Further Reading

Wednesday, 23 June 2010

Close encounter of the cloudy kind: How menacing sights in the sky turned out to be meteorological marvels

Looking to the skies, you'd be forgiven for thinking that something worrying was afoot. Surely that's a massive UFO hovering menacingly over the rooftops above? Well, no. They're clouds - but they were realistic enough to make those who spotted them do a double take. The 'flying saucer' was photographed over Crieff in Perthshire at the weekend by Brian Wilton and his wife Isobel. 'We couldn't believe it,' said Mr Wilson. 'It was like the scene in the film Close Encounters of the Third Kind when the spaceship comes down.' Mr Wilton believes the cloud was an altocumulus lenticularis - an almond-shaped or lens-shaped mass of cloud that appears dense but quickly evaporates. The cloud had been given an eerie quality by the light of the setting sun. (Daily Mail)