Circles in the sky over Germany - - - Any rational explanation?

So this morning about my business i noticed some odd "contrails" and felt they were worthy of discussion.

for the record....i have probably hundreds of photos of this kind but since all we can do is speculate what they might mean i normally dont even bother....

until someone has the money and the will to put together a remote controlled drone capable of flying those altitudes and taking air samples as they come out of the planes theres no way we will be able to PROVE anything.

Nevertheless....i thought you all might find these interesting.

can anyone posit some REASONABLE, rational explanations for why planes would make such shapes in the sky?


photo one....on my morning walk i noticed this and thought it was interesting.....at first you will notice it looks almost just like two separate lines that curve slightly towards each other on one end.....it didnt make sense to me until later that this was exactly the same shape as i would see later in the morning....roughly half hour to an hour later in fact....on my train ride through the city.








photos 2,3 and 4 are all taken on the LEFT side of my train through the window........you might seee that one of the ovals/circles trails off in the distance where it starts to get very hazy/gauzy








photo 5 was a surprise....due to the fact i was sitting on the left side of the train i hadnt even bothered to look out the other side. It was only after i got off the train and was walking into town that i noticed there were shapes ALSO on the right side of the train MUCH FURTHER away from the other circles.





To give you some perspective...the first photo is taken near where i live....photos 2,3, and 4 are taken a couple kilometers away and the last one is taken maybe another couple kilometers away but in an OPPOSITE part of the sky as the first four photos.

the shapes in the sky are probably separated by tens of kilometers of actual distance if you were INSIDE the planes, but due to the perspective differences of being on the ground they are all easily visible within a few kilometers of actual on the ground traveling.


thoughts?


EDIT: This morning the sky was perfectly clear and blue except for those first few contrails. After about an hour i started to notice haze forming around the contrails. I told my wife...."you watch, by this afternoon the entire sky will be totally overcast". I just NOW went to look outside the window (its been 3 hours)....TOTALLY GREY OVERCAST and COLD!!!! It was so warm early this morning you could wear a t shirt......now you need a coat!!!! Seriously....WTF??? Is this normal?

a reply to: tribal

possibly aircraft doing surveillance over the city.

maybe some law enforcement / anti terrorist action.

They tend to fly in loops over what they are targeting.

post what city state you are in. maybe we can see something on one of the flight tracking websites.

Are you near an airport?

I've seen contrail circles/triangles/boxes in two cases.

One, if it's a "racetrack"/holding pattern over an airport, if they can't land immediately planes will sometimes be sent in a long obround pattern. I've occasionally seen planes doing very very large circles over an airport they can't put down on.

Two, over Huntsville, I've seen "undocumented airplanes" doing oddball patterns whilst doing check flights. Sometimes that involves them changing altitudes up and down as well, so you can get "dotted line circles" or whatnot.

Holding pattern "orbits". There was probably a delay of some kind at the airport they were inbound to.

Fairly common. Most times you don't see contrails associated with them because they're at lower altitudes, but they happen quite a bit.

a reply to: Bedlam

Thats correct, it is a holding pattern.
here is an example of said pattern:

originally posted by: Macenroe82
a reply to: Bedlam

Thats correct, it is a holding pattern.
here is an example of said pattern:

And this. Behold!

originally posted by: tribal
...since all we can do is speculate what they might mean i normally dont even bother....

I speculate it's a bog-standard aircraft holding pattern.

EDIT: This morning the sky was perfectly clear and blue except for those first few contrails. After about an hour i started to notice haze forming around the contrails. I told my wife...."you watch, by this afternoon the entire sky will be totally overcast". I just NOW went to look outside the window (its been 3 hours)....TOTALLY GREY OVERCAST and COLD!!!! It was so warm early this morning you could wear a t shirt......now you need a coat!!!! Seriously....WTF??? Is this normal?

Yes. Yes it is.

The reason is easy. The conditions that produce persistent contrails are the same that generally (although not 100%) presage a sudden change in weather. You see saturated upper atmosphere conditions along with an overriding cold front aloft. That's often associated with solid cloudy skies to come in 24 hours, and often precipitation or a temp change.

You will also often see cloud formations that look like this:



Cirrus and cirrocumulus or nimbocumulus mixed will say "Hey, I bet you see persistent contrails if planes fly over, and right after, you're going to see some rain"

a reply to: Bedlam

i can buy the holding pattern explanation.....

however the sky was perfectly clear this morning except for the contrails....there were no clouds, cirrus cumulous or otherwise.

Near the Day of Purification, cobwebs will criss cross the sky. -- Hopi Indian Prophecy

originally posted by: Bedlam

originally posted by: Macenroe82
a reply to: Bedlam

Thats correct, it is a holding pattern.
here is an example of said pattern:

And this. Behold!

and people say UFO's don't exist. Your diagram clearly shows two unidentified delta wing craft, clearly reverse engineered from aliens, about to intercept a giant red foo fighter

But yes, 'tis but a holding pattern tribal, old chap

a reply to: Macenroe82

Good try, but this is the landing pattern, not the holding pattern.

a reply to: constant_thought

Also, besides holding, this is a similar flight pattern for tankers, so they could have been conducting in-flight refueling operations, at altitudes that were optimal for contrail formation.

kind of like this:
ivao.aero...

a reply to: cosmania

Constant Phoenix has been flying out of Mildenhall with tanker support. They're officially taking background readings over Europe.

a reply to: Zaphod58

do you know what kind of background readings? any source you can share?

a reply to: tribal

The official story is that they're updating background radiation readings. Constant Phoenix monitors radiation levels around the world. In an amazing coincidence though there has been increased I-131 monitored over the last couple months.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: Zaphod58

i remember hearing about that....from Norway right? but the story was that it was a minuscule amount less than the normal daily allowance or something.

a reply to: tribal

The levels were low enough not to cause health concerns, but they're still going on. They were first detected over Norway and spread to France, Poland, and the whole area. Constant Phoenix has been seen over all of that area. They recovered in Germany after one mission.

originally posted by: intrptr

Near the Day of Purification, cobwebs will criss cross the sky. -- Hopi Indian Prophecy

The dead shall live, the living die
and music shall untune the sky

Dryden

a reply to: Bedlam

Cats and dogs living together!

Peter Venkman

originally posted by: Bedlam

originally posted by: tribal
...since all we can do is speculate what they might mean i normally dont even bother....

I speculate it's a bog-standard aircraft holding pattern.

uld wear a t shirt......now you need a coat!!!! Seriously....WTF??? Is this normal?

Yes. Yes it is.

The reason is easy. The conditions that produce persistent contrails are the same that generally (although not 100%) presage a sudden change in weather. You see saturated upper atmosphere conditions along with an overriding cold front aloft. That's often associated with solid cloudy skies to come in 24 hours, and often precipitation or a temp change.

Cirrus and cirrocumulus or nimbocumulus mixed will say "Hey, I bet you see persistent contrails if planes fly over, and right after, you're going to see some rain"

Right on. In other words, BTW cirrus clouds do not a con/chem-trail make. I've been trying to make this point with my neighbors. Afraid the funny green leaf or something has prevented certain folks from learning a bit more about the weather.