'Fallstreak hole' in Perth sky puzzles locals

Amber Johnston
Perth Now
Wed, 08 Oct 2014 09:22 UTC

© Glenn Rogers

Perth skies Tuesday morning

A mysterious cloud caused a stir over Perth this morning. Several PerthNow readers have woken to a sight described as "out of this world" after spotting a puzzling UFO-shaped cloud in the sky.

The unusual cloud formation even had experts baffled, with the Bureau of Meteorology taking some time to investigate what the strange phenomenon may be.

© Daniel James Hall

Over Welshpool before 8am.

Anyone fearing an alien invasion can now have their minds put at rest as experts at the Bureau of Meteorology have confirmed their original suspicions are true - the strange phenomenon sighted in Perth skies this morning was in fact a Fallstreak Cloud.

According to the bureau's Neil Bennett, the cloud - which was sitting high above Perth Airport - contained extremely cold water particles.

As air crafts flew through the cloud, the particles in their jet exhaust caused this extremely cold water to instantly freeze.

The newly frozen ice crystals inside the cloud became a lot heavier then the cloud itself.

As a result, the heavier ice crystals fell through the cloud, leaving an usual hole - just like the one Perth locals reported seeing this morning.

A fallstreak hole is a cloud formation that gives the appearance of strange holes in the sky's cloud layer.

The unusual sight is causing quite a storm on Twitter with many locals continuing to speculate that the cloud may be evidence of something a lot more sinister.

Mr Bennett said: "It doesn't occur often so it's no surprise that it's causing quite a stir".

See Gallery of snapshots of the punched cloud in Perth here

Comment: It seems that if the official hypothesis of fallstreak holes recounted above were true, the phenomena should occur more frequently with our cooling upper atmosphere and heavy air traffic. Besides the hypothesis does not account for the circular shape which seems more like a shock wave from above than ice crystals falling from a planes vapor trail. Consider the recent years exponential growth in incoming fireballs heavily impacting our upper atmosphere, a fact that mainstream science usually shies away from or tries to cover up with 'everything is normal and understood' stories, as demonstrated above. The probability of this phenomena being a product of incoming comet debris is high.