Smoke angel (very cool)
 

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ima...angel_usaf.jpg

A Smoke Angel from Airplane Flares
Credit: Russell E. Cooley IV, USAF

Explanation: What type of cloud is that? It is not a naturally occurring one. Looking perhaps a bit like a gigantic owl monster, the cloud pictured above resulted from a series of flares released by an air force jet over the Atlantic Ocean in May. The jet that released the flares, a C-17 Globemaster III, is seen on the right. The flares release smoke and the resulting pattern is sometimes known as a smoke angel. The circular eyes of the above smoke angel are caused by air spiraling off the plane's wings and are known as wingtip vortices.

From APoD, the Astronomy Photo of the Day

Wow..that is pretty cool..nice pic

That?s awesome :)

nice chopp... :D

that's cool

First time iv'e ever seen a gigantic owl monster .... NICE :thumbsup

That is a great pic

That is a great pic!

hmm... pretty cool if it's real!

that's pretty cool :)

it kinda looks like one of the yip-yip guys from sesame street.

bad ass!

That is very cool.

wowow pretty

awsome pix :thumbsup

how did they do that?? artistic.. :thumbsup

I wonder how a pattern like that is constructed (as in the flight path the aircraft took to make it). Very cool though.
WG

It looks a bit like the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Here's a video of a C-130 releasing the flares making the smoke angel:
C-130 Smoke Angel


Pretty damn awesome. :thumbsup

thats pretty fuckin slick

lesson of the day

it does :1orglaugh

thats pretty fucking cool!

whoa.. is that for reall.. that's really a spectacular view

wow, thats very cool. Nice pic :thumbsup

Great pic :thumbsup

awesome. :thumbsup

That's pretty cool! Nice post! :)

wow that took some talent to pull that one off

Wow pretty interesting... nice formed of smoke there...

the owl monster explanation is more accurate then an angel if you ask me....

If you watch the video link I posted, looks a lot more like an angel (actually to me it looked a lot like the resurrection spirit in World of Warcraft :1orglaugh)

Thats fucking cool

very cool!

that is really cool :)

plus i want elli's hand in marriage :)

Nice pic. I didn't see this one.

Smoking pic, looks great Elli :thumbsup

Cool like air force show :thumbsup

wow! that's pretty cool

damn cool!

awesome :thumbsup

Here is a video of what it looks like with the flares being deployed.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2308/angel_decoys/

great pic...that's very cool :thumbsup

cool picture

pretty neat.

very cool pic, i like it

that is very cool

Groovy and artistic.

thx for sharing!!!

It looks so mysteriouse.