The instant I laid eyes on this rather odd-looking cloud,
I was reminded of the "salt vampire" from the original Star Trek TV series. The creature bears the distinction of being the "starring m̶o̶n̶s̶t̶e̶r̶ creature" of the very first regular episode of the series to air, titled "The Man Trap".
It was supposed to be the last of its kind, a race of beings who may have created a civilization on an earthlike planet (fandom opinion seems to be divided between those who hold that these creatures are the actual builders of the civilization and those who counter that these are the predators that killed off the true owners of the civilization), and who are capable of creating illusory images of themselves to seduce the perceiver. The result is that different crew members of the starship Enterprise see the creature differently -- as either the person they most fondly remember or the one they most naturally expect to see under a particular set of circumstances. Thus, Dr. McCoy sees it as the woman he once had a crush on long ago, Captain Kirk sees it as that same woman, only an older version of her due to the passage of time, and a crewman sees it as a sexy blonde he'd met a short time before. The result: disaster.
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