To the Harry Potter fans, it looks like Lord Voldemort himself is streaking alongside the afternoon flight to Athens.
To the conspiracy theorists, the dark trail is further proof of mysterious “chemtrails,” while to the UFO-enthusiasts it suggests a solid object forged from alien tech.
But for the more skeptical, it is possibly a contrail from a missile, or just a fighter jet with a “dirty” exhaust.
The footage taken by Australian Kerry Forides as he flew over the Aegean sea to Greece quickly went viral after he posted it to Youtube, asking if anyone could identify the mysterious black object that he filmed through the window for 3 minutes.
“Just flew over Turkey somewhere over Izmir and Khios Aegean sea, heading into Athens around 4:30 p.m. today, Wednesday, March 21, 2018,” he wrote.
“It appears to be flying away at right angles from our commercial jet and somehow without either of us appearing to turn we end up almost following it.”
A surprised woman’s voice can be heard in the video—his wife.
The video soon attracted the interest of UFO hunters and debunkers, racking up over 340,000 views in a week.
That sighting, comprising of only a photograph was dismissed as many as just a contrail from a jet.
Contrails are the characteristic tracer lines seen following aircraft, created by the sudden change in pressure created by a jet engine or a fast-moving wing. The shift in pressure causes the moisture in the air to condense into the white cloud, like breathing into cold air.
Some argue that such dark contrails sometimes should not be produced, and that such footage points to another theory: chemtrails.
The chemtrails conspiracy theory claims that the trails have other chemicals and biological agents mixed in with them.
But with the flight over Turkey being relatively close to the war zone around Syria, many suggest the most likely explanation is that the phenomenon was a contrail from a military aircraft, possibly even a missile.
Forides himself wrote that he overall agreed with the suggestion that it was a contrail. “I thought it was a propelled vehicle of some kind but it was awfully close, and had a really dirty jet stream.”
A few others said it was probably an elderly F4 Phantom II, with an older engine, known for being “smokey” and also still currently used by the Greek air force.
One Youtube commenter suggested it could be a trail from a Mig-29 fighter jet, saying that their exhaust can run dirty.
Others had more light-hearted suggestions.
“That’s just the dark lord chasing Harry,” wrote one commentator.
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