First post and circle cut in clouds....

Hi Guys,

I've been reading ATS for a few months and now have something to contribute. My GF saw this perfects hole cut in the cloud cover today and I wanted to know what you guys think. It looks pretty clean like a giant smoke ring punched through it. More details below.




She was in a taxi at approximately 4:10pm on the 9th June 2010 with a colleague (work trip) pointed this out and said she hopes the aliens aren’t invading. They both laughed but, my girlfriend knowing I love this sort of thing took a photo on her HTC Magic (phone). She saw this formation for a few minutes before they drove out of view and it did not appear to change shape, move or dissolve (as some cloud formations do) during this time.

They were on Machinery Drive in Tweed Heads (Coolangatta), which is in New South Wales, Australia, on the east coast just south of the QLD state border, pretty close to the gold coast for anyone familiar. The formation was in a northerly direction and seemed to be fairly close to where she was, possibly over tweed heads town?

So my question is what do you guys make of this?
It’s been 4 days since the Aussie sky spiral www.abc.net.au... and not long since the spate of “radar glitch” circles reported by the BOM www.news.com.au... This is also about 70km north of Lennox Heads where concerned readers would know about their recent (6 days ago) freak tornado www.news.com.au...

So I have two questions for you guys;
1. What do you think might have caused this? HAARP? UFO’s? Some weird twisty wind that just never turned into a tornado?

2. Are there any interested parties worth reporting this to? I mean like MUFON but I assume they don’t really care unless you actually think you saw a UFO.

Reply to post by MonsantoTriffid

I saw one in northern cali last week. turns out its a 'halo' effect caused by the sun, clouds, and moisture. beautiful though- the one here was a 360° rainbow.


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reply to post by MonsantoTriffid

Welcome M.Triffid... excellent name by the way.

I can't see the picture.. if you put one up that is. So is it possible to put one up on say Photobucket or something?

Hi, My GF just got back and told me the image she sent me was a crop. Here are the full photos (she took 2). I put them on picasa for you Tayesin

picasaweb.google.com.au...

Hi IandEye, could you post a link to show me any pics of what you're calling a halo effect? This was literally a hole in the cloud. She could see sky on the other side of the clouds and not just through that middle hole but through the ring.

Pauligirl thinks it a "punch hole cloud" www.neatorama.com...

It looks simmilar but still different to other pics of punch hole clouds. It's got a clear ring and not as much whispy junk as the punch hole clouds.

I guess it's probably a simmilar phenomenon.

Oh, and thanks Tayesin, I was trying to think of a name that sounded Conspiracyish.

reply to post by MonsantoTriffid


heya mate, welcome here!
great catch by your girl!

hey, in the 1st pic, on picasa..lh5.ggpht.com...
what the hell is to the left?
a helicopter..
and what else? lol
weird.
and the ring with it, sweet ,
interesting pic!
thanks!!

[edit on 10-6-2010 by Ahmose]

[edit on 10-6-2010 by Ahmose]

Cool photos, wish I took them.

Welcome to the mad house

reply to post by MonsantoTriffid


Great pic, shame I'm in the wrong area, I'm always on the look out for strange phenomenon like this.

I have seen other pics like this in Mexico I believe, they boiled it down to a cool air layer and thermals pushing up, or something like that. Well it was cold this morning!

Regards

reply to post by MonsantoTriffid

Thanks for uploading the photos.

I can't see any indicators for wind anywhere in the three shots, not in the upper layer of clouds or the lower level.

The only thing I've seen similar is low cloud above a small mountain peak. As the clouds slowly passed over the peak a new circle would appear, until there were a series of small circles in a row.

But, if these clouds came inland from the sea, perhaps a warm updraught off the water could do that? I wouldn't know.

Cool pictures though.

Originally posted by MonsantoTriffid
Hi, My GF just got back and told me the image she sent me was a crop. Here are the full photos (she took 2). I put them on picasa for you Tayesin

picasaweb.google.com.au...

Hi IandEye, could you post a link to show me any pics of what you're calling a halo effect? This was literally a hole in the cloud. She could see sky on the other side of the clouds and not just through that middle hole but through the ring.

Pauligirl thinks it a "punch hole cloud" www.neatorama.com...

It looks simmilar but still different to other pics of punch hole clouds. It's got a clear ring and not as much whispy junk as the punch hole clouds.

I guess it's probably a simmilar phenomenon.

Oh, and thanks Tayesin, I was trying to think of a name that sounded Conspiracyish.

hi-
I have some video i took because i too thought it was something man-made but i don't know how to upload/embed vids on this man-made site yet!
i'll work on it

Hey, I did a bit more googling now I know what these are called and it looks exactly like the 1st pic on weathervortex.com...

That site also explains them quite well. For anyone that can't be bothered visiting the link, they say it's mostly caused by planes flying through certain types of ice crystal clouds and turning the ice crystals into rain. I guess the rain falling kinda pulls the clouds around it in and forms that ring shape. I've never seen one of these before but I guess there are millions of other things in this world I haven't seen either

Thanks heaps for your interest those who replied.

Ahmose, my GF said she thinks she had the window up for one of the shots, so the specks in that photo are probably dirt on the taxis window. It could also be dust on the lens. Camera phones live in pockets and bags so they are generally pretty filthy, well mine is anyway.

Welcome to ATS

What you have is a classic hole punch clouds, caused by virga (precipitation not reaching the gound), falling through a lower layer of cloud. In this case, cirrus falling through altocumulus. Planes can also cause this effect by flying through layers of cloud, but in that case, the hole they leave is line shaped

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