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Mirages

Vardoger said:
Here's a website about Bristol, Wisconsin. They claim it's Bristol Wisconsin which is being miraged. There's even a picture of the so called mirage of Bristol.

members.lycos.co.uk/brisray/brisusa/brisusa7.htm
Link is dead (as is the website). See later post for salvaged content.
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Here is the text about the mirage, along with an alleged photo of the incident / phenomenon ...
Bristol, Alaska - The Phantom City

Here's a strange story, it concerns Bristol and Alaska. I found it in a book called "Phenomena - A Book of Wonders" by J Michell and R J M Rickard and published by Thames & Hudson Ltd. It is probably a hoax, but I'll put the story here for the sake of completeness.

For some reason the sky above Alaska seems strangely receptive to images of Bristol. Charles Hoy Fort in a book " New Lands" mentions reports that a mirage of Bristol appeared in the sky several times. Apparently these sightings are more common between 21st June and 10th July. Fort also reports that the local Indians were seeing these images before white settlement.

In 1887 the pioneer, Willoughby, saw and photographed this aerial city. Some people have claimed that this photograph was, in fact, a picture of the real city of Bristol and not some spectral phantom.

mirage.jpg

On 31st October 1889, the New York Times an article appeared saying that Mr L B French reported seeing quite plainly in the sky near Mount Fairweather "houses, well defined streets and trees. Here and there rose tall spires over huge buildings, which appeared to be ancient mosques or cathedrals ... It did not look like a modern city - more like an ancient European city".

Fort quotes another correspondant from the Yukon who in June 1897 had seen a great city in the sky. Members of his party speculated on whether it most resembled Toronto, Montreal or Peking, but concluded that it was more like "some ancient city in the past".

I did a search on the net for Charles Hoy Fort, I didn't think I'd find anything, but found the complete text for New Lands, the page that mentions Bristol is Part 2, Chapter 19.
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SALVAGED FROM THE WAYBACK MACHINE:
https://web.archive.org/web/20050321052410/http://members.lycos.co.uk/brisray/brisusa/brisusa7.htm
 
Mikefule said:
Link to the BBC story.

The photo speaks for itself. A known phenomenon of a mirage caused by atmospheric conditions.

Variations of this type of mirage have been cited as "evidence" that the Earth is flat. Conceivably they could also explain various sightings of "angelic hosts" and "shining cities in the sky". This particular and spectacular example is a very clear photo taken in pretty much ideal conditions.

Once I discovered there was already a post on marine mirages, which I had missed on my quick search before posting, I asked for it to be moved. A couple of the posts below were written before the move which is why they seem out of context.

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This isn't a mirage. It's an illusion, though - a false horizon
https://www.metabunk.org/threads/debunked-fata-morgana-hovering-boat-mirages.9112/
 
Extraordinary photo, and a fascinating reminder of just how oddly our eyes (and cameras) can perceive the temperature inversions of light waves.

I saw something similar to this a few weeks ago with some small offshore islands (not an infrequent occurrence at this time of year), but nowhere near as striking - just a thin bright line between the sea and the landmasses, making them appear to hover fractionally above the horizon.

This is a picture that will no doubt be reproduced for years to come as an example of optical illusions - feels somehow quite exciting to be around on 'Day One'.
 
Quercus said:
Extraordinary photo, and a fascinating reminder of just how oddly our eyes (and cameras) can perceive the temperature inversions of light waves.

I saw something similar to this a few weeks ago with some small offshore islands (not an infrequent occurrence at this time of year), but nowhere near as striking - just a thin bright line between the sea and the landmasses, making them appear to hover fractionally above the horizon.

This is a picture that will no doubt be reproduced for years to come as an example of optical illusions - feels somehow quite exciting to be around on 'Day One'.
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Unfortunately, it's being passed around with a supernatural explanation or that it's a "mirage". Social media is a bummer as scientific explanations aren't as portable, clickable or shareable. And, people prefer the enchanted version.
 
EnolaGaia said:
Here is the text about the mirage, along with an alleged photo of the incident / phenomenon ...


SALVAGED FROM THE WAYBACK MACHINE:
https://web.archive.org/web/20050321052410/http://members.lycos.co.uk/brisray/brisusa/brisusa7.htm
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Weird Bristol: The 1899 Alaska photo hoax that sensationally fooled the world
Victorian photo of Bristol caused a sensation because it was said to have been taken in Alaska

Eugene Byrne
  • 22:00, 29 MAY 2017
1614961320196.png


In the first of a new series of features delving into the stranger things in our past, Eugene Byrne investigates claims Bristol could have been photographed from Alaska

A Victorian photo of Bristol caused a sensation because it was said to have been taken in Alaska. In the 1880s, Alaska was still a very mysterious and mostly-unexplored place. Much of it still is.

The few travellers and explorers who had seen the Muir Glacier – which got its name from naturalist John Muir who had only visited it for the first time in 1879 – reported seeing mirages there.

Some claimed that a spectral "silent city" would sometimes appear in the sky above the glacier.

One possible explanation for this is that during temperature inversions, when warm air hangs over the cold ice, light from the ice is reflected back down, creating spires and other shapes out of the jagged contours. Witnesses are not, in fact, seeing a city, but reflected rock and ice formations that look like one.

Richard Willoughby, an American gold prospector and miner who had run off to Alaska (as much to get away from his wife and family as to seek his fortune, it seems), claimed in 1889 to have photographed this “Silent City.”

He speculated that it might be a reflection of a real city, perhaps in Russia, even though experts claimed that such a thing was impossible.

Willoughby was visited by an American journalist, Miner Bruce, who took a print and wrote the story up in the San Francisco Chronicle.

