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.
There is a ton of popular trash on UFOs, but there is also some rational work. Readers of this blog might enjoy a look at the engineering calculations done by the late Paul R. Hill, a NASA engineer that evaluated many reports. The Amazon reader reviews are all highly positive —
http://www.amazon.com/Unconventional-Flying-Objects-Scientific-Analysis/product-reviews/1571740279/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
The Disclosure Project has collected testimony from more than 500 military and other informed people, i.e., not from the general public. The evidence explains the basis of the official policy.
http://www.disclosureproject.com/
Lastly, the radar/visual and photographic sections of the UFO evidence website is of interest. The radar evidence is hard to refute. Some of the photos are probably fake. The late P. J. Klass used to produce fake pics to show how easy it is to fool the enthusiasts. However, there are also images from the pre-WW II era, before the modern hoopla and tabloid trash.
http://www.ufoevidence.org/
Here in the Ohio hill country we sometimes have a few.
Ohio Clouds
“we don’t seem to be getting any fresh credible pictures of real UFO’s …or bigfoot.”
Perhaps they have been looking in the wrong place. Only a few days ago there was a conference on the subject of the Yeti/Abonimable Snowman/Bigfoot etc.
W Siberia Yeti country?
http://english.ruvr.ru/2011/10/02/58053662.html
“Governor of Siberia’s Kemerovo Region Aman Tuleyev is hosting a conference at which scientists from Russia, the United States, Canada, Sweden, Estonia, Mongolia and China are evaluating evidence of the Bigfoot, or Yeti, still roaming densely wooded areas in many parts of the world including western North America, the North Caucasus and the southern belt of Western Siberia. There will be video and audio footages of Yeti and a report from the United States about a possible genetic make-up of this mysterious hominid.”
As one who crossed the Cascdes and Sierra from Cessna’s to Four engine Douglas Aircraft,
I never see a Lenny without unconsciously reaching to tighten my seatbelt.
Had a wild ride over Rainer once-never forgot that….
,
Richard111 says:
October 9, 2011 at 10:20 am
I wonder what people thought of these clouds before the idea of flight was even considered possible?
Probably thought they were circular clouds.
@ur momisugly Logan in AZ says:
October 9, 2011 at 11:25 am
=================
And also various bits of (as yet ) unexplained/controversial archeological artifacts, paintings, documents, legends, etc. Those little gold airplanes (?) for example – one of which is in the Smithsonian.
Good try, Mr. Watts! But what about the oft sighted little green critters carrying rectal probes?
I live now near the front range of the Rockies, and I once lived just west of the Sangro de Christo in New Mexico, and clouds like this occur often–sometimes stacked several layers deep. When I lived northwest of Mt. Hood I saw things like this on those few days a year that I could actually see Mt. Hood. I think in the 1956 edition of a book by Life Magazine entitled “The World We Live In” there was a lenticular cloud with a tail on one side which made the combination look exactly like a fry-pan…I looked for one of those in the sky for years unsuccessfully.
I don’t care what you say. Those are flying saucers. And I for one welcome our new overlords.
Are those flying saucers – and flying plates, and platters, and cups and all – leaving their mark on Climate?
BBC might be thinking it’s not all Anthropogenic – see
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15199065
posted in the last couple of hours Firts para
“Recent cold winters that brought chaos to the UK and other places in northern Europe may have their roots in the Sun’s varying ultraviolet emissions.”
‘Year of the Unquiet Sun’?.
‘First para’ not Firts – oops!
—-Yes, yes, we know all about lenticular clouds! I thought you were going to tell us something new.
