Mysterious black ring hovers over Seattle—Smoke, UFO, or Supercross stunt?

A strange phenomenon appeared on the Seattle skyline Sunday when a near-black cloud-like ring hovered over Lumen Field and downtown Seattle.

“Some believe it’s a UFO, while others think it could be smoke or a rare weather phenomenon,” Seattlesubmissions1, an Instagram account dedicated to the Emerald City with more than 160,000 followers, wrote Sunday alongside a brief gallery of user-submitted photos.

“Have ya’ll seen Nope?” one Instagram user commented. Others commented that it is connected to SpaceX or Elon Musk specifically.

KIRO Newsradio traffic reporter Chris Sullivan posted a video on X of the dark ring formation.

I still can’t believe that a simple plume of smoke caused such a stir on Saturday. It was cool that it turned into a ring. No alien invasion followed. pic.twitter.com/8oLEkgKo0O

— Chris Sullivan (@NEWSGUYSULLY) March 31, 2025

A meteorologist from the National Weather Service confirmed with KIRO Newsradio that they are aware of the unusual black ring, but it was not related to any weather phenomenon.

“It was nothing atmospheric related or meteorology related in terms of what we know, what occurred naturally in the atmosphere or nothing that we saw on satellite,” Jeff Michalski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Seattle, said. “This looks like it was all due to the event that was going at Lumen Field.”

Many witnesses agreed, commenting it could be connected to pyrotechnics used during the Supercross Championship, which was held at Lumen Field.

“I was gonna post that cause I was at the Supercross thing and make people think it’s an alien ship,” one Instagram user wrote. “ITS NOT ALIENS OR ANYTHING ITS A RING OF SMOKE FROM THE MONSTER ENERGY SUPERCROSS.”

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