The origin of stationary clouds, which are often mistaken for UFOs, is revealed

The Operational Land Imager (OLI) remote sensing device on board the American Landsat 8 satellite received

images of soft-edged clouds hovering over the Eisenhower Range in the Transantarctic Mountains of Antarctica. Their range is limited to the north by the Priestley Glacier and to the south by the Reeves Glacier. 

Joshua's images of NASA Earth ObservatoryStevens using USGS Landsat data. Image Interpretation by Bastiaan Van Diedenhoven (NASA GISS / Columbia) and Jan Lehnerts (CU Boulder)

The clouds show signs of lenticular clouds,which can form along the crests of leeward or mountain waves. They form when a fast moving wind is disturbed by a topographic barrier - in this case, the Eisenhower Ridge. The air is forced to rise above the mountains, causing waves of rising and falling air from the leeward side of the ridge. The rising streams are cooled and the water vapor condenses into clouds. Conversely, falling air leads to evaporation.

Adding to their mystique isthat this type of cloud seems to stay in place—sometimes for hours, defying strong horizontal winds. In fact, clouds constantly gather around the crest of leeward waves, and then disperse a little further.

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Leeward waves in meteorology - a type of standingatmospheric waves. They are characterized by periodic changes in atmospheric pressure and air temperature and are caused by its vertical displacement, for example, as a result of orographic rise when the wind overcomes a mountain ridge (in this case, leeward waves are called "mountain waves").

Created jointly by NASA and USGS - the US Geological Survey.