Correction to: Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-03122-6 Published online 20 January 2021

In this Article, on page 372, in the text “A second example is shown in Fig. 4a, b, where the UV pulse has a higher amplitude and peaks earlier than the first”, Fig. 4a, c should have been cited (not Fig. 4a, b); in the text “The observed UV pulses (Figs. 2, 4a, b) reach large amplitudes”, Figs. 2, 4a, c should have been cited (not Figs. 2, 4a, b); and in the text “For comparison, Fig. 4c, d shows a normal elve”, Fig. 4b, d should have been cited (not Fig. 4c, d). In Methods section ‘Photometer UV/337 signal ratio and the interpretation of elves’ the sentence “The zenith angle of the events are 166.48 to 166.68 and we chose 167 as a common angle” should read “The zenith angles of the events are 148 to 155 and we chose 153 as a common angle”. Owing to an error during the production process, in Fig. 3b, three of the blue rectangles slightly overlapped the right sides of the panels. The original Article has been corrected online.