Caused by an EMP, an ELVES event lasts for less than a thousandth of a second. This snap, from November 2025, shows the enormous phenomenon in one of the few shots ever captured from the ground.

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Halloween is here and scientists at the Nation Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are claiming that elves and sprites are real. Halloween’s the time for all things ...

These brief bursts blue jets, red sprites, ELVES are collectively termed transient luminous events, or TLEs. They explode tens of kilometers high over thunderstorms, in the rarefied atmosphere of the ...

Red spites, a type of transient luminous event or TLE, appear in the upper atmosphere above a thunderstorm in Oklahoma in April 2025. Photograph by Paul Smith Our atmosphere is like one big electrical ...

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