Mt Rainier Dec 2008 time lapse cloud cap (lenticular cloud) formation
Curiousgeorge says:
October 9, 2011 at 9:22 am
Good idea. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere
How would you move the star? E = pc, big solar sail, VERY slow. Otherwise, you’ll have to boost the fusion output of the star to go anywhere in a century timeframe (mass_sun 2×10^30 kg). The acceleration will have to be very weak, or you’ll lose the planets, depending on which ones you want to keep. And where do you want to go with this “space ship” anyway? Seems to me, the ship is doing fine right here. What we should do instead is take a bit of the sun with us and go visit some other stars. That means getting fusion reactors to work.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polywell
Use spaceship SUN to travel to Alpha Centauri
F = ma KE = .5 m v^2
mass_sun 2.00E+30 kg
c 2.99E+05 km/s
Dist 3.76E+13 km
T travel 100 years
speed 1.20E+04 km/s
KE 1.43E+44 Nm
At Earth 1361 W/m2
orbit 1.50E+11 km
Area 2.83E+29 m^2
power 3.85E+32 W
T to KE 3.72E+11 s
T to KE 1.18E+04 y
a 3.22E-05 m/s^2
Using total solar output, it would take over 10,000 years to accelerate the solar system to 1/25 c (assuming perfect efficiency). And if we want to visit Alpha Centauri, we’d have to stop. The numbers work out better if you want to get to Alpha Centauri in 1000 years. 118 y to 1/250 c.
That was fun.
Auto says:
October 9, 2011 at 12:16 pm
Are those flying saucers – and flying plates, and platters, and cups and all – leaving their mark on Climate?
BBC might be thinking it’s not all Anthropogenic – see
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15199065
______________________________________________________
But the BBC and “Scientists” dance around and manage to fit the cold winters very nicely into the CAGW paradigm.
“……A UK scientific team now shows in Nature Geoscience journal how these changes lead to warmer winters in some places and colder winters in others.
The researchers emphasise there is no impact on global warming……
“The key point is that this effect is a change in the circulation, moving air from one place to another, which is why some places get cold and others get warm,” ….
“It’s a jigsaw puzzle, and when you average it up over the globe, there is no effect on global temperatures,” …..”
This is a very neat shut up for the people who noticed it was blasted COLD the last few winters. – “It is LOCAL but it does not effect the GLOBAL average which is still WARMING” Now that explanation, which I have even hear here, has been made “official” and the changes in UV has been neatly side lined too.
As a retired airline pilot I can categorically state that UFO’s do not exist.
Fascinating. Having grown up on the prairies, I had no idea such a thing existed! Wow!
Having no mountains in the area, we had to turn to other sources for UFO sightings. Being the self reliant young lads we were, we rolled our own.
Materials
Large plastic garbage back. Transluscent green works best.
Sheet of carboard.
duct tape
wire
candles with plastic candle holders.
Two to three accomplices, each with their own car
Methodology
Cut a “ring” of cardboard out slightly smaller than the mouth of th garbage bag.
Affix candle holders at regular intervals around the ring of cardboard
Tie short lengths of wire at eight evenly spaced intervals around the carboard ring.
Light all the candles
You and cour accomplices must hold the mouth of the garbage bag over the rising hot air from the candles until it fills up and puffs out. Using the duct tape to reinforce the plastic of the garbage bag, tie the garbage bag to the carboard ring with the other end of the wires already installed. Be carfefull to make the spacing even, and to bring the plastic as close to the candles as possible with the heat of the candles being able to melt the plastic.
Release the experiment. Upwind of a small town at dusk works best.
You and your accompliced drive like crazy do disparate locations having pay phones. Make calls reporting a giant green glowing thing in the sky to the local radio, television and newspapers. DO NOT GIVE YOUR NAME. DO NOT USE A CELL PHONE. If they find out who you are and start asking questions it ruins the whole experiment.
Results
Go home and pay attention to the local news sources. Note carefully the size of the reported UFO’s which will range from “a balloon” to “the size of a football field” and also the speed which will range from “barely moving” to “faster than any jet plane”. REcord each sighting in detail. This is extremely important as when reviewing your results you must be able to identify false positives (those being UFO sightings due to actual UFO’s rather than the ones directly associated with your experiment)
“these are lenticular clouds, created by the standing wave that occurs as air flows over the mountain, cooling it below the dew point.”
