"Red Sprites & Blue Jets" - the video

The original 1994 video clip from which the terms "Red Sprites" and "Blue Jets" are derived. The video was made at a local TV station in Oklahoma City from example events recorded during an aircraft campaign to investigate basic properties of sprites. The clip shows examples of: (a) the first color images of sprites, (b) the first images of blue jets, (c) the first recordings of distinctive radio signatures associated with sprites, and (d) the first realistic determination of the altitude reached by sprites (~95 km). The blue jet images were obtained on 1 July 1994 over an extremely active thunderstorm that dumped 7 cm diameter hail on Texarkana, Texas/Arkansas. The horizon is slightly tilted because the aircraft were flying at close to their service ceiling of ~45,000 ft. The clip shows the two jet aircraft that were flown ~50 km apart to obtain stereoscopic views, some of the instrumentation inside the aircraft used to make the observations, and the team.

The reports based on these observations are (1) Sentman et al. (1995), "Preliminary results from the Sprites94 aircraft campaign: 1. Red Sprites", Geophys. Res. Lett., vol 22, pp 1205-1208; and (2) Wescott et al. (1995), "Preliminary results from the Sprites94 aircraft campaign: 2. Blue jets", Geophys. Res. Lett., vol 22, pp 1209-1212. The observations are a followup to an earlier report of aircraft observations of what subsequently became known as sprites published by Sentman and Wescott (1993), "Observations of upper atmospheric optical flashes recorded from an aircraft," Geophys. Res. Lett., vol 20, pp 2857-2860. (Note: several word misspellings have been retained in the video captions for reasons of historical accuracy.)

• Category

  Science & Technology

[Eastview605]

What does HAARP have to do with anything here?

[Eastview605]

@thefirecrackerxD Yes, it is possible to see sprites with the naked eye from the ground. You have to be off to one side of a storm by, say, 100-200 miles or more, and have a clear view of the portion of the sky that's directly above the storm. The sprites are very brief, ~1/100 seconds, so it's easy to miss them if you're not looking carefully.

[kyle1014Th3Miner]

Or i mean blue jet at 3:55 is not very visible

[kyle1014Th3Miner]

Blue jet at 1:55 is not very visible

[Ken Jones]

I love the goofy music

[Christian Decinoni]

Awesome its rare see this very goog work

[karnak99]

The 80s wasn't all about the cocaine......ok it was.

[TheDarkIn1978]

which 80s porn studio created this video?



[bottwaandcalover]

this music is making me wiggle

[SolMaroon]

Strange Pokémon music...

[kmitsu1]

cool music