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In an episode of “Tercer Milenio” premiering on YouTube on March 27, 2022, host Jaime Maussan investigated the topic of UFOs which have the appearance of clouds. From his set, which looks like a bridge of a spacecraft with windows overlooking earth, the abuelo-looking Maussan emphasized that what we were about to see were not cloud formations that looked like alien craft in the skies over Mexico, but alien craft that either disguised themselves as clouds or tried to hide behind various saucer-shaped cloud formations. Many Mexicans have mixed feelings about Jaime Maussan. Some critics say that he dramatizes things for views and clicks and what he presents is unsubstantiated hearsay. Others believe that Maussan is a national treasure. While some may criticize his methods, delivery, source material and conclusions, no one can argue that he is one of the most tireless UFO researchers in the world. He has been investigating strange phenomena, with a specific emphasis in UFOS, for decades and has appeared on Mexican television discussing strange topics since the early 1970s. In April of 2004 Maussan made history when he was contacted by the Mexican government to help them investigate a famous UFO incident, making him part of the first official, publicly acknowledged investigation of the UFO phenomenon by any national government in world history. For more information about the April 2004 Mexican UFO investigation, please see Mexico Unexplained Episode number 67 titled, “The Mexican Airforce Versus the Flying Suacers.” https://mexicounexplained.com/mexican-air-force-vs-flying-saucers/ Because of Maussan’s longstanding reputation, his presentation on the whole notion of cloud UFOs reached an audience of millions. While this famous Mexican UFO investigator’s show was eye-opening to many, the whole phenomenon of cloud UFOs has been discussed at length before by others, even though mass sightings of these strange clouds are relatively recent.
The notion that UFOs could exist either as clouds or hidden inside artificially created ones generated so much interest in Mexico in late 2021 that the Mexican news media giant Televisa even covered the subject on their web site, Noticieros Televisa. On October 25, 2021, science reporter Alina Escobedo posted a brief article in the “Weather and Natural Phenomena” section of the site titled:
“They capture a cloud in the form of a UFO, what is it?”
The subheading reads: “It seems something from another world, but we explain what it is.”
Following is an English translation of that article:
“Photos were shared on social networks showing a cloud in the shape of an Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) that appeared in the Cofre de Perote and Xalapa in Veracruz. Despite the surprise, there is an explanation for this phenomenon.
This cloud appeared over Cofre de Perote during the early morning hours of October 25. A similar cloud was also seen in Xalapa. Some of the users thought that it was something from another planet. However, they are not extraterrestrial visitors. The reasons behind this phenomenon are much more earthly.
According to the Civil Protection Secretariat of Veracruz, this type of cloud has nothing to do with a UFO. Rather, it is a lenticular-like cloud.
What is a lenticular cloud? This type of cloud appears in mountainous places that form in the lower layers of the atmosphere. They are characterized by the fact that they remain in the same place. The air circulates upwards and when it goes towards the top of the mountain, it causes the cloud to take on that unusual disk shape.
In the words of meteorologist Federico Acevedo Rosas, these clouds are totally normal: ‘First of all, we need the atmosphere to be stable and for there to be a thermal inversion where the stratum can be maintained and take on these characteristics, but if the atmosphere is not stable, they break down when there is convection.’
For his part, the meteorologist of the Civil Protection Secretariat, Emmanuel Eleazar Gómez, stated: ‘It develops due to descending winds that go over the mountainside and form a kind of donut or disk.’
It is precisely that very particular shape of this type of cloud that makes it possible to think that it is a UFO. Many have been fooled by these clouds, but they are still a sign of the wonderful natural phenomena of our planet.”
End of article.
In the comments section of this article, since removed, an anonymous commenter stated that he had lived in the part of Veracruz referenced in the article and also at the edge of a mountain range in the Mexican state of México but never remembers seeing such unusual clouds as a little boy. Someone else made a follow-up comment that there are many “new” clouds that can be seen in the sky today, including those made from supposed jet fuel exhaust, also known in the “truther” and “conspiracy” communities as “chemtrails.” As an interesting aside, in the year 2017 the World Meteorological Organization, or WMO, did update their Cloud Atlas and included 12 new cloud types. One of them, called Homomutatus admittedly comes from whatever it is that is coming out of the backs or wings of jet aircraft. According to the new atlas, “Homomutatus occurs when persistent contrails are observed over a period of time and under the influence of strong upper winds, causing them to grow and spread out over a larger portion of sky.” Not to get too off track, this does not speak to the saucer-shaped atmospheric formations called “Lenticular Clouds” which have been in the WMO Cloud Atlas for many decades now. The appearance of “new clouds” that can now be classified is something worth noting, however.
