Mystery vapour trails 1Twitter
Drivers in Wales were left confused after a strange aircraft was seen circling the skies over a motorway leaving odd trails of vapour.
The weird streams of clouds were pictured by motorists driving along the A55 at Rhuallt near St Asaph this morning.
Meanwhile a similar unidentified aircraft, which may have been the same one, was also seen over the Llyn Peninsula, The Mirror reports.
Mystery vapour trailsTwitter
A number of people have claimed that the vapour trails could have been made by a commercial flight circling in the sky while waiting for permission to land at a nearby airport.
Weirdly though The Daily Post reports that a search of real-time flight information websites show no sign of any aircraft flying over North Wales at the time.
A motorist said:
The aircraft was flying in wide circles as I drove along the A55. It made a couple of wide circles and then headed off towards the west. I stopped in a layby at Rhuallt to take a picture on my mobile phone.
Sandra Barford of Nefyn tweeted a photograph of the clouds saying: “Weird.. flying in circles over Pwllheli .” She added that the picture was taken around 9.25am and she believed there were two aircraft.
We do know that there were three Hawk aircraft airborne from RAF Valley in the morning but they flew further south and overland although one was seen flying north towards the Isle of Man.
Despite this these bizarre clouds are more than likely that just contrails.
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Contrails are clouds formed when water vapour condenses and freezes around small particles that exist in aircraft exhaust forming the trails.
Tony Simpson, an aviation export, has said that while commercial aircraft circling is unusual there’s a relatively normal explanation.
There could have been a technical problem putting the plane into a circular holding pattern while the pilots try and sort out the issue.
He added:
But it may be the aircraft is approaching a busy airport earlier than expected and is marking time further away than the usual holding areas.
So there we have it, the clouds may be not as menacing as they first appear…
