I was checking out a post today at the blog Whales in Space (the name reminds me of the scene from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy where a missile is turned into a sperm whale in the atmosphere of a planet, only to gain consciousness before it plummets to it's doom.) about a UFO that looked like a jellyfish that was seen in the UK, when suddenly I felt a massive shock inside my brain. Out of nowhere, a memory appeared, and I found myself thinking about giant jellyfish and other critters flying through the air, atmospheric beasts, or what I'll call atmo beasts for short.
Now the idea of atmo beasts has really been around quite awhile. Basically, their supposed to be large, somewhat normal looking animals, that just happen to be lighter then air. That of course means they can float, which they're able to achieve without any rum, and actually makes them seem quite odd, because well jellyfish are only supposed to be able to float in water. Bizarrely though, people in the past have reported such things.
An even freakier form of atmospheric beast appeared in Crawfordsville, Indiana in September of 1891. The creature was seen on two different days, and was seen by hundreds on the second one. Described as being 20 feet long and 8 feet wide, and propelling itself with sets of flippers, the image of an oriental style dragon, is almost conjured up.
So do such creatures exist in the upper atsmospehere of our planet? Who knows. You'd think with all the planes flying around, these things would be seen regulary. Of course seeing as you can't see into clouds, yet alone while in one (what do you think fog is?) perhaps they live in there. Or perhaps they're to blame for many UFOs that are seen as Ivan T. Sanderson, a famous researcher of the bizzare, theorized.
Sources and Further Reading:
The Cryptid Zoo: Atmospheric Beasts
Subversive Element: The Crawfordsville Monster
The Crawfordsville Monster - Wikipedia