A Phenomenon of Nature - Or was it?

When I was young and living in Shelton, WA, it was already well late into the night, but I wanted to see the stars nonetheless. I snuck my way onto the back porch and either stood or sat down. When I turned my gaze to the darkened night sky it was doing something most peculiar that even today I don't know what it was or how to properly describe it without a sketch to help support the visuals I'm about to describe. I knew this was unlike anything I knew about or had seen such as an Aurora Borealis, for it was most definitely not colorful.

The clouds seem to have created a wide perfect circle. The inner most part of the circle, the center itself, was hollow so one could see the stars (if you even could). As I looked on I saw that this circle seemed to be pulling other clouds within the center and it seemed as though the clouds that were being pulled were being sucked up and at a very quicker rate then the wind would usually blow around this area. I kept wondering what I was seeing and even now I wonder if that was a 'Gate' being opened or something else.

I honestly don't know, but one thing is for sure, even to this day the image of this event is burned into my memory.