Unusual clouds are shocking

Wearing a strange shape of airbags, lenses, or regular, undulating waves, clouds make viewers feel like they're lost in another world.

'Stunning' and unusual images of the shape of the clouds are sharpened in two new books, Extraordinary Clouds by Richard Hamblyn and The Cloud Collector's Handbook of the Cloud Analysis Association.

Here are some pictures of strange shaped clouds:

The Mammatus cloud was formed when the pockets of cold, saturated air fell suddenly from the top of the stormy clouds, creating unique bulges on Hastings Stadium, Nebraska, in June 2004.Photo: Bjorn Olsen

A strange wavy cloud 'hangs' hovering over the sky of Grand Rapids, Iowa state. Altostratus low-level clouds are the result of the evaporation of large amounts of moist air. Photo: Jane Wiggins

Looks like a flying saucer, cloud 'lens' hovering above the top of Alpujarra mountain in southern Spain, turning color in front of the sunshine of sunset. Photo: Ian Dennis

The picture is a winding cloud facing the mainland on Shark Bay, west, Australia. A winding cloud is a tube cloud across the horizon, appearing when a cold wind signals a storm coming. Photo: Jason Cutler

A rainbow halo creates a giant 'shower' above Pilsley, Derbyshire, England. Photo: JM Moore.

Noctilucent clouds have a crisscross structure taken at midnight in high latitude in the sky over Finland. Photo: Scientific photo gallery.

Wave clouds on the island of Amsterdam, in the southern Indian Ocean, resemble a picture of a volcano, the result of a layer of moist air passing through the island. Photo: Jeff Schmaltz

Clouds called Kelvin-Helmholtz are described as 'breakers' on the calm sea surface in Jervis Bay, Australia . Photo: Giselle Goloy.

The image is Hanmer Springs 'sky wave' on South Island, New Zealand. Photo: Merrick Davies.