Spanning every stretch of the globe, there are countless instances of strange aerial phenomena that are seen flitting around in the skies above us on a daily basis. While the majority of these are explainable, there are a few occurrences that remain baffling to such an extent that we are forced to muster terms like Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon for them; while many strange manifestations seem natural in origin, we are from time to time also treated to airborne weirdness that could just as easily constitute categorization in the “UFO” camp, often appearing to have manufactured or technological origin.

The video linked above represents just this sort of anomalous behavior… as one can see, the clouds this observer managed to film certainly aren’t behaving in any way consistent with average, everyday atmospheric phenomenon. Does this represent something truly anomalous and unexplained, or could there be any sort of logical explanation? As wild as what we’re seeing in this video seems, the answer to this atmospheric riddle may surprise you…

Indeed, the mysterious “dancing clouds” seen in the video above look very otherworldly; readers of this blog might even consider such things as UFO invisibility, which I’ve often referenced in past articles and numerous other publications. But the unique behavior we’re witnessing here is no UFO, in this instance at least. Instead, what we’re seeing is the result of a unique combination of atmospheric ice crystals orienting themselves around electric discharges.

Slashdot Daily News carried the story today, quoting The Bad Astronomer of Discover News fame, who said a meteorologist had provided him with the following explanation:

“(He) told me it was due to ice crystals re-aligning when the cloud’s electric field discharged. It’s pretty amazing to watch, and a great example of how many cool things happen right in front of us that we never notice.”

Amazing indeed… and just to show what other kinds of natural phenomenon can easily appear to resemble UFOs, take the following video footage of a volcano emitting a perfect smoke ring, with special consideration given to reports of UFOs resembling “jellyfish.” While volcano smoke-rings are hardly an everyday phenomenon, what we see below nonetheless illustrates how natural phenomenon can indeed appear to mimic nature’s other (even invertebrate) aspects:

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