An eerie red figure flashed across the sky above a thunderstorm near the south coast of France, and then it was gone in the blink of an eye.

Atmospheric scientist Oscar van der Velde, standing on his balcony in Sant Vicenç de Castellet, in Barcelona, Spain, captured the sprite, as it is called, in spectacular detail on the night of June 5. He was more than 150 miles (250 km) away from the storm.

Lasting just three milliseconds to 10 milliseconds, sprites are flashes of light that occur high above the tops of powerful thunderstorms and can travel up to 50 miles (80 km) high in the atmosphere, emitting deep red to near-infrared light.

In fact, scientists are still trying to figure out just what causes sprites, with some attributing the electrical bursts to lightning and others to meteoric dust, gravity waves or something else completely. The flashes also have been linked with UFO sightings.