What's that in the sky?

Photo: Facebook - James Dennison

No, the aliens are not coming.

But a strange cloud in the sky over Vernon had many people looking to the heavens on Monday.

James Dennison took this photo of a ring-shaped cloud, looking northeast toward the Silver Star area.

Apparently, is what's known as a fallstreak hole.

According to Wikipedia, a fall streak hole is a large circular or elliptical gap that can appear in cirrocumulus or altocumulus clouds. They are also known as hole punch clouds, punch hole clouds, skypunch, canal cloud or cloud holes.

From Wikipedia: "Such holes are formed when the water temperature in the clouds is below freezing but the water has not frozen yet due to the lack of ice nucleation particles. When ice crystals do form, it will set off a domino effect ... causing the water droplets around the crystals to evaporate. This leaves a large, often circular, hole in the cloud.

"It is believed that the introduction of large numbers of tiny ice crystals into the cloud layer sets off this domino effect of evaporation, which creates the hole. The ice crystals can be formed by passing aircraft which often have a large reduction in pressure behind the wing- or propeller-tips. This cools the air very quickly, and can produce a ribbon of ice crystals trailing in the aircraft's wake. These ice crystals find themselves surrounded by droplets and grow quickly ... causing the droplets to evaporate and creating a hole with brush-like streaks of ice crystals below it."

The clouds are not common, but have been photographed in many locations.