Epic photo shows spaceship-like cloud over the Stanley Hotel

ESTES PARK, Colo. — The Stanley Hotel has seen some things, from rogue bears to maybe ghosts.

Today’s Stanley Hotel story doesn’t have this mystique. Instead, it involves something all of us see everyday: clouds.

9NEWS viewer Rachael Cody snapped an awesome photo earlier this year of a gorgeous, spaceship-like cloud looming over the Stanley Hotel.

“I’m not sure what type of cloud this is,” she wrote.

Well, Rachael, ask no more. As 9NEWS Meteorologist Danielle Grant tried to walk to the breakroom to heat up her lunch, this enterprising journalist asked her to look at the photo.

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She confirms it’s a lenticular cloud, which is why it has such a cool shape.

Lenticular clouds, which have this lens-like appearance, develop on the downwind side of a mountain range.

According to Weather Underground, these clouds happened when “stable, moist air flows over a mountain, creating a series of oscillating waves.”

“If the temperature at the crest of the wave equals the dew point temperature, condensation occurs in a lens formation,” Weather Underground’s website says.

So there you go!