New Jersey has had more than its fair share of colorful lights glowing in the night sky during recent weeks and months — some mysterious and some easily explained.
Here’s a new one. And although it’s very unusual, it’s not as head-scratching as all those sightings of large drones with unknown operators.
A rare type of lightning known as “red sprites” was seen flashing in the sky over the Atlantic Ocean near South Jersey earlier this month and captured on video by a space expert from the area.
Chris Bakley, a freelance spaceflight photojournalist and imaging specialist for NASA who spends a lot of time live-streaming all sorts of astronomical events, like meteor showers and solar eclipses, said he witnessed two red sprites as a thunderstorm was rumbling far out in the ocean on Dec. 11.
Videos posted on social media platforms show large blotches of red lights quickly flickering in the night sky over the Atlantic.
The sighting was made when Bakley was scanning the sky to see shooting stars from the annual Geminid meteor shower, which was expected to reach its peak during the second week of December.
Red sprites are a rare type of lightning that occasionally appears high up in the sky at the top of thunderstorms, according to the National Severe Storms Laboratory, affiliated with the National Weather Service.
“Sprites can appear directly above an active thunderstorm as a large but weak discharge,” the agency notes. “They can extend up to 60 miles from the cloud top. Sprites are mostly red and usually last no more than a few seconds, and their shapes are described as resembling jellyfish, carrots, or columns.”
Red sprites are part of the electrical phenomena group called Transient Luminous Events, or TLE. They are a rare type of lightning.
Bakley said he did some research on this phenomenon and was unable to find any documented sightings of red sprites in New Jersey.
The sprites he saw were about 200 miles off the coast of Cape May County.
In addition to recent sightings of flickering drone lights, stargazers in New Jersey during recent months have witnessed views of bright fireballs in the night sky along with glimpses of the colorful glowing lights known as the Northern Lights.
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Len Melisurgo may be reached at LMelisurgo@njadvancemedia.com or on X at @LensReality.
