Video: Fisherman Josh Jorgensen captured mid-level cloud layers off Key West with multiple large, circular gaps that resemble UFOs.
Cause: These are hole-punch clouds (cavum/fallstreak holes), formed when aircraft trigger freezing in supercooled water droplets, producing ice crystals that fall and create expanding clearings.
Context: NASA's Terra satellite recorded a similar cluster in Jan 2024; experts say the effect is striking but a known atmospheric phenomenon, and sightings are less common in Florida than at higher latitudes.
Watch 'UFO-Like' Clouds Cut Perfect Holes In Florida Sky (Video) — Here's Why
Watch ‘UFO Clouds’ Punch Bizarre Holes In Florida Sky (Video)
A striking video filmed by fisherman Josh Jorgensen of the BlacktipH channel off Key West shows a thin sheet of mid-level cloud stretched across the Gulf of Mexico — but with several huge, almost perfectly circular holes punched through it. The footage has a cinematic, otherworldly look that prompted onlookers to joke about UFOs.
"Bro, look at these clouds," someone off-camera says in the clip. "What is going on with these clouds?"
The real explanation is atmospheric physics rather than extraterrestrial visitors. These formations are called hole-punch clouds (technically cavum or fallstreak holes). They form in mid-level clouds that contain supercooled water droplets — liquid water that remains unfrozen even below 32°F. When an aircraft passes through such a layer, pressure and temperature changes around wings or propellers can trigger droplets to freeze into ice crystals.
Once freezing begins the process accelerates: ice crystals grow, fragment and induce nearby supercooled droplets to freeze as well. As more ice forms and the crystals become heavy enough to fall out of the cloud, an expanding circular clearing appears in the cloud deck. The Cloud Appreciation Society likens the effect to someone using "an enormous cookie cutter" on the cloud layer.
NASA notes that hole-punch clouds are often mistaken for "flying saucers" because of their uncanny, disk-like voids. The agency's Terra satellite captured a cluster of similar holes over the Gulf of Mexico west of Florida in January 2024, roughly the same period as Jorgensen's footage. NOAA and the National Weather Service add that while the phenomenon is visually striking, it is a known atmospheric process and not evidence of unidentified craft.
How rare are these displays? The Cloud Appreciation Society describes cavum as "not actually that rare," but the National Weather Service and NOAA say they remain relatively infrequent. Meteorologists note that the particular combination of mid-level supercooled clouds and aircraft passages that creates hole-punches is more common at higher latitudes, which makes Florida sightings less typical.
In short: no aliens — just planes, supercooled droplets and atmospheric physics conspiring to produce a dramatic, sci‑fi worthy scene over the Gulf.
Originally published by Surfer on Sep 22, 2026.
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