Strange cloud phenomenon

Early last year,it was around end February/beginning March,my husband,myself and our son witnessed a very puzzling cloud phenomenon.

We live in South Africa,Mpumalanga Province,and were on our way to KwaZulu-Natal Province. I was a bit bored,and enjoyed looking at the clouds,it was a lovely day,with a "living sky" meaning clouds were actually moving,making interesting shapes etc-as opposed to the "dead sky" in the lowlands of our home province,which often has just this persistent cloud cover,just hanging there for days on end,or no clouds at all.

I looked over my shoulder,backwards a bit,and i noticed this thin stripe going from one cloud to the next. I said to my husband and son,jokingly: "Look,it's like some lil cloud-creature is sneaking from cloud to cloud" Just after i said that,something came out from the last cloud it had connected to. It looked like a pc mouse on a cord,almost,and that thing was hauling ass through the sky. We were driving rather fast,my husband was afraid he was going to be late for his conference in KwaZulu Province,and we still had a long way to go. We drive a Ford Ranger truck and husband was really pushing it,but that thing kept up with the truck,flying parallel to us,to the road we were on.The window was down when i took this shot,btw.

My Canon was was packed away in a small travel bag,but i had my old BB and managed to get this shot.My husband and son was staring at this thing too,it was the darndest sight. We were basically looking at it with open mouths going WTH???? It really seemed to be pacing us at very high speed. Like we were "dicing" Then we had to turn off to the right onto another road,and idk what the thing did after that.

My husband dropped me and my son off at the guesthouse the 2 of us were staying in,in a small KwaZulu town,and carried on to his conference at another resort.That night i saw an orange-light ufo,idk if it's related to the cloud-pc mouse-thingy that seemed to "dice" with us on the road earlier.

I am posting first the original untouched pic,then one where i put it through a filter to deepen the contrast,and 2 other pics in altered colours,to just give y'all a good look.

Not saying it's a ufo,idk What it could be. I'm 50 yo and i have Never seen a plane enveloped in a cloud so that it resembles a pc-mouse-and the speed at which it was travelling,was way faster than the average commercial airliner.Also this thing seems to have snuck/flown from cloud to cloud,and seemed to wait behind the cloud before emerging. Also it emerged so soon after i noticed it and mentioned it. Just a very odd sight and experience.
I'd be interested in all opinions,but it would be really cool if those opinions are not expressed in snide,smartass remarks and insults.









I shall be back to the thread in the morning,it is almost 1am here and i am going to bed now.Thanks in advance for any polite replies.

a reply to: Raxoxane

High altitude ionospheric occurrence? Pretty strange.

Fascinating .. .and decent pic!

Looking at it closely and with the contrail, maybe an aircraft in a convective cloud? But that's usually t-storm stuff, but I'm relatively certain it's conventional with an odd but explainable condition.. .definitely cool looking though.

a reply to: Raxoxane

I'm on my phone so I can't give you as much detail as I want right now, but it's a phenomena seen around aircraft. Under certain conditions it creates a cloud around them. Give me a little bit and I'll give you the actual name and pictures when I'm back on my laptop.

Prandtl–Glauert Singularity. It forms around aircraft when conditions are right, because of the pressure difference around the aircraft. It forms in very humid conditions, when the aircraft is travelling faster than the sound waves it creates.

These are examples at low altitude:

Its a bone.

There is a cloud dog chasing it...

I'm a pilot and a trained observer type....that country and mountains are beautiful.....Colorado has nothing on your place.....

several options but the main thing......this has not been seen before....

if it's military, ultralight, or general aviation class....that's remarkable. Props to you for snappin' a pic...my lady.


let's see what we got here....judging by the apparent diameter of the contrail......it's not at FL 20 or higher.....so it's not the typical airliner at 32,000 or more in altitude. that alone gives us the first clue.......the bulge has something hiding in it.....I'm good, huh!!

the contrail itself looks like it propagated completely differently than a 525 mph airliner at FL 41, which are to use the technical jargon.....puffy and cute and swirl a little and one can see the " push " in the body of the contrail.....this one is smooth and definite....with little or no " push ".

altitude....what.....11,000 AGL or lower....

