On January 1, 2020, a man in Wales named Rhys Pleming snapped the photo of a lifetime—in a photo he took of a sunrise, there appeared to be a figure in the clouds.
Rhys Pleming’s Photo of the Figure in the Clouds
On that New Year’s day, Rhys Pleming was 30-years-old at the time, and he was determined to hike to the top of Mount Snowdon, and see the first sunrise of the year. So he and a friend gathered their hiking gear and set out to hike England and Wales’ highest peak. It was very cloudy out that day; so it wasn’t technically the best day to see a sunrise, but that didn’t stop Rhys Pleming even though he knew he might not even see the sunrise.
“There was only a 50/50 chance of seeing the sunrise,” Rhys Pleming said of the conditions and the cloud-cover on that January day. “But me and my friend decided to go up anyway.”
And thankfully they did because the very first photo Phys Pleming took of the sunrise was pretty amazing—a figure in the clouds appeared in the sunrise! Check it out here:
View this post on Instagram
According to Rhys Pleming, he and his friends had hoped to see a beautiful sunrise from the summit of Snowdon, but they didn’t know what they were in store for.
They started their hike at six o’clock in the morning, knowing they’d be able to reach the summit by sunrise. From the top, Rhys Pleming’s view of the sunrise wasn’t especially clear because of the hazy mist that morning. Still, he snapped those pics and saw that figure in the clouds that many believe looks like Jesus standing in the sunset.
The catch wasn’t planned by Rhys Pleming, however. He said it was “pure luck” and he just happened to have “perfect timing” to catch that figure in the clouds.
Believe it or not, this is one of many phenomenons that science can explain, and it’s called Brocken Spectre. When the sun is low behind a person taking a photo, the sun rays can cast the person’s shadow onto the mist and create a light ring around that shadow.
