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I saw it too.
Just the other day, while on vacation at Lake Mulwala, on the NSW/Victorian border, I looked up and saw a contrail in what was an otherwise clear blue sky. Not a cloud in sight. The temperature was in the mid 30's, and had been for a few days.
Thinking nothing much of it, I went about my business.
A couple of hours later, I noticed thin cloud massing south of that area, then to my surprise, I saw more contrails. Two appeared to be almost hugging each other in one direction, and two were doing the same thing in another direction.
I decided to look more closely at this as the day progressed from noon into the early afternoon, and was quite surprised to see 2 high speed, high altitude aircraft, trailing rapidly expanding contrails, travelling a mere couple of minutes apart, yet in the very same direction, with the contrails almost merging at the point where the trailing aircraft caught up with the contrail of the leader.
Then I turned my head and saw another 2 aircraft doing the very same thing, yet traversing in a different direction. Basically 2 were travelling north/south, and the other 2 were travelling east/west.
I kept an eye out for them over the course of the afternoon and they never seemed to let up, they just kept going and going, covering what appeared to be a very large grid.
As they progressed, the area directly south of them was massing with thin white cloud, which progressively grew more dense and started to darken, in massive contrast to the clear blue sky directly north of the area they were traversing.
At one point, I alerted my brother in law, who fully stopped the speedboat we had been hurtling around in, and he looked up at what I was showing him, which was clearly 4 aircraft, 2 going each way, all clearly visible in the same vista of sky. We could see all 4 of them at the same time as we were pretty much in the middle of Lake Mulwala, thus nothing was obstructing our view, we could see for literally miles all around us.
About an hour later, my brother in law stopped the boat and asked incredulously, "is that rain" and sure enough, small raindrops were falling on and around us for a minute or so, yet directly to the north of us, the sky was crystal clear and blue, with the main mass of rapidly darkening cloud being still far off to the south of where we were. We sat there for a few minutes, taking it all in, then went back to where we were staying.
A few of the other guests then started commenting in passing about the cloud gatherings to the south and we then told them what we had seen, to their obviously skeptical gazes.
As late afternoon overtook us, it was a delight to interupt holiday conversation by pointing up at the aircraft as they appeared, and explaining what we thought was going on, to the now visibly concerned holiday makers, who could then clearly see exactly what we were talking about, as it was happening right before their very own eyes.
It then became a game, with people frequently looking up, searching for the aircraft, which did not disappoint us, for they appeared again and again and again.
The aircraft were too high up to identify, too high even to detect their colour, they just appeared silver or grey. No engine sound was heard at all. If you never happened to be looking up at the right time, you'd have never seen them.
Strange stuff alright.
Just the other day, while on vacation at Lake Mulwala, on the NSW/Victorian border, I looked up and saw a contrail in what was an otherwise clear blue sky. Not a cloud in sight. The temperature was in the mid 30's, and had been for a few days.
Thinking nothing much of it, I went about my business.
A couple of hours later, I noticed thin cloud massing south of that area, then to my surprise, I saw more contrails. Two appeared to be almost hugging each other in one direction, and two were doing the same thing in another direction.
I decided to look more closely at this as the day progressed from noon into the early afternoon, and was quite surprised to see 2 high speed, high altitude aircraft, trailing rapidly expanding contrails, travelling a mere couple of minutes apart, yet in the very same direction, with the contrails almost merging at the point where the trailing aircraft caught up with the contrail of the leader.
Then I turned my head and saw another 2 aircraft doing the very same thing, yet traversing in a different direction. Basically 2 were travelling north/south, and the other 2 were travelling east/west.
I kept an eye out for them over the course of the afternoon and they never seemed to let up, they just kept going and going, covering what appeared to be a very large grid.
As they progressed, the area directly south of them was massing with thin white cloud, which progressively grew more dense and started to darken, in massive contrast to the clear blue sky directly north of the area they were traversing.
At one point, I alerted my brother in law, who fully stopped the speedboat we had been hurtling around in, and he looked up at what I was showing him, which was clearly 4 aircraft, 2 going each way, all clearly visible in the same vista of sky. We could see all 4 of them at the same time as we were pretty much in the middle of Lake Mulwala, thus nothing was obstructing our view, we could see for literally miles all around us.
About an hour later, my brother in law stopped the boat and asked incredulously, "is that rain" and sure enough, small raindrops were falling on and around us for a minute or so, yet directly to the north of us, the sky was crystal clear and blue, with the main mass of rapidly darkening cloud being still far off to the south of where we were. We sat there for a few minutes, taking it all in, then went back to where we were staying.
A few of the other guests then started commenting in passing about the cloud gatherings to the south and we then told them what we had seen, to their obviously skeptical gazes.
As late afternoon overtook us, it was a delight to interupt holiday conversation by pointing up at the aircraft as they appeared, and explaining what we thought was going on, to the now visibly concerned holiday makers, who could then clearly see exactly what we were talking about, as it was happening right before their very own eyes.
It then became a game, with people frequently looking up, searching for the aircraft, which did not disappoint us, for they appeared again and again and again.
The aircraft were too high up to identify, too high even to detect their colour, they just appeared silver or grey. No engine sound was heard at all. If you never happened to be looking up at the right time, you'd have never seen them.
Strange stuff alright.
.
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