Residents across several parts of Balochistan were left astonished in the early hours of Tuesday after witnessing colourful lights shimmering across the sky.
According to reports, the spectacle was visible in Quetta, Pishin, Qila Abdullah, Chaman, Loralai, Dukki, Ziarat, Zhob, Qila Saifullah, Chagai and even parts of neighbouring Afghanistan.
Many residents shared photos and videos of the event on social media, describing it as one of the most beautiful early-morning sights they had ever seen.
A local resident, Jamal Turkai, posted a video from Gulistan in Qila Abdullah, writing: “This is the reward of waking up early — witnessing such beauty in nature.”
He said he quickly recorded the scene on his phone before it faded. Another resident, Rashid Saeed, said he noticed the colours just before dawn, but by the time he returned from morning prayers, the sky had cleared.
The dazzling lights also sparked curiosity online, with some users suggesting the formation could have been linked to a missile test or military technology experiment.
However, in a post later in the day, the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD) clarified that the display was a “lenticular cloud formation” observed over the Koh-i-Murdar region near Quetta.
“The cloud appeared before sunrise, persisted for approximately 20 minutes, and dissipated just prior to sunrise,” the PMD said in a statement on X.
Meteorologist and environmental author Mujtaba Baig said the display was a natural optical event known as “cloud iridescence.”
“These clouds show patches or rings of colour — red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet — caused by sunlight scattering through tiny ice crystals or water droplets of similar size in high-altitude clouds such as Cirrus or Altocumulus,” Baig explained.
“It happens when sunlight bends and spreads into different colours, similar to what we see in soap bubbles or oil films,” he said. “It usually appears 10 to 40 degrees from the Sun or Moon and is most visible at sunrise or sunset.”
Baig said the dry and clear skies over Quetta, Gulistan, Qila Abdullah and Chaman make such cloud formations particularly visible. He added that increased solar activity in 2025 may lead to more frequent appearances of similar atmospheric displays.
While most social media users described the spectacle as a symbol of “nature’s beauty and calm,” some speculated it might have been of extraterrestrial origin.
Baig dismissed such claims, saying the phenomenon is “completely harmless and purely natural.” “People sometimes mistake it for UFOs (unidentified flying objects),” he said. “But it’s just optics at play.”
Similar events, he added, are often seen in Antarctica, Europe and the United States.
According to the United Kingdom’s Met Office, lenticular clouds are lens-shaped formations that occur when stable, moist air flows over mountains and condenses at high altitudes.
“These strange, unnatural-looking clouds sometimes form downwind of hills or mountains,” it said. “They look a lot like the traditional shape of flying saucers in science fiction, and real lenticular clouds are believed to be one of the most common explanations for UFO sightings across the world.”