Goku?! Gohan?!
2nd

a reply to: Zaphod58

Mail..☺

BTW.. that singularity wake is really large.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Very cool pictures. But, for me, it doesn't quite look the same. Most likely because yours are closeups, but, maybe because its something else entirely. Do you have any that match the conditions in her photo more closely? Such as, distance, apparent altitude, with a visible, lengthy contrail and also with the aircraft entirely enveloped within the cloud material? If it takes more than one photo to fulfill all of these requirements, that would be fine I think.

With that said, I was not aware of this phenomenon and thank you for sharing bud! This May very well be the explanation... Or maybe not...

a reply to: OneGoal

Hi,thanks for reply. I have no idea,but it was a really cool sight anyway

a reply to: Baddogma

Hi Dog,yes i figured it must have a rational explanation, i don't think ufo's leave trails and yes,an unforgettable sight,very beautiful to see actually.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Thanks for your reply-one really does learn something new every day. I was hoping you'd chime in because you're pretty much the aircraft expert.Prandtl-Glauert Singularity..now to Remember that term

Only thing though, it wasn't humid,it was quite a cool day in that higher altitude part of the province,but i guess that Singularity thing could form anyway,because idk about all the atmospheric conditions at high altitudes,at ground level it wasn't humid.

Thanks very much,and for the pics,Very cool stuff!

a reply to: Raxoxane

Sorry how rude of me...

Great pic!👍
Thanks for adjusting the color filter.😊

@NightFlight
@wastedown

a reply to: GBP/JPY

Hi thanks so much for your reply,i'm so used to this part of the country,i guess i miss what others may find beautiful,to me it's fairly boring scenery but i guess it's just because i see so much of it. What i do find an amazing sight that never bores me or become hum-drum is the sight when one drives back from the Provincial Capital over the mountain pass,into the lower region where we live-it's like a valley of pyramids spread out before one. The shapes of the hills,most look like pyramids overgrown with vegetation by time. My husband had a very vivid dream once,of an ancient civilisation in this area,upon waking he immediately went to the pc and did some google searches and came upon the work of Michael Tellinger,and found some really interesting stuff,the "Adam's Calendar" and Temples of the African Gods" material. In his dream it was different though,it was a maybe even earlier civilisation,not Egyptian but with the pyramids all over the place. This is a mystical,strange region of my country.

About altitude,my husband looked at your reply,and he said it looked like about 6-7000 AGL.And the thing was moving at tremendous speed.

Thanks very much for your reply!

a reply to: 3n19m470

Thank you for replying,i have literally No knowledge of aircraft mechanics and the phenomena surrounding flight in general,and that's also why i never really involve myself in the contrail/chemtrail controversy. I LOVE aircraft though,especially choppers,and to me a plane is one of the most beautiful things one could hope to see,especially in flight.

This thing just looked So strange,of course we figured it could be a plane inside a cloud,but the speed looked way faster than the average airliner,of which we have of course seen many. And they Are fast,but this thing was barreling through the sky at breakneck speed.Just a very odd sight,but very cool too. Sorry i cannot give more input,as i said ,i love the flying things,but of their mechanics and the physics +phenoms surrounding them i know nothing.

a reply to: Bigburgh

Thanks! yes i had to,to give a sharper picture,there's a certain filter on an app i used to have on my BB that automatically upped contrast and darkened colours.The alternate colour pics were just to further highlight the sky-flier,and because it looks cool

a reply to: Raxoxane

Well I appreciate it. 😊
But it looks like it trailed in and had a small poof. Glad you caught it. 👍

originally posted by: Zaphod58
Prandtl–Glauert Singularity. It forms around aircraft when conditions are right, because of the pressure difference around the aircraft. It forms in very humid conditions, when the aircraft is travelling faster than the sound waves it creates.

These are examples at low altitude:

George Dubya would call those "Jesus Jets"

Cool phenomena, never knew that occurred.