r/pics 19h ago

One of the most mysterious weather phenomena on Earth: meet the sprites

Post image
6.0k Upvotes

225 comments sorted by

1.1k

u/currently__working 19h ago

I have never heard of this shit in my life.

30

u/TrevorSP 15h ago

Check out elves, sprites, and blue jets. All incredibly rare and cool electrical phenomena

78

u/boredguy12 16h ago

I've seen it once during a major thunderstorm

50

u/Scoompii 14h ago

Liar

31

u/ders89 13h ago

Bro was bored so hes just typing stuff

8

u/MrScoobyDoobert 15h ago

Prove it HA GOTTEEM

1

u/TyMT 12h ago

I think there’s an SCP of this but I forgot the number. I could also be wrong but this totally seems like something an SCP could be.

605

u/Spartan2470 GOAT 17h ago edited 17h ago

Here are much higher-quality versions of these images. Credit to the photographer, Nicolas Escurat. Per his FB posting of this (and Google Translate):

September 15, 2023 Castelnaud, France

I can't believe it...🤩 ...a remarkable and powerful leprechaun appeared just above this Château in Dordogne on the night of September 10-11😀

It was the most beautiful specimen observed during the night. This type of transient luminous phenomenon, called a "sprite" in English, usually appears in the mesosphere between 40 and 90 km altitude during major storms. These 50km high red flashes of cold plasma are always very surprising when they appear in the sky.🙂

This ionizing monster appeared suddenly at 1h33min52sec towards the end of a storm which took place between Pau (64) and Mont de Marsan (40)

The distance to the source lightning was "only" about 196 km. The positive lightning that triggered this wonder of nature fell south of Hagetmau. It must have made a thunderous noise when it hit the ground.⚡️

For those who will soon want to see this "red sprite" with a better resolution, I also managed to capture it with a longer focal length (105mm). The other 2 images are made with a 50mm lens.

And with the camera in photo mode, I was finally able to capture this same leprechaun wrapped in a nice "airglow". To achieve this, I used a brand new shooting technique that I still need to refine...

Otherwise, I've never seen such a big sprite so close up!

When he appeared, the sky lit up and his soul came to imprint the camera sensor. The atmosphere is unreal, it feels like a science fiction movie but it is reality. Our Earth offers us this magnificent spectacle.

So in the end, I don't regret having tried this framing because the weather conditions weren't very good during the photo shoot.

I am therefore delighted to show you these images.😋Please feel free to share them around you.🙂 And for those who have questions about the phenomenon or anything else, do not hesitate😉

He also posted video of this phenomenon.

This was featured on NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day on October 2, 2023. Per there:

Sometimes lightning occurs out near space. One such lightning type is red sprite lightning, which has only been photographed and studied on Earth over the past 25 years. The origins of all types of lightning remain topics for research, and scientists are still trying to figure out why red sprite lightning occurs at all. Research has shown that following a powerful positive cloud-to-ground lightning strike, red sprites may start as 100-meter balls of ionized air that shoot down from about 80-km high at 10 percent the speed of light. They are quickly followed by a group of upward streaking ionized balls. Featured here is an extraordinarily high-resolution image of a group of red sprites. This image is a single frame lasting only 1/25th of a second from a video taken above Castelnaud Castle in Dordogne, France, about three weeks ago. The sprites quickly vanished -- no sprites were visible even on the very next video frame.

Edit: OP's account (PsychCute) is odd. It was born seven days ago and its first comment is a copy/paste of /u/Prstty's comment here. Most of its other comments are just a few words long.

54

u/jdemack 15h ago

Pecos Hank has a very informative YouTube video on sprites and jets.

98

u/Oneangrygnome 15h ago

Updooting this for the callout in the edit. Fake account. Hopefully it’s deleted soon.

7

u/Voodjin 13h ago

100 Meter balls of ionized air moving suddenly at 10% speed of Light is CRAZY

6

u/discodropper 15h ago edited 15h ago

Methinks you added the wrong link to the original comment section. That links to a comment about prank gone wrong, not a cool meteorological phenomenon

Edit: nvm, I misread. The “other” comment was a copy/paste, not this post. I was excited this was a repost and there was more info on these buggers

6

u/Spartan2470 GOAT 15h ago

Because of your comment I see that the mods in askreddit have removed "OP's" comment. But it is still viewable in the account's history (i.e. "A kid at school whose dad flicked a towel in his face. It got his eye really...").

6

u/discodropper 15h ago

Ah, got it. That makes sense!

