Back when we were kids, we were encouraged to look up at the skies and identify shapes in the clouds. They can morph into anything your mind allows, from bizarre faces or fluffy sheep right through to, er, Jesus Christ.
But what if you looked up and spotted THIS mysterious hole in the sky?
It's more than just a little disconcerting, given that it resembles something out of Independence Day or War of the Worlds.
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The short clip of the eerie celestial scenes was shared on Twitter by Ibrahim Al Jarwan, who the Daily Mail reports is an astronomer and meteorologist.
United Arab Emirates citizens have been left baffled by the footage - which was filmed near the border with Oman - in which you can see a large, circular patch of sky emerging from heavy cloud.
Roughly translated, the tweet was captioned: "This rare and beautiful phenomenon was seen this morning in Al Ain City [and is] called 'holepunch cloud' or 'fallstreak phenomenon hole'."
While one Twitter user joked that it looked like the hole had been caused by an extraterrestrial UFO, another said it looked as if 'God had thrown a stone into a lake'.
Thankfully, a 'fallstreak hole' or 'holepunch cloud' isn't anywhere near as scary as it sounds.
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According to the Met Office, the phenomenon occurs when part of the cloud layer forms ice crystals that are large enough to fall as a 'fallstreak'.
"They form in clouds of supercooled water droplets, water below 0°C but not yet frozen," the Met Office website explains.
"These water droplets need a tiny particle, a nucleus, to freeze or to be cooled below -40°C.
"Aircraft punching through this cloud layer can cause air to expand and cool as it passes over the aircraft wings or propeller.
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"This change in temperature can be enough to encourage the supercooled droplets to freeze and fall from the cloud layer in this distinctive pattern."
Over in Italy, meanwhile, another man recently had a similarly amazing encounter with the clouds - having spotted none other than Jesus.
Stunned by the beauty of a sunbeam, Alfredo said he just had to share it with the rest of the world.
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He said: "I was enchanted by the view. I don't often share pictures on social media, but when I took this one, I instantly felt like I wanted other people to see it, because it was so beautiful."
Oh, nature... You're so weird.
Featured Image Credit: Twitter/@ibrahimaljarwan
Topics: Weather, World News, News, Weird
