Mysterious Black Ring Floating Across the Sky Baffles Weather Experts
A mysterious black ring, which appeared in the sky above Britain on Sunday, has baffled weather experts. Dubbed as a "smoke vortex," the phenomenon terrified witnesses who spotted the huge ring floating across the sky near Birkenshaw, West Yorkshire.
The strange circle resembled an extremely well-defined giant smoke ring. A photo of the amazing occurrence was taken by Kimberly Robinson, 22, while traveling down the M62 highway with her boyfriend, Danny Cooper, 26. "Me and my boyfriend were driving today and noticed a black flying ring in the sky," she said. "It looked a bit smokey but the shape was a solid ring," Robinson added.
A spokesman for the Meteorological Office couldn't provide a concrete explanation for the sighting. "We have had a look at it and cannot think of anything metrological that would have caused such a phenomenon," he said. "It looks reasonably clear, with fair-weather cloud that looks like it has bubbled up," the spokesman went on to say.
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The phenomenon raised conspiracy theories of alien activity among UFO enthusiasts. But Nick Pope, who used to investigate UFOs and other mysteries for the Ministry of Defense, offered a saner explanation. "Despite exotic theories about UFOs, aliens, or portals to other dimensions, I believe there's a decidedly down-to-earth explanation here," he said.
According to Pope, a "ring-shaped vortex" can be formed by air and smoke (or steam). It is usually produced by large explosions through a circular structure, like a smokestack. Most of these sights are caused by pyrotechnic effects. True enough, it turned out that a battle re-enactment took place in the area that day.
This was confirmed by Sarah Clarke, the organizer for the Yorkshire Wartime Experience, who said they had their WWI and WWII re-enactments on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. The vortex that was seen in the sky was actually a plume of smoke from the pyrotechnics of the battle re-enactment.