The alleged cloud referenced by Alina Escobedo in her Noticieros Televisa article was not an unusual occurrence. There are several other instances of these types of clouds appearing in Mexican skies, and sometimes not popping up in the areas that scientists say would be “normal” for them, like near steep-sloped mountains.
In July of 2004, a saucer-shaped cloud suddenly appeared over the skies of Puebla and was captured on many cell phone cameras. These photos and videos were quickly uploaded to social media platforms which were relatively new in 2004. The cloud looked like a classic flying saucer from 1950s alien invasion movies and even seemed to rotate in some of the shaky video clips still available online. The 2004 Puebla cloud saucer is one of the oldest internet images of this type of cloud, critics argue, because before that time very few Mexicans had cell phones or if they did, they had limited or no camera function. Critics conclude that the increase in awareness of these types of clouds does not mean that there are more of these clouds appearing in the skies or that this is a new phenomenon. It just means that cameras are more readily available to point up toward the sky, and the whole world can see these images instantaneously because of the pervasiveness of the internet and people’s social media addictions.
On December 5, 2005, a woman identified online as Pilar gave a report of a “cloud UFO” to a local news outlet in the state of Tlaxcala. The atmospheric anomaly appeared over the volcanic mountain the ancient Nahua peoples called Matlalcueitl, which translates to “Lady of the Blue Skirt.” Matlalcueitl was a local goddess of rain and song, and her sacred mountain has long been a place of alleged paranormal activity from sightings of little people to strange glowing orbs appearing in the sky above it. Today, most modern Mexicans call this mountain La Malinche in honor of the indigenous woman who helped Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés. Here is what the woman known only as Pilar said about her encounter with a cloud UFO near the Tlaxcalan volcano: “I saw one near La Malinche, there were no clouds, except for one tiny spot, which disappeared in a second, then a tiny metallic ball flew away. Sadly, I couldn’t catch it in video. I thought it was a plane, but it just faded away. Five minutes before I saw a bigger ball in the same direction, like suspended, but I thought it was balloon, like those used for weather radar, but the more we approached that place it disappeared until that white cloud was made. Ten minutes later I saw another one, but only closer, doing the exact same thing, with the white cloud remaining, but sadly because of the sun I couldn’t take any pictures, well, only one but it doesn’t look very clear.”
According to Jaime Maussan, these UFO-looking clouds are often described in ways Pilar described her experience: They are not just fluffy white masses of visible condensed water vapor. There are other things happening either inside them or alongside them. On September 19, 2019, in the town of Amaxac de Guerrero, in the state of Tlaxcala, about 45 miles due east of Mexico City, someone filmed on their cell phone camera an enormous saucer-shaped cloud with a dome on the top and a dome on the bottom. What was curious about this strange atmospheric phenomenon is what was happening inside this supposed cloud. A dark, metallic-looking shape appeared for a few seconds visible beneath the cloud cover. The person who recorded the video on his cell narrated the footage for a bit and claimed to see the interior object rotating. He was certain this was not a natural cloud, but skeptics would later counter that what appeared was nothing out of the ordinary and the supposed hidden craft inside the cloud was a visual effect produced by the angle of the sun.
On September 24, 2020, a strange cloud within a cloud appeared in the skies above Mexico City. With plenty of smart phones in this megalopolis of over 25 million people, there was ample footage of this “UFO cloud.” What appeared was a dark, saucer-shaped cloudlike object that was nestled in a bank of puffy white clouds. The darker cloud had a definite outline and seemed to hover in place while the cloud formation around it slowly swirled and changed its shape.
While some dismiss these saucer-shaped clouds as natural phenomena and others point to extraterrestrial origins, still others cling to more earthly but sinister explanations. For quite some time many Mexican investigators and even casual observers have attributed any strange aerial phenomena to experiments or projects originating from NASA or other US governmental agencies. This may be part of a longer tradition of Mexicans to blame the US for many of their country’s ills, but there could be some truth behind these suspicions. The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, or HAARP, started by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, in 1993, is an oft-cited culprit. HAARP was officially started to analyze the ionosphere and investigate the potential for developing ionospheric enhancement technology for radio communications and surveillance. Some claim that secret HAARP experiments may be behind these strange cloud formations in Mexican skies. Are these strange atmospheric anomalies the products of aliens, government agencies, Mother Nature or the imagination? Perhaps a little bit of everything?
REFERENCES
Jaime Maussan’s YouTube show (in Spanish): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXSBWySjnPU&t=659s
Televisa article referenced above (in Spanish): https://noticieros.televisa.com/historia/captan-nube-en-forma-de-ovni-que-es/
Various shows/uploads on YouTube