We present observations of an HI cloud complex most likely located in the Virgo galaxy cluster , first reported by Kent et al . ( 2007 ) .
The complex consists of five clouds , detected in the data set of the ALFALFA extragalactic HI survey at Arecibo .
The clouds have radial velocities between cz _ { \odot } ~ { } \sim 480 and 610 { km s ^ { -1 } } .
At the Virgo cluster distance , they are spread over a projected span of 170 kpc and have HI masses ranging from 0.48 to 1.7 \times 10 ^ { 8 } M _ { \odot } .
The overall HI mass of the complex is 5.1 \times 10 ^ { 8 } M _ { \odot } .
The clouds ’ velocity widths vary between 50 and 250 { km s ^ { -1 } } .
New results of follow-up aperture synthesis observations conducted with the Very Large Array are also presented , which yield a higher resolution view of two of the clouds in the complex .
These two resolved clouds show no evidence of symmetry in the gas distribution or of any ordered motions .
The possibility that the complex is a group of primordial objects , embedded in their own dark matter halo is thought to be unlikely .
Scenarios in which the clouds have been removed from the disk of a galaxy traveling at high speed through the intracluster medium are considered .
The most likely among those is thought to be one where the clouds were separated from NGC 4445 at a time > 0.5 Gyr ago .
The orbital velocity of the clouds and the putative parent galaxy would now be seen at a relatively large angle with respect to the line of sight .