Well, at any rate, that’s what they want you to believe. They probably call it things like “settled science”. 😉
When you’ve been abducted and seen the inside of one of those “clouds” you’ll be singing a different tune. Just hope the probing doesn’t make you permanently sing in alto, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.
Mike McMillan says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:13 pm
“As a retired airline pilot I can categorically state that UFO’s do not exist.”
Yeah well I knew and worked with an Air Force guy who was a radar operator in the 1950’s flying aboard aircraft that were dropping nuclear weapons. He categorically stated he saw stuff on his radar that we’re neither natural nor human-made. He logged it, wrote it up in his reports, and as far as he knows the logs and reports just disappeared into a top secret rabbit hole.
Leaving Earth, beyond the Solar System, the Local Group and out into the Virgo Supercluster outskirts, there are small groups of galaxies that exhibit some rather strange and unexplained appearances. They would be the Lenticular Galaxies, S0 in Hubble’s Tuning Fork.
Look carefully: http://cas.sdss.org/dr6/en/tools/chart/navi.asp
and enter 169.87797444767173 for RA degrees
and enter 28.652181866666666 for DEC degrees
zoom to midrange.
An Uninvestigated Formed Object. The ring is not in the plane of the host galaxy. It apparently hovers above (or below) the center of mass. It’s center may not even touch the galaxy at all.
Thanks to the Mt. Shasta images for reminding me of this enigma.
Do Supermassive black holes explode? Ask Steven Hawking.
Lenticulars are indeed special. Glad you’re noticing them. It always amused me that the official classification of clouds I learned at school failed to mention them… but then, no mention of sun dogs either.
Anthony, you know how much I appreciate the hard work you do, the attitudes of true science you maintain, and the levels of excellence you uphold, in the face of general collapse of scientific method and procedure in Climate Science.
Please, then, don’t then react to UFO’s in the same way as “warmists” do to “deniers” ie from positions of inadequately-checked partial and dismissive information which they believe are adequate positions of information. Leave it to the real UFO experts. It’s a whole minefield of its own, charged with important info and riddled with media and government disinfo, just like Climate Science.
If you were to research UFO’s properly, objectively, open to discovering and setting aside prejudices, as per Scientific Method, you would be left in no doubt that there is something there. Logan in AZ at 11:25 am puts things very well, with key info that is non-cultish, neutral, easily accessible and checkable; he also notes correctly that there is “a ton of popular trash” which you need to reach beyond, to do real research.
Mike McMillan says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:13 pm
“As a retired airline pilot I can categorically state that UFO’s do not exist.”
Actually you can only categorically state that UFOs do exist. To categorically state they do not exist you would have to have observational knowledge of every moment in every location where one could possible be found. Either that or you must have proof that their existence violates some physical law. You know you have neither of these. What we can know and what we can’t know is part of Philosophy of Science 101.
>>Mike McMillan says: October 9, 2011 at 1:13 pm
>>As a retired airline pilot I can categorically state that UFO’s do not exist.
As a current airline pilot, I would contend UFOs do exist. Not every thing we can see in the atmosphere can immediately be categorised and classified, and so some must remain ‘unexplained’.
It must be said that the chances of any of these unexplained sightings being of alien origin is utterly remote and logically absurd. However, the chances of these unexplained sightings being secret military opps, is highly likely. But most turn out to be Chinese lanterns, Army parachute flares, or the planet Venus (which is red, when on the horizon).
Its a shame that ‘UFO’ is always taken to mean ‘Alien’.
.
There are invisible UFOs too:
http://cloudappreciationsociety.org/find-a-cloud/#p=1&t=cloud84&i=17
davidmhoffer says:
October 9, 2011 at 1:15 pm
“Fascinating. Having grown up on the prairies, I had no idea such a thing existed! Wow!”
“Having no mountains in the area, we had to turn to other sources for UFO sightings. Being the self reliant young lads we were, we rolled our own.”
[snip – over the top way off topic – Anthony]