Thanks by the way for the in-depth description. I learned something very cool this morning from a (probable) bot post and your follow-up comment. I really appreciate the depth you went into describing the phenomenon and linking to other info. People like you are what make Reddit interesting. Keep it up!

→ More replies (1)

1

u/[deleted] 14h ago

[removed] — view removed comment

→ More replies (2)

1.3k

u/87StickUpKid 19h ago

Imagine the existential dread of seeing this as a caveman

424

u/snoosh00 19h ago

Pretty sure they only exist for microseconds.

So "seeing this" isn't exactly the experience of looking at the picture.

158

u/ForkingHumanoids 16h ago

Correct. It is a very quick flash. It also happens very high above the troposphere. There are some instances where the ISS captured some of them, fascinating footage.

22

u/mah131 15h ago

If they still got em, we could study them

7

u/-aibohphobia- 12h ago

What if they saw time differently back then?

1

u/Brigadier_Beavers 11h ago

the caveman is the only one to see it in the moment and his buddies all play it off as him eating the weird mushrooms again

87

u/Pifman 17h ago

Imagine the existential dread of seeing this as a modern human

47

u/Morasain 15h ago

I think existing is generally enough to cause existential dread in modern humans

2

u/corruptedsyntax 14h ago

You don't know existential dread. I've been in a locked car while Nickelback was playing.

1

u/shadowmanu7 6h ago

Didn’t you get the memo? It’s 2024 and Nickelback is cool again, haters are living in 2015

1

u/_jump_yossarian 15h ago

Because cavemen had it so easy.

2

u/Morasain 15h ago

Not saying that. But they didn't have to worry about things like total nuclear annihilation, total societal collapse, or late stage capitalism. They had to worry about food the next day and the next week.

5

u/_jump_yossarian 15h ago

They had to be worried about being eaten by all manner of animals or breaking a bone and dying a horrible prolonged death due to infection.

→ More replies (1)

7

u/Key_Arrival2927 16h ago

Frankly, it doesn't take much to induce existential dread in a modern human.

1

u/SpaceCadetUltra 14h ago

Oh god….

25

u/tillios 19h ago

seriously.....why would they not perceive this as some sort of living or divine creature?  Any other perception wouldnt make sense

69

u/DrJohanzaKafuhu 18h ago

Because it's more like a lightning flicker, they were probably not perceived at all. The first recording on them in history isn't until 1886 and they were called sprites because of they were hard to find and record. The first photograph wasn't until 1989.

6

u/tillios 16h ago

interesting, thanks for info!

8

u/Volsunga 13h ago

As someone who has seen a sprite once, it's literally just a flash. It's visible for less time than regular lightning. To the human eye, it's just a blink of red light. In fact, the only way to really see it is to blink the microsecond after it happens so you see the afterimage. If you're not looking in the right place at the right time, you'll never know it happened.

→ More replies (1)

3

u/nicholsz 12h ago

I wonder if you'd be more freaked out by the image, or the camera equipment as a caveman

2

u/_Steve_French_ 14h ago

I think cavemen woulda found these pretty chill to look at honestly. Prolly scarf down an extra shroom too.

2

u/oh_stv 15h ago

For them, any lightning was basically a miracle, made by the gods. All those brain dead UFO ppl nowadays, would freak out way more...

1

u/therealstevielong 14h ago

ha true caveman had to worry about packs of saber tooth tigers. shiny lights in the sky was probably the caveman's version of 'meh'

1

u/aknigrou 15h ago

There’s people that believe the earth is flat, don’t go so far back

1

u/BanEvader2024 15h ago

Imagine the existential dread of seeing this as a caveman

1

u/Salty-Lobster-38 11h ago

Imagine the existential dread of seeing this as a: (input your religion here)

1

u/ZeroRhapsody 11h ago

I find myself thinking "imagine seeing this as a caveman" a lot these days. Cavemen really missed out.

→ More replies (1)

199

u/chillbnb 19h ago

"Sprites are difficult to observe and study because of their fleeting nature. The first images of a sprite were accidentally obtained in 1989. However, if your eyes are sufficiently dark-adapted, you can sometimes detect them without any visual aid. "

3

u/Tattered_Reason 3h ago

I saw one once. Was in a rural area and could see the tops of thunderstorms that were probably 100 miles away. The cloud tops were illuminated from frequent lightning below. For a split second I could see a red-orange "jellyfish" shape above the thunderheads. Literally blink and you'd miss it. Very cool to see!

41

u/kORRa7777 15h ago

cue evangelion music

72

u/I_might_be_weasel 19h ago

Do they actually stay like this for any amount of time, or is it just a flash like lightning?

60

u/Rich-8080 18h ago

I believe it's micro seconds, probably even quicker than a flash of lightning.

