I’m sure many of you remember this campy scifi film from 1956. Roswell on steroids.
But did you know that there is a natural phenomenon on Earth that gives rise to reports of flying saucers on a regular basis? In fact there’s a mountain near me where they congregate. Observe:
That’s Mount Shasta in northern California. It has a long history of flying saucer visitations. Why I’ve seen people channel this with piles of mashed potatoes and inverted dinner plates.
On a more serious and factual note, these are lenticular clouds, created by the standing wave that occurs as air flows over the mountain, cooling it below the dew point. The one above is from a Facebook share by Hope Devenuto Photo from Mt Shasta Ca. 10-5-11, from my freind Yoj
Lenticular clouds (Altocumulus lenticularis) are stationary lens-shaped clouds that form at high altitudes, normally aligned perpendicular to the wind direction. Lenticular clouds can be separated into altocumulus standing lenticularis (ACSL), stratocumulus standing lenticular (SCSL), and cirrocumulus standing lenticular (CCSL). Due to their shape, they are often mistaken for Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOs).
Formation: Where stable moist air flows over a mountain or a range of mountains, a series of large-scale standing waves may form on the downwind side. If the temperature at the crest of the wave drops to the dew point, moisture in the air may condense to form lenticular clouds. As the moist air moves back down into the trough of the wave, the cloud may evaporate back into vapor. Under certain conditions, long strings of lenticular clouds can form near the crest of each successive wave, creating a formation known as a ‘wave cloud.’ The wave systems cause large vertical air movements and so enough water vapor may condense to produce precipitation. The clouds have been mistaken for UFOs (or “visual cover” for UFOs) because these clouds have a characteristic lens appearance and smooth saucer-like shape. Bright colors (called Irisation) are sometimes seen along the edge of lenticular clouds.[1] These clouds have also been known to form in cases where a mountain does not exist, but rather as the result of shear winds created by a front.
Here’s one attacking the Keck observatory at Mauna Kea, Hawaii in 2002
I predict it will be only a matter of time before lenticular clouds are labeled “anti-science”.
😉
While the web abounds with multitudes of UFO like lenticular cloud photos, thanks in part to digital cameras becoming almost ubiquitous in cell phones worldwide, we don’t seem to be getting any fresh credible pictures of real UFO’s …or bigfoot.
It seems that technology saturation is gradually disproving those notions.
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Too bad they can’t take a definitive picture of a climate changing somewhere.
How small are our thoughts. Given the constraints of various physical laws a rational approach to building a interstellar “spaceship”, would be to build a solar system. One like ours, for example.
We get them in New Hampshire too. The Plymouth State Univ. Meteorology Program Cloud Boutique has an armada of them just north of town. Our wind isn’t as laminar as California’s (one reason you have so many big telescopes), so our clouds often aren’t quite as perfect as yours.
Weatherwise Magazine has an annual weather photography contest and they’re suckers for good lenticular photos. Looks like they took a break this year.
http://weatherwise.org/Photo%20Contest/2011%20Photo%20Contest/index.html
Pretty neat clouds.
As far the UFO’s go though, I’ve always been in the “Aliens are probably out there, but its pretty unlikely they have (or can) visit us” camp. Maybe I’m a bit of a sucker of the Drake equation, but I’ve always felt the galaxy (let alone the Universe) is just too damn big for us to be alone and at the same time its just too damn big for it to be reasonable to think ET could be visiting us on a regular basis.
If you spend all of your time arguing with
people who are nuts, you’ll be exhausted
and the nuts will still be nuts.
–Scott Adams
Just because it looks like a lenticular cloud doe not mean it isn’t a flying saucer.
We get lenticular clouds all the time here in the Colorado Front Range.
Pretty…
The good folks at Atmospheric Optics has a brief write-up on lenticular clouds:
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/droplets/iridim4.htm
Some great pictures:
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/fz288.htm
http://www.atoptics.co.uk/fz310.htm
I met a former ranger a few years ago at Mt. Rainier who was selling photo books of lenticular clouds he photographed there. He said he a had a devil of a time getting meteorologists to believe his photos were not faked.
I have seen the phenomenon several times, both before and after meeting the gentleman. Living close to Rainier gives me plenty of views of this magnificent mountain and the effect it has on atmosphere.
Aw, hell. Somebody’s gotta cite this.
“Aliens Cause Global Warming” (Michael Crichton, Caltech lecture, 7 November 2008).
