What was in the skies above Jersey (CI) yesterday, any ideas?

Hi all, this is only my second thread here so please go easy on me!

So, I was sat outside on my doorstep yesterday morning at around 10:30a.m. having a smoke, and as you do, I gazed up at the sky. After noticing a commercial aircraft flying overhead, I noticed above and behind it what looked like a small contrail unlike any other I'd ever seen.

It was singular in appearance (unlike those from commercial jets which as we all know have two or four contrails in line next to each other), and was very smooth in appearance. The oddest part about it was the direction it had taken. It wasn't in a straight line, but looked rather erratic, with a perfect sharp 90-degree turn towards the end.

As soon as I saw it, I ran inside, grabbed my camera (Canon Eos 1100D), and quickly started taking snaps at it through the gap above our lounge window. By the time I'd grabbed the camera and got to the window (literally took me about 20 seconds or even less), it had halved in size already. I watched the thing continue to evaporate as I took snaps, and I only managed to fire off seven before it had all but vanished. The commercial aircraft contrail at the bottom of the image hung around for much longer, as can be seen from the first image below.

So here goes, this is the first unedited photo showing both the commercial aircraft contrail, and the mysterious 'contrail like thing' in the top left,



The second image, this image has only been cropped from the original and resized (in Paint.net), nothing else. To my untrained eye, and this is pure speculation on my part, but it looks like something travelling at extremely high speed briefly slowed (slightly), turned into the sharp 90-degree turn, then took off again at extremely high speed. Note how it seems to flare out somewhat at the top right of the bend,



In this one I've circled areas that I find interesting (in Paint), no further editing other than that mentioned for the last image. The green circle highlights where to me it (whatever it was) looks like it was lining up for the turn.

The yellow circle highlights the bend, which looks to be thicker and more pronounced than the rest. This was the last part to evaporate and disappear.

The red circle highlights the end of the trail, this is the most interesting part to me, look how it seems to flare out somewhat followed by, if you look closely, a thin trail of vapour as if, 'POOF', gone, 'outa here,



This image is again as above, but this time without the circle highlights and I've applied auto level in Photoscape. Look at the top right/end of the trail, the 'flare' is more visible, and so is the thinner trail that seems to exit the main trail,



Again, to my untrained eye, this doesn't look like your average aircraft contrail, for a couple of reasons. It's direction, even the slowest flying jet producing contrails cannot turn in that sharp a 90-degree angle like that without ripping off its wings and killing the occupants due to the forces of inertia. To my eye it was also far too smooth and uniform in appearance for your average aircraft contrail, and it vanished much, much faster than the contrail produced by the aircraft visible in the first image. Finally, it it was caused by a fighter jet or similar (which we NEVER see where I live apart from once a year for the air display), I'd likely have heard it, I know from living in Wales how loud those things can be.

The only process that I can think of that might have cause this vapour trail is something like this,



....but a perfect 90-degree turn at those speeds? I'm sorry, I'm no aeronautical engineer, but no. Just no.

So ATS, what say you, secret high technology? Mistaken identity? Weather anomaly? Perfectly normal event and I desperately need to go back to school?

....Or dare I say it, aliens?

S&F...Dont know any of conventional Aircraft that could make that turn and spew out a vapour trial.

a reply to: MerkabaTribeEntity

Interesting picture
I suspect the contrail started off straight but due to high altitude winds took that shape .

a reply to: MerkabaTribeEntity

Cool pic mate...no idea...never seen anything like that...I'm sure someone will come along with an explanation...regardless that photo is very cool.

The 90 degree angle can be a long turn it' doesn't have to be sharp, seen from earth it looks sharp but as we don't know the height or has any way of determine the distance, the turn could be miles long.

Still interesting

Presentation S+F

a reply to: gortex

Rather than causing the "contrail" to disperse these high winds made the vapor make an almost 90° bend? Is this a common thing? I'd like to see a video of that. It would be awesome to watch that happen.

I would think wind at that much of an opposing angle would just blow the vapors apart.

Sorry gortex, I think you are off on this one... It looks like the OP described it, left by a high speed vehicle making a sharp turn. I think our dear government probably has a few "black" vehicles that could pull it off... Maybe a drone of some sort?

Who knows? NICE CATCH OP! Great 2nd thread too, glad to have you!

i've seen those shapes years ago in sicily, and never knew what to think of them, so i have sadly no input, but i am flagging and all that jazz to bring this to people's attention that might know what is what.
Maybe we can figure this out!

a reply to: wastedown

Here's one that looks similar.

