[extropy-chat] Strange Phenomenon - Cloud Rings

[kevinfreels.com]

I saw something extremely odd, but exciting today that I can't explain. It was a pair of cloud rings in the sky.



I was traveling north on the highway from Evansville, Indiana to Princeton, Indiana going from my old house to the one I just purchased. The distance between city limits is approximately 22 miles. 



As a student pilot and a builder of amateur rockets, I spend a great deal of time observing the sky and calculating distance. I am not great at it, but better than the average Joe who only looks up AFTER a helicopter has flown over his head. 



When I began heading north, the rings were north east of me just above the horizon. I eastimated the distance north to be just about 20 miles with the clouds at an altitude of about 10,000-15,000 feet AGL. The general texture was like that of alto-cumulus.



There were two distinct rings almost right on top of each other. I estimate the rings were about 3/4 mile in diameter and each was about 300-500 ft thick. The rings were almost perfectly round, not spherical. They were consistent in thickness all the way around. Both rings had a small break on the side facing me. I really wish I had had my camera! My camera phone was entirely inadequate for the task due to it's short focal length.



I kept watching it on the way home. I expected it to be some kind of optical illusion, but by the time I arrived home, I was in a position just to the west of it. The rings had drifted a bit oblong, but they were still intact. The side with the small break in it was no longer visable because it was no longer facing me, but my initial estimates on size and position still seemed accurate. The rings, two of them stacked, were far too thick and low for contrails, so I have to rule that out. SO what caused it? Any ideas?



This was a really amazing sight! I came home and G**gled a few things and didn;t come up with much. Here are some links to give you an idea of what it looked like. The first one gives you an idea of the general appearance, but without the tail and much more "puffy". They were also closer to the ground and not so "whispy". The caption says "stratospheric" but it is possibly a contrail distorted by high level winds. The one I saw today was not, and as I said, it kept it's shape for at least the 25 minutes that I was driving on the highway.



http://wmb1.com/images/scienc2-3_1.jpg



http://www.komotv.com/weather/viewer_pics/images/5753-cloud1.jpg Here is a single ring. The rings I saw today seemed to have a much larger diameter and were more "firm" I could not see through t hem at all and the edges were more defined.



http://www.ventephoto.com/imageb.htm I can almost see how this happened. There are no mountains in Evansville, Indiana. We're lucky to see a decent hill.  This is nothing at all like what I saw today.



http://aguila1.vtrbandaancha.net/imagenes/life.jpg This is pretty neat, but again, not as perfect. And there is only one. At the time I thought it was neat, but entirely explainable.



http://mikuna.image.pbase.com/u45/w_d_p/small/29130260.skyrings.jpg Here's an optical illusion caused by backlighting of the clouds. For 16 years I was a professional photographer. (Moved on to new interests) I know the difference. The sun was in the southwest whiile the cloud was in the northeast.



I found some other things but there were about UFOs and such. Is anyone here familiar with this phenomenon? My zip code is 47711 if you want to wunderground the conditions for today. I'd like to have some idea of how this occurred!



Kevin Freels














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