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Interesting, From your link above:

http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/Laura-Knight-Jadczyk/article-lkj-16-07-03.htm

In any event, the article said that “ring shaped UFOs” are a rarity, but certainly not unknown. The above sequence of photos is claimed to be the first visual record of such phenomena. The article goes on to say:

“On many occasions, UFOs are reported to become gradually engulfed in a vapor cloud. The fully developed cloud then looks like any other cloud in the sky and affords the UFO a very convenient “hiding place.”

“The series of photos made by the army private shows not only the rare ring object, but also shows it gradually becoming engulfed in a vapor cloud.”

The photos were taken in September of 1957. It was around 9 in the morning and an army private was working inside a large building on a military base when several other men started yelling for him to come outside and see the strange thing that was coming overhead. He rushed outside and, seeing the estimated 60 ft diameter object, went to his car to get his camera to take the photos. The entire sequence was taken within about a minute which means that this was all it took for the vapor cloud to become fully developed: an estimated 60 seconds.

Later, after discussing the object with his fellow soldiers, the private thought that it might have been some sort of secret army experiment and he ought not to have photographed it, so he determined to say nothing to keep from getting in any kind of trouble. He kept silent for over ten years, at which point he showed the photos to a friend who suggested he show them to NICAP.

Prints were made and sent to Dr. James E. McDonald, atmospheric physicist, (see my review of Richard Dolan’s book for info on McDonald) and Professor Charles A. Maney, mathematician and physicist. Dr. McDonald was, according to the article, extremely interested in the photos and contacted the army private for further information. Professor Maney had investigated a mysterious double ring of a very similar nature sighted on March 31, 1952 by a Mr. Charles Early. Professor Maney said about the ring type UFO:

“I refer to an old expression: there is more to it than meets the eye.”

The Charles Early sighting is really quite bizarre in and of itself. But, taken with the ring photographed by the army private, we notice that in neither case was there rain or any idea that lightning could be implicated in producing the phenomenon.

Early was raking leaves at his home in Greenfield Massachusetts, under a clear sky, when he heard a “swishing noise” as if a wind storm was coming. He looked up and saw two rings parallel to each other, one on top of the other separated by a distance of about 4 feet. He estimated the diameter to be about 30 feet and described them as “bright, like polished chrome” and tubular.

The pair of rings were whirling through the air maintaining the same relative position to each other, and at one point they zoomed toward Mr. Early on the ground at such speed he was certain they would crash into the ground. But just before reaching the ground, they rose up again, spinning in a clockwise direction.

At first the double rings were horizontal, but then they flipped vertical, hovering over Mr. Early for about a minute before moving away about 50 feet, at which point they resumed the horizontal position.

The double ring began to move away in the direction of a factory, then accelerated toward a mountain at the speed of a jet. It then banked, returned to Mr. Early, and then shot straight up into the sky so fast it was gone in a few seconds.

Mr. Early said that when the double ring was directly over him it made a “humming” sound similar to the hum heard when standing under electrical wires.

A couple of other “ring UFOs” have been reported, generally with metallic features and even with a “spindle” in the middle in one case.

Jacques Vallee published a report of a ring type UFO that occurred just 13 days before the famous Socorro sighting of Officer Zamora in New Mexico. Vallee’s report was of a sighting witnessed by four people, lasting around 45 minutes. One of the witnesses looked at it through binoculars and said that it was oblong and vertical and that it was “boiling out” wisps of smoke. At one point, the object emitted a blast of light and shot forward at high velocity, and the “retracted its path” in the same manner. It finally divided into several smaller objects.

We note that in the Early case, the UFO emitted an electrical sort of “hum,” and in this latter case, there WAS a “blast of light” as was reported in the recent case in San Antonio. We cannot, therefore, exclude an electrical component to the phenomenon. However, it doesn’t seem that electricity causes it, but is caused BY the ring “object.”

French UFO investigator, Aime Michel - in his 1954 survey of French UFO cases - called these types of UFOs “cloud-cigars.” They have been observed in Great Britain, South America, Poland, the US, and the former Soviet Union.

Coming back to what Professor Maney had to say about the strange “smoke ring” UFOs:

“I believe that the human eye and the camera saw only a part of the aerial object.”