Clouds
Representation. Clouds above a corn field. Skitterphoto/Pixabay

KEY POINTS

  • Fallstreak holes were spotted in San Antonio and Luling Thursday
  • The "hole punch clouds" are formed when water droplets freeze and fall
  • Fallstreak holes have been mistaken for alien invasions in the past

Rare cloud formations sometimes mistaken for unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, appeared above Texas this week.

Fallstreak holes, also sometimes called "hole punch clouds," were spotted in the San Antonio sky Thursday, local news outlet KSAT 12 reported.

The clouds were also seen in the city of Luling on the same day by a KXAN viewer.

Fallstreak holes are large circular or elliptical gaps that can appear in cirrocumulus or altocumulus clouds, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

"High to mid-level clouds, such as altocumulus, are often composed of tiny water droplets that are much colder than freezing but have yet to freeze. These 'supercooled' water droplets need a 'reason' to freeze, which usually comes in the form of ice crystals. Planes passing through the cloud layer can bring these ice crystals," the agency explained on its website.

"Once the ice crystals are introduced, the water droplet quickly freeze, grow and start to fall. A hole is left behind, which will start to expand outward as neighboring droplets start to freeze," the NWS added.

Fallstreak holes have reportedly been mistaken for alien invasions in the past.

Other rare cloud formations, such as the lenticular cloud, have also been mislabeled as being extraterrestrial in nature.

In a related story, the United States government analyzed a total of 366 new reports of UFOs, officially known as unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), since early 2021, documents showed.

About 247 new UAP reports were submitted to the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) since March 5 of that year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) said in an unclassified report.

An additional 119 UAP accounts on events that occurred before March 5, 2021 have been discovered or reported as well.

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Among all the new UAP reports, an initial analysis characterized 163 as balloons or balloon-like entities, 26 as unmanned aircraft system (UAS) or UAS-like entities and the remaining six were attributed to clutter.

Meanwhile, 171 reports remained uncharacterized and unattributed.

The Department of Defense and the U.S. Intelligence Community are supposedly working together to report, identify and resolve UAP events.

fallstreak-hole
A strange cloud formation that appeared in the sky on Monday over southeast Australia became known as the “rapture” cloud. Scientists said it was a fallstreak hole, also known as a hole punch cloud. Pictured, a fallstreak hole visible over Omarama, New Zealand, in May 2006. Creative Commons