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What Is This Mystery Blue Light on the Clouds?

mystery blue light in the clouds

Question:

Do you have any ideas as to what this blue light was in the sky for 25-35 minutes as a HUGE storm was brewing and started? It was in the same spot in the sky the whole time. Not moving with the clouds or anything. I went inside when the wind greatly increased and switched from north to south as it started raining. After the obvious eye of the storm had passed, I went back outside and it was gone. It was actually very bizarre as there was both constant distant lightning and intense strikes happening, not over head exactly but a mile or two away I could see the lightning bolts. I’m certain this wasn’t a spot light too, for many reasons. I wish I had spent more time trying to capture this, but these are essentially what the 6 or so pictures look like. Never moved for at least 20 minutes and didn’t show on video.

Mystery Blue Light Cloud During Storm
Mystery Blue Light Cloud

Answer:

Most likely: lights near the ground / pointed upward (probably not a searchlight, as you mentioned…lots of LEDs are used for measurements and night illumination these days)
 
Least likely: ball lightning or individual blue jets/starters
 
Sometimes we’ll see reflected/refracted lights from cities on low clouds – blues, greens, and yellows mostly. There’s a Paycom center near me with neon green LED lights that can be seen on low-medium level clouds, even from miles away, as the lights are really bright – I’ve nearly mistaken them for auroras a few times!
 
Elves, sprites, blue jets, blue starters, gnomes, trolls, and pixies – all known atmospheric discharges above the troposphere last milliseconds to a quarter of a second. If you were observing one of these or several, I would expect the glow to change quite a bit in the 20 minutes. Blue jets ARE known to form over some super active thunderstorms in the Stratosphere (layer just above the Troposphere, where most of Earth’s weather occurs).
 
It’s unlikely that it was ball lightning if it was stationary for 20 minutes (I have actually seen ball lightning in person – when I was observing one of the most intense lightning storms I’ve ever seen – the ball lightning floated along in the air, not stationary for the 2-5 minutes it existed), but so little is understood about the phenomenon because it’s incredibly rare.
 
The photos remind me of some of the super bright astronomy flashlights they use at some telescope parties to point out features to an audience. Or maybe someone was trying to send a bat signal? 
 
Looking up other similar photos, I came across the most likely suspect (depending on where you are): a measurement train that runs generally at night – it shoots a blue light up into the sky to check for wear and tear on overhead lines. See the article from the Bristol Post here. In the US, I also found similar images to yours for folks living near the Fore River Bridge in Massachusetts, which has bright LED lights – sometimes blue (they change them) – that reflect off clouds and fog.

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