For the second time in two years, the night sky above Possagno in northern Italy lit up with a fleeting, giant red halo. The rare atmospheric flash, measuring almost 200 kilometers across and lasting barely a millisecond, was captured by photographer Valter Binotto on November 17. While it looked like a UFO above the Italian Alps, the glowing ring is part of a little-understood atmospheric event known as an ELVE.

The recurrence of this phenomenon over the same region has sparked curiosity among scientists and the public alike. ELVEs sit at the intersection of weather, physics, and space science and remain so elusive that even NASA did not confirm their existence until 1990. The fact that Possagno has seen two of them in such a short span makes the phenomenon even more intriguing.

This article explores what ELVEs are, how they form, and why the Italian sighting represents a rare window into extreme atmospheric processes.

What is the rare red halo seen in Italy?

The glowing red circle observed above Possagno is what scientists classify as an ELVE. The name is an acronym for “emission of light and very low-frequency perturbations due to electromagnetic pulse sources.” Despite sounding whimsical, ELVEs are serious high-energy atmospheric events triggered by powerful lightning storms.

Unlike typical lightning, which forms in the lower atmosphere, ELVEs appear hundreds of kilometers above Earth. They spread in a large, ring-shaped disk of light that expands rapidly before fading in a thousandth of a second—so fast that the human eye can only detect a faint flash, and cameras must shoot at extremely high frame rates to capture them.

The ELVE seen over Possagno lit up the sky at an altitude of about 100 kilometres, with the ring stretching nearly 200 kilometres across, roughly the distance from Rome to Florence. Because they appear so large and so high, they can be seen from very far away, even if the lightning that triggered them occurred hundreds of kilometers away.

How are ELVEs formed?

ELVEs occur when an extremely powerful lightning bolt releases an electromagnetic pulse into the upper atmosphere. This pulse expands outward like a ripple until it hits the lower ionosphere, a layer of Earth’s atmosphere stretching from about 80 to 644 kilometers above the surface.

The science behind the red glow

Here is what happens during an ELVE:

• A massive lightning strike sends an intense electromagnetic pulse upward.
• The pulse races into the ionosphere at the speed of light.
• When it reaches charged nitrogen particles in the ionosphere, the energy excites them.
• The particles release energy in the form of a brief red flash.
• The flash expands rapidly in a disk hundreds of kilometers wide, forming the halo.

The red colour is due to nitrogen emissions, similar to how oxygen and nitrogen create green, red, and purple hues during an aurora. However, while auroras are driven by solar particles interacting with Earth’s magnetic field, ELVEs originate from electrical storms on Earth.

Why did the rare red halo appear over the same Italian town twice?

Possagno’s double appearance of ELVEs has nothing to do with local geography or atmospheric quirks. ELVEs are visible over wide distances, and the source of the lightning is often far from the place where the halo appears in the sky.

The 2023 and 2025 events came from different storms

• 2025 ELVE: Triggered by a storm above Ancona, around 280 kilometers from Possagno.
• 2023 ELVE: Linked to lightning near Vernazza, roughly 300 kilometers away.

This explains why the same town saw two ELVEs despite no major local storms. At the altitude where ELVEs form, visibility stretches over enormous distances, meaning a storm far away can produce an event visible across entire regions.

Why repeated sightings are still unusual

Although ELVEs can be seen over broad areas, humans rarely catch them because:

• They last for just 1 millisecond.
• Most people are indoors at night.
• Only storms with extremely powerful lightning create strong enough electromagnetic pulses.
• Cameras must have specialised high-framerate settings to detect them.

Binotto’s rare success comes from precise timing, constant monitoring, and technical skill. He sets up his equipment when conditions are right and records long captures, later scanning thousands of frames to find the fraction of a second where the ELVE appears. Without this method, even professional observers could easily miss such events.

How rare are ELVEs, and why do they matter?

ELVEs are part of a category known as transient luminous events, or TLEs, lightning-related flashes that occur above thunderstorms. Other TLEs include red sprites, blue jets, and trolls. Together, they help scientists understand how thunderstorms influence the atmosphere far beyond the clouds.

ELVEs are considered rare for several reasons:

• They require extremely powerful lightning.
• They occur high above the clouds, hidden from most ground observers.
• Their duration is so short that ordinary cameras and eyes cannot detect them.

NASA first captured an ELVE in 1990 using space shuttle cameras, proving their existence after years of speculation in atmospheric physics.

What ELVEs reveal about Earth’s atmosphere

ELVEs allow researchers to study:

• How energy from lightning affects the ionosphere.
• How atmospheric layers interact during severe storms.
• How electromagnetic pulses travel through Earth’s atmosphere.

Scientists also use data from ELVEs to refine modeling of lightning intensity, ozone chemistry, and even communication systems, since the ionosphere plays a major role in radio transmission.

Why the Italian red halo captivated the world

Any time a large structure appears in the sky, speculation ranges from rare atmospheric events to extraterrestrial sightings. The Possagno ELVE checks all the boxes for viral attention: it is enormous, circular, sudden, and visually dramatic. More importantly, the high-resolution photo captured by Binotto helps reveal something most people will never see with the naked eye.

Visuals like this also help build public awareness of atmospheric science. ELVEs show that lightning is more complex and far-reaching than the flashes we see during storms. Each event expands our understanding of the atmosphere and highlights how much remains unknown about weather at high altitudes.

Could ELVEs become more common?

Scientists are exploring whether climate change may influence lightning intensity worldwide. More powerful storms might mean more electromagnetic pulses, which could increase the frequency of TLEs like ELVEs. However, the evidence is still preliminary and requires long-term study.

For now, the rarity of ELVEs comes down to a combination of extreme weather and even more extreme luck. The next one may appear tomorrow or years from now, and only the right observer at the right time will see it.

TL;DR

A massive red halo roughly 200 kilometers wide appeared above Possagno, Italy, on November 17. The same town saw an identical event in 2023. The phenomenon is an ELVE: a lightning-triggered burst of light created when an electromagnetic pulse strikes the ionosphere, exciting nitrogen particles and producing a rapid red flash. ELVEs are so rare and fast-moving that NASA only documented them in 1990. The Italian sightings came from storms hundreds of kilometers away and offer scientists a rare glimpse into powerful lightning behavior.