AdSense allows this?

Earlier, while reading a news story on a very reputable site, I clicked another link on the site to go to another article and to my surprise, was forwarded to a page where only an AdSense Ad displayed right in the middle of the page and at the top it said "Skip Advertisement" which when selected took me to the article I wanted to read. There was no content on this page, only the AdSense Ad and while the site didn't say "Click this Ad", it's pretty apparent that their intention was for you to click the ad. I'd be surprised if AdSense allowed its publishers to display their ads this way but if they do, this is a pretty damn good way to increase your CTR as the "Skip this Advertisement" was pretty small and I'm pretty sure they're driving a lot of click throughs.

What are your thoughts on this?

I have seen this type of ad used before on websites such as *******, but I never thought Adsense offered this feature for ads.. Are you sure it was just an adsense ad, and not an ad inside another ad window? I'd love to hear back on this topic.

Positive, it was just an AdSense Ad in the middle of the screen and at the top it says "Continue to Article".

you mean forbes?

Are you 100% sure it was an adsense ad? i have seen ads that look exactly like than adsense ads but infact wasn't

Popular sites get away with and are allowed to do certain things small site owners cannot get away with. If that's truly an Adsense ad, you may want to look deeper before utilising this technique as your site could get banned for it.