California - 01-22-11

Early afternoon I noticed some cool clouds so I grabbed my camera, headed out to the front yard and got four quick shots.

When I viewed them on the laptop a few moments later, I noticed one had an odd mushroom-shaped cloud that wasn't quite the same color as the other clouds.

I thought maybe it was a sonic boom so I perked up the mid tones and put it on my web site as a mystery.

A few hours later I got to wondering, and after checking dozens of available pictures online I found that the only ones that matched my shot were possible UFOs, not fighter jets.

Since I didn't notice the object while I was outside, I have no detailed info on its movements. One thing I found interesting was a purplish arc at the edge of the picture behind the object, it isn't on any other pics I have taken with that camera and doesn't strike me as flare.

Had I taken the shot a fraction of a second later we may have seen something interesting trailing that craft.

Attached are two photos, one is the full shot with object circled in the lower right, the tones have been adjusted for best color but that is all that was done to that shot.

One is a cropped and enlarged view of the object taken straight from the original picture, no touching up has been done on that shot.