Photo Capture of Strange Shadow in the Sky

So after lurking for 6 months I’ve finally experience something with photo evidence worth joining to post.

This strange event happened yesterday (September 10 around 5:45 pm central time). I was inside at work when my brother called and told me to go outside and see if I could see what he was seeing. He was located about ¼ mile to the West of me in a valley working in his garden when he witnessed what appeared to be a commercial jet flying in what looked like a long shadow. Behind the jet was a white contrail or chemtrail (pretty typical) but in front of the jet appeared to be a shadow or reverse contrail. I went outside and did not see what he was describing right away; there were multiply contrails in the sky but I did not see any jets or “shadows”. As we spoke on the phone he said the jet was going through a small cloud and then he said he could not see the jet anymore. I ran around the building (I came out through the West doors) and looked to the east when I saw this “shadow” clearly in the sky. It appeared to start where a contrail ended and continued in a perfectly straight line to the horizon. My brother has a hobby of taking close up pictures in of nature and I asked if he had his camera with him. He did and started taking pictures of the contrail and “shadow” (the jet was gone). We looked at the shadow for several minutes, I went inside and had our other two employees come out and look at it as additional witnesses, my brother’s girlfriend saw it as well. It appeared perfectly straight and did not seem to disperse like the other contrails in the sky and it appeared more clearly through polarized sunglasses. After staring at it for a few minutes it appeared to flicker in and out, but it’s hard to say if it was just an illusion from staring at it. We looked at the shadow for about 10 minutes; it did not appear to move in the sky relative to clouds or trees. I then went back to work, a half hour later I looked again and it was no longer in the sky.

My brother and I have been racking our brains on what this could be. My only thought is it was the jet stream but I don’t know if you can see the jet stream and we couldn’t find any pictures similar to this on the net.

The following picture my brother took of the “shadow” one of the images is an unedited picture compressed about 50% for webviewing the other is the same image in black & white which shows the contrast and “shadow” more clearly.

I’ve enjoyed this site because there are some very intelligent members who can usually come up with sound explanations. I’d like to hear any ideas out there on what this could be.

Cheers!

Iweegon


Unedited Image


Black & White



[edit on 11-9-2008 by Iweegon]

It looks somewhat like a contrail shadow: www.atoptics.co.uk...

There are other shadow atmospheric phenomenon on this website as well....... all of the them beautiful (to me) and I feel fortunate whenever I am able to see them.

Good write-up you did, by the way, OP.... I like how you described what you saw and didn't put any personal spin into it. I wasn't able to see your image, but copied the properties into my browser to see it. Don't feel bad; I've not yet figured out how to post images either

Cheeres

It really seems to be a shadow from the contrail being cast on the cirrus layer below it.

Contail Shadows

reply to post by argentus


Awwww maaaaaannnnnn!

reply to post by Phage


Happens to me all the time.......... I see something posted, and by the time I've grabbed a resource, it's already been said. I think this might be the first time I was first -- about half the time I find something in process that leads me off on some oddball tangent ........ yah. this is part of what you have to look forward to when you turn 50

Cheers

Wow! A fast reply and an answer that makes perfect sense.

Thanks! Now I just need to figure out how to post images.