‘UFO hiding in plain sight’ was a weather phenomenon in California, experts say
A glowing orb in the sky that could easily be mistaken for a flying saucer was photographed Feb. 12 near Mount Shasta in Northern California.
The U.S. Forest Service posted the photo on Facebook and explained it was just an odd weather phenomenon known as a lenticular cloud.
But that hasn’t stopped thousands of people — including some conspiracy theorists — from noting its textbook similarity to a UFO.
Volumes have been written about Mount Shasta being one of the world’s “UFO hot spots,” including “blacked-out, classified sightings” as depicted in Brian David Wallenstein’s book “Mount Shasta Sightings.”
Hence, commenters on the U.S. Forest Service’s Facebook post didn’t mince words. It not only looked like a flying saucer, some wrote, but it appeared to be “getting ready to land.”
“I don’t think it’s a cloud,” Connie Bafford posted.
“UFO hiding in plain sight,” Tyler Landers wrote.
“I’ve seen a lot of lenticular clouds around Mt. Shasta over the years, but this one is the strangest,” posted Robert Bobby Phillips.
“This photo may just make me a believer,” Heather Clark added.
The U.S. Forest Service at Shasta Trinity National Forest reports the photo was taken the morning of Feb. 12 by Shasta-McCloud Management Unit Fire Management Officer Paul Zerr.
“Lenticular clouds are stationary clouds ... and normally develop on the downwind side of a mountain or mountain range,” the forest service explained in the post.
“They are most common during the winter months and Mt. Shasta is one of the places to spot them in the state and perhaps the country.”
A similar cloud — only bigger — was photographed last month over an ice-covered Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina. The photographer, Jim Magruder, told McClatchy News “the air felt electric” as he and others stood in a field and watched the cloud form.
Lenticular clouds are generated by “waves in the atmosphere that develop when relatively stable, fast moving air is forced up and over” a land barrier, the National Weather Service says.
“This deflection creates a gravity wave downwind of the topographic barrier not unlike a wave you might generate by throwing a pebble into a pond,” the National Weather Service reports. “They are most often seen in the winter or spring when winds aloft are typically the strongest.”
This story was originally published February 17, 2020 at 10:28 AM with the headline "‘UFO hiding in plain sight’ was a weather phenomenon in California, experts say."