Jets and sprites - why so long for official recognition?

Question

Pilots and observant people on the ground must have been seeing them forever. Did they not tell anyone or did scientists simply not believe them before they were officially 'discovered'?

Answer 1

My guess would be that difficulty in getting numerous close-up observations was a contributor. These discharges occur at or above cloud tops, and have relatively low brightness; thus they are hard to observe at close range from the ground. Observation in the Shuttle Mesoscale Lightning Experiment (MLE) program were a big help in increasing awareness and understanding of these fascinating phenomena (see ref.).