Strange cloud activity

[GeoShift]

I like to watch the clouds but have never seen anything like this. Any ideas as to the cause of this?

 

[pixelsmith]

HAARP activity?

 

[Randall]

• Creative video editing?
• Artifact caused by digital image stabilization?
• Cloaked UFO zooming through clouds?

Without a verifiable corroborated chain of evidence these videos do nothing but add noise.

 

[pixelsmith]

<--- see? no tin foil hat. after all these years i figured i would show my face.

 

[GeoShift]

It could be HAARP activity, but one would think there would be more sightings. Certainly CGI could be a possibility. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[Goggs Mackay]

It cannot be just clouds. CGI or some cloaking device! But not clouds, which are just water vapour. It's almost as if someone or thing is bending a sheet of plastic quickly which is refracting (bending) the light?

 

[stonehart]

Or it could simply be an effect caused by ice crystals in the clouds generating electrical activity and all you are seeing is a phenomenon caused by this.
Just trying to think of a down to earth logical explanation and since we know that cloud activity can create static discharge why not magnetic alignment of the Ice crystals?

Worth looking into and just an idea off the top of my head.

 

[exo_doc]

How about streams of ice crystals or hail refracting sunlight?


I have seen this type of cloud activity a few years ago in India, I think it was. The video of it I mean. Let me see if I can find it.
I think this is an honest weather phenomena that can be mundanely explained.

 

[stonehart]

How about streams of ice crystals or hail refracting sunlight?


I have seen this type of cloud activity a few years ago in India, I think it was. The video of it I mean. Let me see if I can find it.
I think this is an honest weather phenomena that can be mundanely explained.

Yes be could that as well and we are both thinking along the same lines more or less.. Ice crystals....

 

[Wade]

they don't really look like the high cirrus type clouds I associate with ice crystals that are responsible for sun dogs and such. in fact it looks like (to me) that cloud that is exhibiting that weird behavior is lower in ekevation than the surronding clouds.

 

[exo_doc]

I knew I had seen this type of phenomena before....check it out.

This was in Indonesia in 2009.

 

[boomerang]

Hmmm... We would seem to have to independent data sets, which would make this really interesting if true. The usual CGI caveat applies. I wonder if these occurred over geologically active areas ? Or maybe, as exo doc suggests, changing sun angles on ice crystals?

 

[pixelsmith]

good information to consider:

forgetomori &raquo; A New Natural Phenomenon: Crown Flash
"Crown Flash" and Leaping Sundogs Meteorological Phenomenon: parhelia altered by thunderstorm e-fields

 

[Bulk]

1st video

It behaves very much like light refraction from a drop of rain on a lens filter or plastic sheet in the foreground. The camera is focused at infinity (the clouds). Or possibly a reflection from the top, sunlit shape-shifting cloud laterally onto nearby clouds.

2nd video

This one looks a lot more like a sheet of plastic being bent in the foreground while the camera is focused on the clouds.

3rd video

This one looks more like small lightning discharges.

All three could be natural, though I've not seen exactly these types of light play. I did download all three and played them back at various speeds, slow and fast, to see details and how fast the shapes of the clouds changed.

None showed obvious fast enough cloud uplift or shape changes to account for the speed of the light play seen, unless one takes into account electrostatic discharges, or momentary reflections from the surface or unseen moving clouds, assuming no CGI monkey-business with the videos.

Where's atmospheric physicist James McDonald when you need him?

Bulk

 

[pixelsmith]

1st video

It behaves very much like light refraction from a drop of rain on a lens filter or plastic sheet in the foreground. The camera is focused at infinity (the clouds). Or possibly a reflection from the top, sunlit shape-shifting cloud laterally onto nearby clouds.

2nd video

This one looks a lot more like a sheet of plastic being bent in the foreground while the camera is focused on the clouds.

3rd video

This one looks more like small lightning discharges.

All three could be natural, though I've not seen exactly these types of light play. I did download all three and played them back at various speeds, slow and fast, to see details and how fast the shapes of the clouds changed.

None showed obvious fast enough cloud uplift or shape changes to account for the speed of the light play seen, unless one takes into account electrostatic discharges, or momentary reflections from the surface or unseen moving clouds, assuming no CGI monkey-business with the videos.

Where's atmospheric physicist James McDonald when you need him?

Bulk

why not look at my links above and read what they probably are?

 

[Randall]

good information to consider:


forgetomori &raquo; A New Natural Phenomenon: Crown Flash
"Crown Flash" and Leaping Sundogs Meteorological Phenomenon: parhelia altered by thunderstorm e-fields

OK That's better than just the YouTube video. My first thought was the possibility of EM or sonic effects produced as a byproduct of lightning ( electrostatic charges ), but there was no thunder or lightning in the video. Plus I've seen plenty of lightning storms involving highly charged visible lightning and very loud thunder that never rapidly shifted the clouds in any visible way, let alone in a manner similar to what the video shows. Plus that theory doesn't explain the highly localized nature of the phenomena. Plus the clouds in the video seemed to be shifting position, and not merely changing the orientation of the crystals. So I just discarded those ideas, but maybe that was a bit hasty.

Assuming that we can rule out FX or stabilization artifacts, perhaps what we're seeing is the phenomenon responsible for creating ball lightning, which would produce physical movement as well as the EM fields, and if you look at the video frame by frame, there are times when you can see what seems to be a glowing mass inside the cloud, and not simply reflected sunlight. BTW. The absence of sound or visible aircraft also seems to rule out jets, which was second on my list. However if the object was silent and nearly invisible, then the vapor effects caused by breaking the sound barrier are strikingly similar:

Take the jet out of the picture and it's easy to imagine the effect being caused by some stealth craft ... not that I'm saying that's what it was. Also, the more one looks at it, the less nutty some kind of HAARP like microwave transmitter seems as well. Curious indeed, and I don't like being so befuddled . I'm tempted to just call it all a trick of the sun on the clouds and call it a day.

 

[Bulk]

The links posted by pixelsmith do go a long way towards explaining the videos. I suspected electrostatic discharges but discounted ice crystals as the clouds didn't seem high enough.

Also, I didn't hear any thunder over the wind sounds either.

But one can't judge distance from the videos, unless it included associated thunder, whereupon we could calculate distance from the speed of sound.

Bulk

 

[Randall]

The links posted by pixelsmith do go a long way towards explaining the videos. I suspected electrostatic discharges but discounted ice crystals as the clouds didn't seem high enough.

Also, I didn't hear any thunder over the wind sounds either.

But one can't judge distance from the videos, unless it included associated thunder, whereupon we could calculate distance from the speed of sound.

Bulk

Yes ... agreed ... and that's why I reconsidered the idea adding the possibility of ball lightning, which isn't loud, but is luminous, associated with thunder storms, and could move or dissipate rapidly causing something like what we see in the videos. But for some reason I'm still bothered by the whole thing. Something just isn't sitting right. I'd like to see a video expert familiar with CG FX and artifacts caused by digital image stabilization weigh-in on it.

 

[Tyger]

How about streams of ice crystals or hail refracting sunlight?

My first take on the first video was lightening - something was going on within the clouds - storm, something. Same with the other video. Pixel seems to have found the likely explanation.

Definitely natural, though. The impression is of a natural event. I didn't once think there was a physical object involved. I'm talking impressions.

good information to consider:

forgetomori &raquo; A New Natural Phenomenon: Crown Flash
"Crown Flash" and Leaping Sundogs Meteorological Phenomenon: parhelia altered by thunderstorm e-fields