Giant red UFO was photographed over Italy: what it really was

In late March, an eerie phenomenon was observed over the Italian town of Possagno, which many people took to be a giant UFO flashing red lights over the town. The actual size of the phenomenon was 360 kilometres across and it was entirely natural.

Despite the fact that the bizarre disc appeared and disappeared in a millisecond, photographer Walter Binotto managed to capture it. Visually, it seemed that the UFO was hovering directly over the city, but in fact it was covering part of central Italy and the Adriatic Sea.

As the Spaceweather portal explains, the phenomenon observed by the Italians is known as "light emission and very low-frequency disturbances from electromagnetic pulse sources" (ELVE for short). This is a rare type of stratospheric or mesospheric disturbance caused by intense thunderstorm electrification (abbreviated as SPRITE).

In order for an ELVE to occur, the electromagnetic pulses (EMF) emitted by lightning must reach the Earth's ionosphere, which extends from 80 to 644 km above the surface.

This fleeting phenomenon was only discovered in 1990 thanks to cameras aboard NASA's space shuttles that managed to capture it. Because the phenomenon usually lasts only seconds, it is usually only seen by satellites orbiting the Earth.

The photographer said he had a theory about the appearance of the ELVE over Possagno. He believes that it was caused by a powerful thunderstorm that raged near the town of Ancona, located about 280 km from Possagno. Binotto claims that he observed lightning that evening that was at least 10 times more powerful than normal.

One of these lightning bolts probably generated the EMP, which then struck the ionosphere. At this point, charged electrons came into contact with nitrogen atoms in the ionosphere, which then began to emit a reddish glow.

This is not the first time Binotto has photographed an ELVE, but it is the first time a phenomenon of this size has been seen.

Spaceweather called Binotto's image probably "the best photo ever taken from Earth".

Earlier, OBOZREVATEL told about the green sky that excited the residents of South Dakota in the United States.

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