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Posted: 05-09-2013 18:53 Post subject:

I've seen a 'telegraph pole' emerging from the clouds as the plane I was in was arriving at Manchester Airport; it was brown, and massive.

Eventually I recognised it - the top section of the Emley Moor Transmitter.

The colour surprised me - it seemed definitely brown, wheras I know that the Emley Moor structure is made from light-coloured concrete. This must have been a contrast effect - the concrete just looked dak because it was surrounded by while clouds.

I wonder if that is what you saw.

Here's an image of Emley moor in low cloud; the clouds I saw came further up the transmitter, but the top was clearly visible.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/garyjs/2278076634/sizes/z/in/photostream/

Posted: 06-09-2013 07:51 Post subject:

That's interesting Ebu and a nice picture but I don't think it's what we saw
from the plane

Here's my "artist's impressions" from back then:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40047263@N02/3784380659/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/40047263@N02/3785190784/

Posted: 06-09-2013 21:42 Post subject:

The first one is extremely consistent with what I saw, and if that were the only image I'd say we had cracked it. But the second one is not consistent.

The only way that I can make it consistent with a sighting of Emley Moor is if the transmitter remained vertical (which of course is the case) and the cloud bank itself appeared to be tilted as seen from different angles in the plane. This is not impossible - the clouds over the Pennines sometimes hug the topography, so that the top surface resembles the ground surface, or is affected by the hillsides in other ways. A tilted cloud layer could look level from one angle and askew from another.

Since the first image resembles my own observation so closely, the transmitter explanation still seems reasonable to me.