—
Here in Reno, on the leeward side of the Sierra, we see stacked lenticular clouds fairly often. But as David Walton points out, they may well be flying saucers, and piloted by invisible aliens.
I for one, as a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists, won’t be classed as a denier for dismissing the idea that the aliens are using advanced techniques to cool the planet and save it from Global Warming.
I’m sure Kenji is in full agreement.
Here are some aliens leaving from near my house in North East England last year:
http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg78/Pic_Wansbeck/P08-07-10_214101.jpg
They must have known it was going to be a hard winter.
I remember when I was a youngster, I so much wanted UFOs (extraterrestrial) to be real. I used to lie outside and look for them. That’s when I saw my first “explained” satellite. I saw no flying saucers though. No mountains to form lenticulars here in S FL. I saw a UFO show on cable recently and they had video of UFOs flying in a V formation near Phoenix. OOOOh, the way they hyped it, must be real. Looks like Anti-heat-seeking-missile flares to me. Some of these flares float on parachutes. There’s lot of USAF stuff going on around Phoenix.
Occam’s Razor is a “UFOlogist’s” undoing.
Fantastic picture of Mount Shasta and clouds. I have never seen anything like that in my life and I’m in my eighth decade and have travelled half the globe. Obviously the wrong half. 🙂
I wonder what people thought of these clouds before the idea of flight was even considered possible?
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Beautiful “lennies” like these make glider pilots go all weak at the knees.
I have soared them up to 25,000 feet, but more professional glider pilots have been up to 50,000 ft.
And lennies in the lee of long ridges can also be used for long distsnce glider flights, and the longest so far was a 3,000 km flight in the lee of the Andes, in 2003. 3,000 km ‘for free’, that’s not bad.
This is a good UFO lenny:
http://www.thelivingmoon.com/43ancients/04images/Earth/Clouds/B/lenticular_cloud_e_sierra_2.jpg
A linear lenny, in the lee of a range:
http://www.crystalinks.com/lenticular109.jpg
And I like this Mitchelin Man lenny:
http://weathervortex.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/weird-clouds.jpg
.
Cshannon says:
October 9, 2011 at 9:25 am
Pretty neat clouds.
As far the UFO’s go though, I’ve always been in the “Aliens are probably out there, but its pretty unlikely they have (or can) visit us” camp. Maybe I’m a bit of a sucker of the Drake equation, but I’ve always felt the galaxy (let alone the Universe) is just too damn big for us to be alone and at the same time its just too damn big for it to be reasonable to think ET could be visiting us on a regular basis.
____________________________________________________________
And if ET was visiting the earth on a regular basis Humans would not be here, we would be hanging in their meat locker….
And when the aliens land on Earth, they like to make pretty patterns in wheat fields (why?). But judging by this one, they like Hovis bread too. Perhaps aliens are just Yorkshiremen in green jumpsuits….. 😉
http://visboo.com/img/five/crop_circles_advertising_06.jpg
Actually, the best crop-circle joke I saw, was of two aliens standing in a muddy field, and saying: “Damn, its winter, we’ll have to go home again….”
.
GP Hanner says:
October 9, 2011 at 9:27 am
If you spend all of your time arguing with
people who are nuts, you’ll be exhausted
and the nuts will still be nuts.
–Scott Adams
————————
Priceless!
I long ago quit arguing with the nutcases but that quote sums it up. It is now part of my vocabulary. Thanks.
Excuse me?
Mt. Shasta in Northern California???
Wrongo Du Maxami!
That is Mt. Ranier in Central Western Washington.
Better get someone on the research side of things to work on the shape and structure of Mountians in the Cascade Range to better Identify your Locations!
@Curiousgeorge, this too has been anticipated by at least one science fiction writer. In Larry Niven’s “Known Space” stories, an alien race – the Pierson’s Puppeteers – are escaping a vast explosion of supernovae at the galaxy’s core by dint of equipping their home planet and four others with stardrives and propelling their “fleet of worlds” towards the safety of the Magellanic Clouds:
http://www.larryniven.net/puppeteer/puptech.shtml
Lenticulars are commom on the east coast of the US also. We live near the Catocton Range in MD. There is a nearby glider club that looks for these to fly by. I didn’t think they were commom until my husband, a glider pilot, pointed them out.
DJ, I read in the venerable New York Times that , on Global Warming, alien intervention is preferred.
Hmmm, I may have some lenticular stew tonight with plenty of garlic.
“It seems that technology saturation is gradually disproving those notions.”
That’s exactly what Steve Spielberg said. The more evidence we collect the less true our beliefs become.