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4 months ago
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A mysterious black ring appeared in the blue skies over Virginia this week, which hovered for about 10 minutes before vanishing.
Williamsburg locals flooded news station around 11am ET on Tuesday when they spotted the ominous circle over a major highway.
Ron Stepp said that he was working near Eastern State Hospital when it appeared above like a huge smoke ring in the sky.
Others reported the sighting from nearby neighborhoods, suggesting it was visible for miles.
Similar black rings have been spotted in other locations, with fires and explosions being cited as the likely cause. But officials reported no fires at the time of the sighting.
Renee Fisher snapped this photo of the mysterious black ring was taken in a neighborhood in the Waller Mill area of Williamsburg
Joshua Bean spotted the ring hovering over a highway in Williamsburg.
Peggy Olszyk captured the black ring as it hung over tree tops, while Renee Fisher snapped a couple photos of it from outside a neighborhood.
Two other viewers sent in photos to the station taken on Interstate 64 westbound in the area of the Fort Eustis exit, and in the area of Old Moretown Road.
This isn't the first time an object like this has been see floating in the sky.
In June, a similar looking ring-shaped cloud was spotted over Venezuela and captured in a now viral video.
'A flying saucer,' one of the young men shouts as they drove down a rode on a sunny afternoon.
And in July, another floating black ring was photographed drifting across an orange and pink sunset over Pearland, Texas.
There have been numerous other sightings all across the world as well - it seems that these mysterious objects can pop up pretty much anywhere.
But so far, no one has officially confirmed what these objects are or where they came from. But there are some theories.
Experts have pointed to fire or some type of explosion that most likely create the rings, such as fireworks.
WAVY reached out to the James City County Fire Department to ask if there were any reports around the time the Williamsburg circle was reported. The fire chief hadn’t heard of any.
The black ring vanished in about 10 minutes, one viewer said.
No one has officially confirmed what caused the ring to appear, but experts say it was most likely some type of fire or explosion.
The news station also reached out to Dominion Energy, a American energy company headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, if there was a blown transformer that could have caused the ring.
Dominion spokesperson Tim Eberly told WAVY that there were no incidents this week involving equipment that could have caused a black ring of smoke.
But the news station's in-house meteorologist Ricky Mathews said he had seen these rings from pyrotechnics before - basically stemming from concentrated fire rising.
He also theorized that it could be a special effect used for a film.
