From the Daily Mail article:
In recent years, unusual electrical discharges have been captured on film by satellites and even astronauts aboard the International Space Station.
There are several types of luminous flashes, most notably red sprites and blue jets.
These bursts of electricity, however, are always associated with storm clouds, making the latest discovery all the more baffling.
This is my EU educated guess as to the mystery.
They answered their own question, they observed an electrical discharge in the upper atmosphere. The problem is that as they note, red sprites and blue jets are observed over storm clouds. The implied assumption (of their thought) is that the storm clouds are the cause of the jets and sprites, when from an EU perspective they are more of an effect, in that the clouds provide a convenient channel for the discharge. This flash is a related phenomenon to sprites and jets, storm clouds while convenient are not required. The cause is not from processes on the Earth but rather from the Earth's electrical connection to Sun.
http://www.holoscience.com/wp/synopsis/ ... l-weather/