High spirits in Thurso snap?
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A THURSO man’s image of a local church has been receiving attention online as a sky trail that ends at its spire gives it an ethereal quality.
Cloud formation or aircraft vapour above the building makes it look like a plume is wisping from the steeple.
“I spotted the formation at 12:30pm when I glanced out the window and saw it over the former St Andrew’s Church on Olrig Street. It was not there that much longer as it broke up and disappeared, which made me first think it was a jet trail, but it seems far too wide which then made me think was it natural.”
On sharing the image on Facebook, Nancy Swanson commented that she had also witnessed the unusual trail along with her cousin.
“We studied it for five minutes as there was a horizontal ‘tornado’ shaped one to the left of it,” she wrote.
“Definitely not an aircraft trail as there was a trail further to the left. Amazing Caithness skies!”
Alan said the cloud appeared to stretch for some miles and “looked like the barbs of a feather jutting out to the right”.
“I did not hear any planes flying overhead though there was certainly a jet trail to the left as I could see it slowly extending in the distance. One thing about living in Caithness is we are very lucky to see some fantastic skies and formations.”
The building, no longer in ecclesiastical use, was built in 1875 and named the First Free Church. It later joined the Church of Scotland and was renamed St Andrew’s, but closed after being united with St Peter’s Church in 1940. The interior has now been altered to make it suitable for other uses.
Anne Fraser said online that the picture might show “loads of nice spirits moving on to leave room for new things”.