The guys at the site below tracked down the flight responsible and found the contrail was from a normal turn , the wind and angle of observation makes the difference.
www.metabunk.org...

Great post and photos, it makes a change for someone to have photos to back up their story.
S&F for you!.
All the best.
B. V. H.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: wastedown

Here's one that looks similar , the guys at the site tracked down the flight responsible and found the contrail was from a normal turn , the wind and angle of observation makes the difference.
www.metabunk.org...

Embedded:



And another:



Source

What is interesting in OP's photo is that the contrail is visible only in its bended part, very unusual, but not impossible, depending of the local atmospheric conditions.

Also, I've done a little research using FR24 and found a flight that could fit, with a weird trajectory, approaching Guernsey airport:



It decreases its altitude from 20.000ft at 09:17UTC to 9.650ft at 09:23UTC when he made a first "90° turn" and to 4.075ft at 9:28UTC when he made a second "90° turn".

So as the atmospheric condition can be different at various altitude, I guess that one extremity of the contrail is where it dissipates, like any other, and the other extremity is where it is not anymore created by the airplane, as it enters in another atmospheric layer, when the humidity/temperature do not allow the creation of such contrail.

But maybe I'm totally wrong and this is not the good airplane, if MerkabaTribeEntity did not shoot towards the north!

a reply to: MerkabaTribeEntity

What i find interesting is that the thickness of the contrail at the bend is thicker then at both edges.
Also if you look at it closely its a perfect bend, the arc is absolutely symmetrical.

If wind did cause it to bend it was quite the freak of nature for sure.

Looking at it again, can anyone explain why is it thicker on the arc? It does'nt look like its natural

a reply to: SecretKnowledge

Slight bump in power while turning.

I'm happy with aliens We know airline pilots occasionally experience high speed objects at similar altitudes, we know them and radars have detected some "things" making 90 degree turns, I'm personally very confident these things are flying around out there as I've seen them, so why shouldn't they leave a contrail at some point?

In fact, I think it's good daylight evidence of this type of UFO (sometimes called fast-walker). Not forgetting fast-walker is a term courtesy of NORAD for objects that move inexplicably and fast, so even they accept they exist

MAY 5, 1984, an alert was triggered at the North America Air Defense Command. Moving at 22,000 miles per hour, it was heading toward Earth and had been determined to NOT be incoming ballistic missiles, or any other type of conventionally explainable object. Once tracked, it was code-named "Fast Walker".

So to summarize my opinion: These things have every potential of leaving daytime evidence like this kind of contrail. It certainly does give a feeling of speed decrease, fast turn and sonic boom away from it, and the only thing I know can do that are these UFO things widely reported (and observed in person), not jets or public tech. Also just a cool, intriguing image! Makes you wonder S&F

I'd be interested to know what two directions that contrail is going in, ie is the "decrease speed area" a particular compass heading, ie north, or South? or is it like north east or such?

Just a personal curiosity Put it this way, if that possible "acceleration" direction is North, it may explain why I've seen these things (in the UK) coming from the south. If the "deceleration" direction was East, then it gives more credence to Hy-Brasil imo

Id like to think it was something more exotic. But most likely is just a plain ole contrial ripped apart and changed direction by upper winds. Still a cool pic.

a reply to: gortex

I said nothing about the turn not being "normal", and your photo evidence points to a plane making a turn leaving a contrail. Not exactly a contrail being bent by the wind. I do appreciate the additonal info you presented, as I always happy to learn something new. The likes of you and Zaph are always a great source if knowledge in this type of thread, so I hope you didn't take my post as a jab of some sort. I would truly be blown away to watch a contrail bend that far, if it can really happen.

Like i said before, i believe the OP's image to be made by a man made craft. Nothing out of the ordinary, or unexplainable, but, cool to look at none the less.

originally posted by: gortex
a reply to: MerkabaTribeEntity

Interesting picture

I suspect the contrail started off straight but due to high altitude winds took that shape .

Nice capture. S&F for having the guts to post it, too.

I agree with gortex though and suspect that upper level winds took control. There are some interesting threads to read about newer aircraft on ATS. I saw something a bit over a year ago that I swore was an ET craft, but after reading through those I'm pretty sure it's one of ours.

Very cool picture. Perhaps by giving us more information like the location, date, time (which might be inside the properties of the picture file) it might be easier to track down and identify. Just a thought.

***I didn't realize you already had put the time and location. Forgive my tired eyes. They must have just jumped right to the picture. Time for me to sleep.