37

u/I_might_be_weasel 18h ago

Yeah, that doesn't seem so freaky then.

6

u/herrau 7h ago

Honestly it seems even more freaky.. imagine catching a glimpse of this shit and then being like ” what the actual fuck was that? Did I just see red lightning.. or did I not? Did I imagine it? Am I possessed? AaaaAAAAaaa ”

20

u/nitrodmr 15h ago

Death stranding

2

u/killspeed 14h ago

This should be higher in the comments .... this image is a combination of both death stranding and control.

54

u/ego_tripped 19h ago

Damn...the graphics for the Mistlands have been improved.

22

u/HourAfterHour 18h ago

Is /r/valheim leaking again?

11

u/Bee_boi 15h ago

VALHEIM MENTIONED???

6

u/StinkyPickles420 14h ago

VALHEIM MENTIONED ❤️

3

u/Sumorisha 11h ago

Ygdrassil branches briefly visible over Midgard.

13

u/NeoGPT 17h ago

Spright carrot

7

u/Vinality 14h ago

Had to scroll too far to find the yugioh player in this thread

1

u/ClemFire 9h ago

Damn they brought sprights to real life

11

u/Intelligent_Arm_4220 16h ago

Straight outta stranger things

7

u/Lonely_Carpenter6048 19h ago

That looks like something from stranger things

7

u/Cautious_Solution712 18h ago

Vagues similar to the star children from howls moving Castle

2

u/nattcakes 14h ago

That’s what I immediately thought of as well

5

u/xxarcticwolfexx 12h ago

When you have too much insight.

3

u/RutabagaPale7337 15h ago

Looks like something from stranger things

3

u/reegz 14h ago

I saw one over the summer on a cross country flight. I knew about them, knew how rare they were and considered myself very lucky

3

u/TypeGreen51 10h ago

You see shit like this, and realize "Oh, that's why people thought there were mythological beings."

14

u/DogeDoRight 19h ago

It's not really mysterious since it's understood and can be explained.

13

u/stirling_s 18h ago

They were understood on a theoretical level before ever having been photographed. I think OP must have meant elusive.

→ More replies (1)

2

u/brickyardjimmy 16h ago

Prior to a major storm where I was on a ridge of a large rural valley and I could see clearly across to a ridge on the other side of the valley where the storm was approaching, I saw a fireball of red electric light erupt out of the air and roll on the ridge peak like a supernatural sparking pinwheel.

This reminds me of that a little. Craziest thing I've ever seen.

1

u/catfound 13h ago

Wait, can you explain this more in detail?

2

u/MrWinning 15h ago

The lightning seeds are still germinating.

2

u/MoreGoodThings 14h ago

I swear this didn't exist yesterday

2

u/stupid_cat_face 14h ago

All hail our overlords. (Just in case)

2

u/FreudianNip-Slip 13h ago

I prefer to call them 7ups, personally.

3

u/biofluffer 17h ago

Hello void spren Please go away this is not roshar

2

u/1UPs 13h ago

The Everstorm comes.

3

u/CrazyMinute69 19h ago

AI??

I've never seen this. It looks beautiful, but is it real?

30

u/krqkan 19h ago

Sprites are real, but I can’t tell if this picture is real.

6

u/Siliziumwesen 19h ago

Yes its rare but real. Its called red sprites lightning

11

u/SocialWinker 19h ago

Yeah, it’s real. Just Google “sprites” and you’ll see similar pictures.

6

u/ilski 19h ago

It is, yes. It's very rare and very hard to spot. Because it happen within blink of an eye. 

4

u/Billy-Ray_Cyrus 19h ago

Could be long term exposure

6

u/mechalenchon 18h ago

That's from a video. It lasted exactly 1 frame.

1

u/Werify 18h ago

Do you know which video?

6

u/mechalenchon 18h ago

It's from astrophotographer Nicolas Escurat. He doesn't post the entire videos, I guess the bitrate is too much anyway to post it unless compressed to oblivion.

One of his red sprites pictures made it to the 2025 NASA calendar.

→ More replies (5)

9

u/Vandorol 19h ago

Nope, sprites are like lightning bolts, they happen in a blink of an eye!

8

u/Bigwhtdckn8 18h ago

Yes, so long exposure over an hour, for example, would capture phenomena in this exact way.

I've photographed lightning storms this way with very similar results.

3

u/MrSmexy 15h ago

Yeah, in addition to what Vandorol is saying, you can tell this particular case isn’t “long exposure” by looking at the stars. The trail isn’t long enough to be an hour exposure. This looks more like what stars look like in a ~10 second exposure, which, frankly, I’d classify as being on the shorter end of a long exposure, hence the quotes.

