, TLEs pose little direct threat to people on the ground. Instead, they serve as a visual reminder of just how much energy powerful thunderstorms can release into the atmosphere.
For skywatchers across the Midwest and East Coast, the next severe thunderstorm could be producing one of nature’s rarest light shows far above the clouds — a hidden world of electric red flashes that few people ever witness with their own eyes.
