Yesterday I posted photographs of a strange object in the sky. Through the magic of Twitter I connected with aviation enthusiast @shorsley who explained that the object was a 4 engined aircraft leaving a vapour trail. An optical illusion made it look as though it was travelling straight down when it was in fact flying away from me. The angle of the sun in the sky created big shadows, making the trail appear larger than it was.
Apparently I’m not the only one to get confused over such events. In 2010 people in California witnessed a similar trail and suspected it was a missile being launched from the sea.
It turned out to be just an aeroplane – the optical illusion is explained in this article.
I’m slightly disappointed that I didn’t witness a meteorite falling to Earth, but it was beautiful.