2018-06-23 - Saskatoon, SK - Disk

Possible disk, but wouldn't rule out meteorological phenomenom

I was sitting in a downtown Saskatoon park listening to bands from our local jazz festival on Saturday evening. But I was also keeping an eye on the weather, as there were thunderstorms in the forecast and the clouds had begun to look threatening.

At about 9:30 pm or so, I was watching one dark cloud rolling in, nearly overhead. As I watched, for a brief moment I saw what appeared to be the leading edge of a disk-shaped object protrude at about a 45 degree angle from the base of the cloud. I saw it for less than a second, but it appeared as though it were a solid object with rectangular or square raised areas or panels. Then it was suddenly shrouded in the outline of a dark cloud. Imagine a disk parallel with the ground dipping forward to poke through the clouds, resembling a flattened smile.

The dark cloud followed the general outline of the that I had just seen. I though perhaps that I may have simply seen a cloud and my mind played tricks on me. But I kept watching it. Over the course of the next 45 minutes or so, the curved dark cloud remained stationary, even as the stormcloud and other clouds in the sky moved steadily westward. It also stayed the same shape and size, even as the other clouds grew changed shape. Still, I was more or less convinced I was watching some sort of weather phenomenon.

Around 10:15 pm, I watched the thin dark cloud slowly wheel in a clockwise direction, taking about 30 seconds to turn about 90 degrees from its original orientation (imagine a disk now perpendicular to the ground, with the bottom edge protruding through the clouds). Then, it slowly slid to the southeast and retreated into the lighter stormclouds, even as those other clouds were still drifting westward on the wind.


((ADDENDUM FROM WITNESS))

Possible disk, but wouldn't rule out meteorological phenomenom (addendum)

Addendum to my report sent a short while ago: I forgot to give a description of the apparent size of the object (or whatever it was). The phenomenon occurred at about 40 - 50 degrees above the horizon. Given the low cloud cover, it would have been relatively nearby. The length of the visible portion of the dark object (or cloud) was about equal to the width of the palm of my hand held at arm's length. Its width would have been about as wide as my index finger held at arm's length.

As I first sighted it, my initial impression was that it somewhat resembled the leading edge of the saucer section of the USS Enterprise from the 1960s original Star Trek series - a disk with a blunt leading edge. That is one reason that I thought I might have imagined it. It was dark, metallic gray in color.

Given the curvature of the object or cloud that I watched for about 45 minutes, if it was part of a disk, the visible portion would have been about 1/8 to 1/12 of the circumference. The rest, if it really was disk shaped, would have been above the base of the clouds.

((END ADDENDUM))