Things have been going a little bit Spielberg in the north east of Scotland with some rather unusual shapes in the sky.

They might look like something out of a sci-fi film but these glowing disks are actually a type of cloud formation known as Altocumulus Lenticularis.

Keen-eyed photographers managed to capture the sight on Sunday evening, including Trish Macfarlane who snapped this incredible shot above Rickarton, north of Stonehaven in Aberdeenshire.

"I firstly thought it a bit odd that there was a partial rainbow as we hadn't had any rain," says Trish.

"It wasn't until I'd downloaded the picture to my laptop that I really noticed the cloud.

"I like photographing rainbows but did think this one a bit odd and then I noticed a fair few posts on Twitter with the similar pictures - I've been bowled over by the response it's had.

"One of nature's wonderful phenomena."

The saucer or lens-shaped clouds are typically stationary in nature.

On account of their typical shapes, lenticular clouds have been mistakenly identified as unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in the past.

In 2015, reports of UFOs to West Craven police in England of what looked like "multicoloured disco balls" turned out to be the innocent clouds.

A spectacular display was also witnessed above Cape Town, South Africa, later that same year, prompting unease among the locals until meteorologists stepped in to explain things.

STV weather presenter Sean Batty says Lenticularis clouds are actually quite common in Scotland, although go largely unnoticed.

"They are most common in the north and east of the country as they form downwind of mountains, and our prevailing wind direction is from the west and south west," says Sean.

"Lenticular clouds are sometimes seen in areas such as Glasgow and Edinburgh when there is a northerly wind.

"We use Latin to name all our clouds in meteorology and the word lenticularis means lens like."

He adds: "They form in the turbulence after air crosses over a mountain range, in our case the Highlands. The air begins to undulate after crossing high ground and moves along in a waving motion.

"As the air rises in a crest, a lenticular is formed, and then there will be clear skies as the air descends and dries back into a trough."