The Sixty Mile Per Hour Cloud

Summary

The author describes a surreal experience of encountering a cloud that seemed to move at the same speed as their vehicle on a trip to greet their uncle returning from an Honor Flight, an event that was eerily mirrored in the plot of a show they later watched called "Nope," which featured an alien cloud entity named Jean Jacket.

Abstract

While driving on Highway 153 East to greet their uncle at an Honor Flight return in Wausau, Wisconsin, the author encountered a peculiar cloud that appeared to travel alongside their car at 60 miles per hour. Despite the clear night, this fog-like formation maintained its position relative to the author's vehicle, changing shape and eventually stretching out along the road before dissipating into the sky. The experience was so uncanny that the author repeatedly questioned their own senses and whether anyone else would believe it. Later, while recounting the event to family, they discovered a strange coincidence: the show "Nope," which features an alien entity hiding in a cloud, included the same song, "Walk on By" by Dionne Warwick, that was playing on the radio during the author's bizarre encounter.

Opinions

The author initially doubted their own perception of the cloud moving with the car, questioning whether it was an illusion or if others would believe the account.
There was a sense of awe and disbelief at witnessing an unexplainable phenomenon, leading to repeated exclamations of surprise and confusion.
The author is open-minded about the possibilities of the unexplained, as evidenced by their willingness to entertain the idea of an alien entity like Jean Jacket from the show "Nope."
The coincidence of the song "Walk on By" playing both during the real-life event and in the show "Nope" heightened the author's sense of wonder and the eeriness of the experience.
The author's language, including the use of profanity, conveys the intensity and rawness of their reaction to the inexplicable event.

What the hell was that?

So, back when I was staying at the hospital with my dad, my uncle — his brother — went on an Honor Flight out of Wausau, Wisconsin. Being that Wausau is only about forty minutes from Marshfield, it would work out okay for me to say good night to Dad at about 8:30 or so pm and then take off to be there to help my aunt greet him when they got back after their long day in D.C.

My dad really wanted to be there, of course, but he was in no shape to do that. He couldn’t even stand or sit on his own. But my sister gave me a big photo of him to take with me to represent him. I took off from Marshfield, and being as late as it was, it was dark out.

I followed my GPS, turning on 153 East. As I was cruising along this route, I had my usual XM radio station set in the 60s, and it was playing Dionne Warwick’s “Walk on By.” I don’t know this song that well, but I was gettin’ into it, singin’ along.

As this was happening, I noticed something. In front of my car, there was this thin, fog-like cloud. It was like two small clouds, one a little overlapping the other. I thought it was interesting since there was zero fog anywhere else around me.

It wasn’t a foggy night. Then I was like, ‘Hey, wait a minute. When there’s low fog, you drive through the fog, and then it’s gone. You’re past it. It doesn’t stay in front of your car.’ But this — this was just hanging out there in front of me.

So, then I was like, ‘Well, it must be farther in front of me than it appears. That has to be it.’ It started changing shape, getting bigger and puffier. But I could tell it wasn’t far in front of me because I could see it was before the street signs came up and before the trees came up, and then we (the cloud and I) would pass them. I could see the cloud passing these things as I was passing them.

I kept testing this over and over, speaking to myself (and whomever else was with me that I couldn’t see), “Are you fucking seeing this? Someone has to be seeing this because no one is going to fucking believe me! Clouds do NOT move at sixty miles per hour! What the actual fuck?!?”

It continued to get a bit bigger. I thought, ‘Is it something to do with my car? Is it my engine? Is something wrong with my engine, and it’s forming some sort of crystals in the air?’ But even if that were the case, the fog would pass over and by me as it was forming. It wouldn’t travel with me in the same shape that it's in. This cloud was absolutely moving with me.

Then it started to stretch out before me. It stretched out along the road, like the length of the entire road that I could see in front of me, only to the tree line on either side of the road. I was like, ‘What are you doing now?’ And as though nothing had ever happened, it suddenly became a long, stretched-out, horizontal cloud formation in the sky, above the trees, just as I came to the end of 153. I was like, “No fucking-ass way. What the fuck just happened?”

On the way home, on that same stretch, the same fucking thing happened again, exactly the same way! I’m sorry for so many f-bombs but come ON! It wasn’t even a little different! It started the same way, changed the same way, stretched out before me the same way, and went up into the sky at the end the same way!

I’m still SO blown away by this! I mean, I totally believe that anything is possible. But when you witness something that you can’t explain — like, actually witness it — it’s hard not to keep saying fuck, because I mean, “Holy F—” okay…I’ll try and control myself. But I mean, has anyone else out there ever had an experience like this?

And that’s not the end of it. I was telling my sister about this, okay? And she had me on speaker phone at her house, and my nephew could hear me, and he said to her, “She needs to watch Nope.” I’m like, “What’s Nope?” And she tells me it’s this show, and meanwhile, he is saying, “Jean Jacket.” And she’s like, “Oh yeah. Jean Jacket.” I have no idea what that means, of course.”

So, when I finally get home, I watch this show Nope with my husband, and it’s about this alien being that hides in this cloud in the sky, and right at the point in the show where they are first talking about Jean Jacket, the song “Walk on By” starts playing, and I’m like, “Holy shit, Ed!” And he’s like, “What?” And I’m like, “That’s the song!” He’s like, “What song?” I’m like, “That’s the song that was playing on the radio the night I was driving on 153! I mean, yeah, there were other songs, but that is the specific song that I remember from that night because I didn’t know it very well before that night, and I was singing it with enthusiasm before the cloud formed!”

What the actual F— -?