This is the second sky mystery I’ve posted to my newsletter. If you’d like to read the first case, click here.
This second case starts with an email sent to our 2 Helps You. Terri VanBuren from Houston wrote: “I took a picture of the sky this morning while walking. I’ve never seen anything like it. What causes it?”
At the same time, Dan Crockett in Houston sent this picture via our Click2Pins.
The Mystery of the Line in the Sky:
At first glance, it looked like something out of a sci-fi movie, a strange line cutting across the sky. To solve it, I had to treat this like a case file.
Step 1: Have you seen this before? The answer: yes… but not quite like this.
Step 2: looking for a reason why: Why would the sky look this way? That’s when the pieces started falling into place.
The missing clue: topography: Houston is flat. No hills, no valleys, no mountains. So when you look toward the horizon, you can’t see far. In these pictures, you see houses, buildings, and a line of cars. Whatever is happening beyond the horizon is hidden from us, and that’s the key to cracking this mystery.
The big reveal: a cloud shadow: The line in the sky isn’t smoke, it isn’t a trail, and it isn’t anything out of the ordinary. It’s a shadow, cast by a cloud that’s blocking the sun. Without the cloud in the frame, all you’d see is the mysterious line. But thanks to this photo from Sugar Land, sent in by Sam Olivares, the mystery is solved.
The meteorological definition:
Now that we’ve unmasked the culprit, let’s give it its proper name. Most often at sunset, though sometimes at sunrise, when irregularly shaped cumulus clouds hug the horizon and the sky above is mostly clear, something remarkable happens. Shafts of light burst through, creating what meteorologists call crepuscular rays.
The word crepuscular comes from the Latin crepusculum, meaning twilight, a fitting name, since these rays only appear when the sun is low on the horizon. But they’ve picked up another, more poetic nickname over the years: angel rays, because it looks like God’s glory is shining through the clouds.
Like any good mystery, our sky phenomenon goes by more than one name. Sometimes, people call these beams Jacob’s ladder. The nickname comes from the Bible, where Jacob dreams of a ladder reaching into the light of heaven, with angels moving up and down its rungs.
The sky can create its own shimmering staircase of light. Janet Sherrill captured this very effect in her photo, which she shared with us through Click2Pins. Her shot shows the “laddering” perfectly.
You are always welcome to send your pictures and videos to Click2Pins. Who knows, your photo may be the next Anthony Cloud Mystery!