Daily Times

A space scientist has said that the strange shiny object seen by a Pakistan International Airline (PIA) pilot in the sky during a domestic flight earlier this week was not a unidentified flying object (UFO) but a lenticular cloud.

Punjab University space scientist Javed Sami explained on Saturday that commercial pilots often observe such clouds. They are stationary clouds that often look like a lens or saucer.

Videos of the ‘UFO’ cloud had gone viral on social media earlier this week after a PIA pilot taking a flight from Karachi to Lahore reported a ‘rare sighting of a very shiny, saucer-shaped’ object he believed could be a UFO.

The Punjab University space scientist said planes usually fly at an altitude of 37,000 feet. He said the PIA plane was at an altitude of 1,000 feet when the ‘UFO’ cloud was spotted. He said, “If you take a picture of an object at a speed of 500 to 900 kilometres per hour, its shape spreads.”

Lenticular clouds are stationary clouds that form mostly in the troposphere, typically in perpendicular alignment to the wind direction. They are often comparable in appearance to a lens or saucer.

Earlier this week, a PIA pilot captured a picture of a very shiny saucer-shaped object in the sky near Rahim Yar Khan while operating domestic flight PK-304 from Karachi to Lahore. He said it was a UFO.

According to the pilot, the thing he spotted in the sky was not a planet but could be a “space station” or an “artificial planet” near the earth. Aside from the pilot, many residents of Rahim Yar Khan also spotted the shiny ‘UFO’ and made videos of it.

A PIA spokesperson had said that the ‘UFO’ was spotted on January 23 by the pilot during a Lahore-bound flight from Karachi. It was seen at around 4pm near Rahim Yar Khan.

It cannot be said for certain whether it was a UFO or something else, the spokesperson said, adding that the captain of the flight had immediately reported the sighting back to the control room.