A cloud that resembles a UFO has been spotted in the same location for more than 100 years.
The phenomenon occurs around the Taieri Plain, an area of agricultural land, to the south west of Dunedin, New Zealand.
While many may feel creeped out by the unusual appearance, locals have come to affectionately called it the ‘Taieri pet’.
People in the towns of Middlemarch and Hyde report often seeing the strange cloud formation.
Scientists from Nasa were able to capture the spectacle last month in satellite imagery.
Pilot Geoff Beckett has also seen the cloud before while on the flight deck of an aircraft around the area.
He told the Otago Daily Times: ‘I’ve seen some remarkable cloud formations but nothing comes close to that.
‘Twenty years flying, this is the most impressive cloud I have seen.
‘I thought that looks pretty interesting. As we drew up next to it we asked to go to the right to get around it. You don’t want to fly through one of those. The turbulence would be horrific. That’d be bad news.
‘The picture shows a good sense of scale, but when you’re there at nearly 20,000 feet yourself it just kept on going up.’
The earliest record of this cloud being detected was on October 29, 1896.
This was published by the now defunct Otago Witness newspaper which wrote: ‘On the Sunday night our faithful prognosticator, “The Taieri Pet,” put in an appearance, so we knew we were in for a good blow.
‘And we were not cheated of it, as it commenced on Tuesday and kept constantly at it till the end of the week, parching everything up and blowing hundreds of acres of newly-sewn grass seed away.’
This cloud formation is known as a elongated altocumulus standing lenticular cloud (ASLC).
They are often described as looking like pancakes or stacks of pancakes. They can be smooth or made up of small elements grouped together.
These clouds form when moist, stable air flows over a mountain range, causing water vapor to condense into vertical layers.
The wind direction and the mountain range must be more or less perpendicular to each other.
They also form in the troposphere, at a height of 6,500–16,500 feet.
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