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Photos of the cloud in question make it sort of look like a tornado funnel that froze in place and then got cut off halfway to the ground.

Local TV station WCPO sent a photo of the cloud to the National Weather Service, whose staffers suggested, and then ruled out, several different types of clouds. A cold air funnel, a virga and a scud cloud were among the proposed types of clouds discussed; the WCPO story posted to Facebook also suggested that it could be a black hole, or a portal to another dimension. Jonathan Guseman, a NWS employee from Lubbock, Texas, e-mailed the station to proclaim the futility of attempting to classify clouds (but he thinks it's a scud cloud).

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"We certainly don't have a distinct classification for every single type of cloud that can exist," he wrote to WCPO.

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The main reaction from Ohioans who spotted the strange cloud seemed to boil down to remarking on its very existence.

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Others on both Facebook and Twitter seemed concerned about the cloud's origins, whether they were sinister or divine.

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Unlike the last big weird cloud story, no one mistook this one for a city in the sky. It's just a weird cloud, man. Don't try to explain it. Don't try to understand it. Just … weird cloud. Weird cloud.