One man says he was “stunned” when he looked out to sea from a village in Cornwall in the south-west of England, and saw a giant ship seemingly suspended in the air over the water. It was not his eyes that deceived him, but a rare meteorological phenomenon that causes an optical illusion more often seen in the icy Arctic.
David Morris / APEX
BBC News meteorologist David Braine explained that what David Morris had captured with the camera lens was not levitation, but a “superior mirage” caused by conditions more typical of the Arctic region than the coast. south of England.
David Morris / APEX
“Superior mirages occur due to the weather condition known as temperature reversal, where cold air is near the sea with warmer air above,” Braine said. “Because cold air is denser than warm air, it bends light into the eyes of someone lying on the ground or on the shore, changing the way a distant object appears.”
Previous sightings of “ghost ships” around the world may have implied illusion, but the sharp images captured by Morris seem to be some of the clearest examples of a superior mirage to date.
Braine said that while in this case the phenomenon made the ship appear to float on the water, “sometimes an object can be made visible below the horizon,” throwing objects that would otherwise be invisible. in the sight of someone almost like a giant mirror.