The Lightning That Goes Up
For decades, pilots told of lightning shooting upwards from the tops of storms into space. Scientists didn't believe them, until it was filmed.
What was reported
Airline pilots had long described strange flashes above thunderstorms, including beams of light shooting upward from the top of a storm. Without photographs, scientists treated these reports with caution.
In September 2001, a team at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico filmed a thunderstorm over the ocean and caught a giant jet of blue light rising from its top to a height of about 70 kilometres, almost to the edge of space. In 2002, a team in Taiwan recorded several more over the South China Sea.
Explanations offered
Gigantic jets are a rare kind of upper-atmosphere lightning. They happen when an electric charge at the top of a storm finds it easier to escape upward than to reach the ground, and the discharge links the storm to the ionosphere. They join red sprites, blue jets and other flashes once known only from pilots' stories.
- When
- First filmed in 2001
- Where
- Arecibo, Puerto Rico
- Witnesses
- Pilots, then scientists at Arecibo Observatory
- Status
- Confirmed
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.
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