What looked like a glowing doorway in the clouds was almost certainly a fallstreak hole, a rare but well-understood atmospheric phenomenon. These striking openings form in mid-level cloud layers filled with supercooled water droplets—liquid water lingering below freezing. When something disturbs this fragile balance, those droplets can suddenly freeze into ice crystals, setting off a chain reaction.

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As the ice forms, nearby droplets evaporate, carving out a sharp-edged circular gap that seems impossibly precise against the surrounding cloud deck. Sunlight pouring through that opening creates the radiant, “otherworldly” effect that fuels so much speculation. Often, an aircraft passing through the cloud layer provides the needed trigger, its wings or propellers causing rapid pressure and temperature changes. Far from being supernatural, these sky portals reveal how delicate, invisible processes can produce scenes so dramatic they momentarily make us doubt reality itself.