A recent social media post from the Butler County Sheriff’s Office has brought an enigmatic atmospheric phenomenon to public attention. The post, dated September 24, 2025, discusses ‘Red Sprites,’ a lesser-known relative of lightning. According to the post by the Butler County Sheriff’s Office, “Sprites aren’t terribly well known, except to meteorologists, nature photographers and others who study the skies.” These electrical discharges are not born within the rain-bearing cumulonimbus clouds of the troposphere but occur much higher in the Earth’s mesosphere, reaching elevations up to 50 miles. Butler County Sheriff’s Office described these fleeting occurrences as Transient Luminous Events (TLEs), which include other phenomena such as ELVES, Blue Jets, and Halos.
With the capture of their existence as recently as 1989, sprites had remained myths among scientific circles upon the serendipitous discovery by two physicists from the University of Minnesota. Utilizing low-light television cameras during a stormy night of Hurricane Hugo, they documented the first evidence of a sprite. Since then, NASA, airplanes, and weather services have collected more images of Red Sprites and other TLEs, the Sheriff’s Office notes in their post, which they’ve sighted all over the world…