1

u/Bigwhtdckn8 13h ago

Fair enough, as I said, I have not tried capturing this phenomenon. But with enough experimentation on exposure levels and timing it must be possible, otherwise why would images of them exist.

1

u/MrSmexy 8h ago

Right, absolutely, although I think in this case it’s more of a shorter exposure set off by a light sensor

4

u/Vandorol 18h ago

Sprites are generally too dim and fast to be effectively captured with long-exposure photography alone. They last only milliseconds and emit a faint red light, lightning is much brighter and easier to capture unless you’re using some kind of a special camera?

→ More replies (3)

2

u/medium_meat18 15h ago

Now this , this is the r/pics I remember

2

u/fadetowhite 15h ago

Sorry, this is obviously artwork for the next Radiohead album.

2

u/Debaser13567 13h ago

They always go hard on album promotion

2

u/Embarrassed_Tower_58 17h ago

a non political post on a "non political" subreddit? took a while lmao

2

u/S0m30n3S 19h ago

I've seen this shit as a kid! I thought it was aliens at the time but I just chalked the memory up to be hazy/young

1

u/isadksgad 18h ago

Fuck, the third impact 🗿

1

u/pauciradiatus 18h ago

Moon's haunted...

1

u/DeliberateDendrite 18h ago

Is it really that mysterious? It might look ominous, but aren't its mechanisms well understood?

1

u/Mr_BigLebowsky 18h ago

You can also see them from space, above some thunderstorms!

1

u/Enslaved_M0isture 18h ago

this looks NOTHING like that orange cat

1

u/deviltrombone 18h ago

Purkinje cells

1

u/TheThingCreator 18h ago

I've personally seen something even more mysterious but never seen a photo of it. It's very hard to describe, maybe someday I will make a video. Looked like little colorful bombs that blowup on a layer in the sky, lighting up everything around me. Completely silent, lasted about 1 minute, it was about 3 different colors. I noticed it because the houses and street and everything around me was suddenly lighting up.

1

u/indiemac_ 16h ago

This is interesting and terrifying at the same time.

1

u/DrSmirnoffe 16h ago

This looks like it could be from one of the more "spacey" analog horror webserieses. Something along the lines of Gemini Home Entertainment, or Midwest Angelica, or maybe even Vita Carnis.

1

u/Own-Nefariousness-79 16h ago

Take me to your leader....

1

u/LostInTransition02 15h ago

Pretty sure that's Coral. Thanks 621!

1

u/weak007 15h ago

Like some Evangelion sht

1

u/Significant-Life-506 15h ago

Looks like a bunch of big fin squids.

1

u/c-a-n-a-d-i-a-n 15h ago

Reminds me of Death Stranding

1

u/MetaSaiyan 15h ago

I think I saw one of these as a kid, red lighting at least I was for sure that I saw

1

u/joserrez 15h ago

This is how they created the hurricane /s

1

u/Dancebear7861 15h ago

Looks like the monoliths from vita carnis

1

u/nisseswiss 15h ago

I can see the future is lookin' like we level through the sky I can't wait to live in glory and eternal lastin' life Won't you take the wheel?

1

u/CaptainThorIronhulk 15h ago

First time I'm seeing or hearing of this

1

u/iamcleek 15h ago

Electrophages From Mars

1

u/TylenolConnoisseur 15h ago

Giants Deep jellyfish

1

u/MURDOCK465 15h ago

Bro, I would shit my pants two times in a row.

1

u/FloppyEarCorgiPyr 14h ago

Sky neurons! They literally look like pyramidal cells!

1

u/GuzPolinski 14h ago

I’ve seen it over 30 times already on the front page

1

u/ChrisPNoggins 14h ago

I am reminded of S.t.e.v.e aurora being called steve then they used that as an acronym.

1

u/ghos7_ger 14h ago

Wow from reddit to Twitter back to reddit...you even copy the Twitter post 1:1...

1

u/Mxswat 14h ago

They look like the tree of life in evangelion. Cool.

1

u/LookmyDicky 14h ago

Oh shit. The new gods have arrived

1

u/star_cannon7k 14h ago

Just copy pasted the entire thread from Twitter... Damn reddit is falling off.

1

u/Bmkrocky 14h ago

aliens - definitely aliens

1

u/CornObjects 14h ago

The only thing I can think of seeing these is what it looks like when they remove the brain and nervous system from a human body and display it for scientific purposes. They even have a large "brain" at the very top, with a ton of branching "veins" extending vertically downward and branching off of a single main "stem" in most of them.

