A giant ring-shaped cloud that startled residents of a city in south-eastern China has spared widespread online debates after it was captured hovering above the night sky.
An unnamed local filmed the peculiar shape in the skies above Fuzhou, a city in Fujian Province, on the evening of 29th August.
In the video – shared later on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok – the massive ‘ring cloud’ is seen slowly emerging from behind the top of tall buildings.
It begins to vanish almost as quickly as it appeared, drifting along the strong wind that seems to be blowing at that very moment.
An eyewitness said the cloud was only visible for five minutes but long enough to catch the attention of many who said they had never seen anything like it.
The odd appearance sparked lengthy discussions on social media, with netizens attempting to guess how it was formed and where it came from.
One Douyin user titled ‘Small bottle cap.’ said in a comment: “This must be a sign of a typhoon coming, and it may be very severe this time.”
While user ‘Yingzi’ said: “I think I saw this same smoke cloud when I passed by a fireworks show at Longwangtou.”
Another user titled ‘Jiang Liuxin’ wrote: “It’s so scary, like a ghost floating by.”
And user ‘preserved egg’ jokingly remarked: “Aliens must smoke too.”
Meteorological experts later claimed that the cloud is a rare atmospheric optical phenomenon, typically formed through the refraction of light by ice crystals in the atmosphere.
A staff member from the Pingtan County Meteorological Observatory said: “This is likely is caused by non-meteorological reasons, possibly by aircraft vapour trails or other flying objects in the air.”