A Chronicle reader wrote in and identified the city in the picture as Bristol. And indeed it is; it was taken on Brandon Hill.

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/history/weird-bristol-1899-alaska-photo-67558
 
Here's a Fata Morgana observed off West Sussex on 31 May.

FataMorgana-WSussex-210531.jpg
Mind-bending pics show ‘floating ships stacked on top of each other’ in bizarre optical illusion

TWO ships looked as though they were stacked on top of each other in a mind-bending optical illusion.

The vessels were captured floating in Selsey, West Sussex, and left land-dwellers stunned on Monday morning. ...
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FULL STORY (With More Photos): https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/7192108/mind-bending-pics-optical-illusion/
 
Vardoger said:
Weird Bristol: The 1899 Alaska photo hoax that sensationally fooled the world
Victorian photo of Bristol caused a sensation because it was said to have been taken in Alaska

Eugene Byrne
  • 22:00, 29 MAY 2017
View attachment 36251

In the first of a new series of features delving into the stranger things in our past, Eugene Byrne investigates claims Bristol could have been photographed from Alaska

A Victorian photo of Bristol caused a sensation because it was said to have been taken in Alaska. In the 1880s, Alaska was still a very mysterious and mostly-unexplored place. Much of it still is.

The few travellers and explorers who had seen the Muir Glacier – which got its name from naturalist John Muir who had only visited it for the first time in 1879 – reported seeing mirages there.

Some claimed that a spectral "silent city" would sometimes appear in the sky above the glacier.

One possible explanation for this is that during temperature inversions, when warm air hangs over the cold ice, light from the ice is reflected back down, creating spires and other shapes out of the jagged contours. Witnesses are not, in fact, seeing a city, but reflected rock and ice formations that look like one.

Richard Willoughby, an American gold prospector and miner who had run off to Alaska (as much to get away from his wife and family as to seek his fortune, it seems), claimed in 1889 to have photographed this “Silent City.”

He speculated that it might be a reflection of a real city, perhaps in Russia, even though experts claimed that such a thing was impossible.

Willoughby was visited by an American journalist, Miner Bruce, who took a print and wrote the story up in the San Francisco Chronicle.

A Chronicle reader wrote in and identified the city in the picture as Bristol. And indeed it is; it was taken on Brandon Hill.

https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/history/weird-bristol-1899-alaska-photo-67558
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Wait, what? That was a hoax?

Not that it could ever have been real, but I hadn't heard of it being debunked before.
 
Erinaceus said:
I often see them. If they're just a little bit nearer they look like this.
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So the mirage appears to be of elongated shipping containers on one or two other ships just over the horizon?
Still an impressive mirage, which I've never experienced, despite crossing the Channel to France on ferries well over 100 times.
 
Strange sights this morning. Higher parts of the French coast appear in the background of some, it's about 30 miles away.
 

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Fata Morgana of a ship over the horizon? The vessel is a vehicle carrier and has the words 'Höegh Autoliners' on the side in a single line. it was travelling right to left and appeared normal later. I think the scrambled buildings to the right are part of Boulogne.
 

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A mysterious "hovering island" at Glacier Bay (Alaska) has been explained as a Fata Morgana.

mirage-fata-morgana-glacier-bay.jpg
Mysterious floating island hovers lake at Glacier Bay National Park and Reserve in Alaska

A ‘UFO mirage’ has been caught on camera hovering over water in a national park in Alaska.

The strange footage was captured on warm sunny day back in June at the Glacier Bay National Park and Reserve, but wasn’t revealed until now. ...

The weird dome-shaped object in the video is actually your brain being tricked into seeing a distorted version of an island.

The park posted the video to its Facebook page and explained that the mirage is called a “Fata Morgana”. ...
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FULL STORY: https://strangesounds.org/2021/08/m...cier-bay-national-park-and-reserve-video.html
 
In a similar vein my mother told me that my grandma reported seeing a huge battleship apparently hovering over the sea off the Fylde Coast during the war years. She thought it was some new secret weapon the Navy had invented (although mother thought she was joking).
 

‘It looked so real’: ghostly ‘iceberg’ was a wonder of nature – just not an iceberg​

Clear winter skies and the promise of a recent evening’s beautiful sunset led photographer Simone Engels to a nearby park on Vancouver Island. But as she trained her lens on the pinkish hue of the landscape of the Pacific coast, she was shocked to see a large, iceberg-like shape on the horizon.

“It was this huge, shiny, three-dimensional tubular structure,” she said. “It looked so real.”
Engels, who previously studied geography, cycled through possible explanations, including that a large piece of ice had improbably drifted down from Alaska, miraculously passing through narrow straits and dodging archipelagos.

But if an iceberg was in the area – especially one of that size – it would surely have made local news, she told herself.
The image soon went viral and Engels learned that the mysterious iceberg was really a mirage.

She was actually viewing the Cheam mountain range on the mainland of British Columbia, nearly 200km (124 miles) away – and beyond the horizon from where Engels was standing.

The illusion was caused by what is known as a “superior mirage” which is caused during a temperature inversion, when a band of warm air rests on a layer of cold air, bending light rays downwards.

Light from the setting sun was reflecting off the range and bending down, placing the range on the horizon. At a distance, the snow-covered peaks looked eerily similar to a towering iceberg.
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1643116662142.png
 
Inferior mirage over Dungeness. The upper picture is the normal view. When conditions are right the more-distant cottages and shacks appear along the shore.

Dungeness mirage July 2022.jpg

If the sea and hazy French coastline had been slightly better matched this could have been the Flying Dutchman :)

Europa C63A6948.jpg
 
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