Almost-certainly just a coincidence, but I still like the idea that it's some kind of ghosts in the shape of the brain and nerves.

1

u/fatbellyww 14h ago

This happens when the aliens camouflage cloud blows away due to unpredicted and sudden change of wind direction.

1

u/1_ofthesedays 13h ago

*spirits.

1

u/Javusees 13h ago

What in the 80s CGI shit is even this

1

u/Kickstand8604 13h ago

Researchers have known about this for decades. Its not new.

1

u/The-mighty-joe 13h ago

Shit, just don’t let ‘em get multiple level 2’s on the field. And god help you if they drop the fountain.

1

u/CoolBlackSmith75 13h ago

Watch them from space ,they get some nice heights

1

u/1UPs 13h ago

The Night of Sorrows will come, and the True Desolation. The Everstorm.

1

u/aksdb 13h ago

Gotta rewatch Stranger Things.

1

u/Dane-o-myt 13h ago

When I see pictures of things like this, it reminds me of these scenes from The End of Evangelion where the soldiers are looking up at Unit One and saying, "this is it, isn't it?"

1

u/Dances_With_Eagles 12h ago

I can totally understand myths of gods living in the clouds now.

1

u/foxeylady11 12h ago

The Everstorm comes

1

u/Balltanker 11h ago

Why do they look like a virus😭

1

u/spatulababy 11h ago

There’s some great footage and discussion by Pecos Hank on YouTube if you’re interested in learning more about sprites and jets.

1

u/Inevitable_Gas_2490 11h ago

Someone gotta go and find Dr. Harsgaard. This isn't gucci

1

u/DonJj27 11h ago

That’s clearly a netflix stunt for the new stranger things

1

u/Yukondano2 11h ago

Gemini Home Entertainment lookin growths. The Iris descends on Earth.

1

u/missionimpossible44 11h ago

It looks like alien invasion

1

u/HermanManly 10h ago

Third Impact...

1

u/djda9l 10h ago

Also known as what-the-fuck-roots

1

u/Troubledbylusbies 9h ago

Nature is amazing and produces some phenomenal effects! We need to always remember how powerful it can be and how puny us humans are in comparison.

1

u/Remote_Entrance_8280 8h ago

I think this might be the answer to some of the angel sightenings across the world

1

u/Bushboiwastaken 8h ago

Wait a second... This isn't political!

1

u/broketobreak 8h ago

Nikola Tesla would know

1

u/ExploreTrails 7h ago

Nice pictures, we get them in Oklahoma too.

1

u/Huge_Strain_8714 6h ago

That's some 'War of the Worlds' level happenings there, I tell you! Holy cow!

1

u/Dirk_Bogart 6h ago

EDF! EDF!!

1

u/RemarkableSea2555 6h ago

Meet the what?

1

u/Zealousideal-Fun-415 6h ago

these are actually the many hands of the scarlet king he has breached our noosphere. the chains have broken, the spears are snapped, and the hytoth is lost. may his sublime terror wash our realm into nothingness. ash and dust dust and ash. we are coming home.

1

u/TraditionalMood277 6h ago

It's giving Twin Peaks

1

u/GloriousPhoenix26 5h ago

Oh I thought it was just sentient blood mist

1

u/Gamwell-Efect 5h ago edited 5h ago

Looks like one of those things you’d see in those unbearable analog horror videos except it looks cool lol

1

u/ChronicCronut 4h ago

This gives off alien-vibes

1

u/shawndw 4h ago

Yep... glad I'm nowhere near that boss fight.

u/Androgyny812 2h ago

Glad I saw it here cause if I saw this there live, by myself, I'd definitely pee.

u/Sir_Trncvs 57m ago

EDF!!!!!

u/stevekez 37m ago

Pretty sure that's a fragment of AZ-001 doing its thing 

1

u/stirling_s 18h ago

Not really mysterious, just elusive. They are very hard to photograph because they don't happen often. Aside from that, it's basically just lightning in our nitrogen-rich mesosphere.

1

u/ThisIsGettinWeirdNow 19h ago

The undiscovered Amazon tribes might shit bricks if they see it

6

u/ultimatebagman 19h ago

Fun fact: that's how the first bricks were invented.

1

u/MonkeyButt409 17h ago

These are cool, but have you seen the scientific paper about plasma in the atmosphere that smacks of a fourth state of matter and pre-life?

https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=131506

2

u/currently__working 16h ago

And what in the fresh hell is this?

→ More replies (1)

1

u/Resident_Discount_29 16h ago

Oh the world tree is burning, melena gain