In July 2018, Krystal Washington recorded a video of a strange figure walking across a bright break in the clouds. After watching the video again, she felt that it was like someone walking up to heaven. The video soon went viral, with many viewers suggesting that the figure was God ascending to heaven. In this article, we explore the phenomenon of religious apparitions in the sky and ask whether such sightings could be an ominous sign of the end times.

While there is a long history of religious apparitions, many of which involve Mary, the mother of Jesus, popping up in a ray of light, only now do we have the benefit of 2 billion smartphones to document such sightings. However, experts suggest that these apparitions may be more about patterns and shapes that we find familiar, rather than divine intervention.

Forensic video analyst Michael Primeau ran the clip through a tool called Metics to interpret the metadata. He found that the integrity of the file had been lowered due to the high compression level, but he could not identify anything that had been manipulated. Meanwhile, Catholic miracle researcher Michael O’Neill, who is trained in visual engineering, concluded that viewers are likely just seeing patterns that look like something they find familiar.

Atmospheric scientist Deanna Hence suggested that the strange shape in the clouds may have been caused by a line of thunderstorms with vertical development that created a distinctive hole punched in the middle of all these dark clouds. The setting sun reflecting off the sides of the clouds created the bright spot, while the slant-wise trajectory up the side of the cloud was due to the broader upward motion caused by powerful updrafts.

Overall, while sightings of religious apparitions in the sky continue to fascinate and intrigue us, it seems that science may hold the key to explaining many of these phenomena. Whether or not these sightings are an ominous sign of the end times remains a matter of debate, but one thing is certain: our fascination with the unexplained will continue to inspire and captivate us for many years to come.