IT looks like any other city skyline with skyscrapers, a few mountains and trees – except it isn’t real. The giant mirage appeared across the skyline near in East China earlier this month after heavy rainfall and humid conditions along the Xin’an River. As mist settled over the river at dusk, tall buildings appeared to rise from nowhere, leading residents in nearby Huanshan City to speculate that the vision may be a “vortex” to a lost civilisation. “It’s really amazing, it looks like a scene in a movie, in a fairlyland,” one resident told UK news channel ITN.
The mysterious city had vanished just as quickly as it had come. Scientists have quashed the vortex theory and, as per usual, have a simple explanation for the incredible sight. They believe it may have been a mirage, caused when moisture in the air becomes warmer than the temperature of the water below. When rays of sunlight cross from the colder air into the warmer air they are refracted or bent – creating a reflection in the air that looks similar to a reflection in water. It’s a common sight for many travellers on Australian roads. But we Australians tend to see puddles of water that disappear when you get close, not entire cities floating on rivers.
Calling Fox Mulder….
Is anyone paying attention? We’re talking about CHINA here people! Who knows what evil subversive stealth technology they’re working on? And who knows WHY the Chinese press would want to fabricate a story here either? Surely, they don’t do that any more. Right? (Can I give a big bitch slap here?!)
But if you like conspiracy theory and want to call in Fox Mulder then could this possibly be a weapon that the Chinese are trying to develop? After all, if you can project a whole city in thin air what else can be projected? Certainly not economic stability!
Then again, I’d like to know if Los Alamos might be missing any more classified stuff that could possibly explain this. They just had another fire there recently and our press isn’t exactly asking a whole lot of questions either. And when you consider just who benefited from the last security breach of U.S. secrets at Los Alamos was do you get any chills? After all, Los Alamos is in a State that borders Mexico. Coincidence?! (Can someone please queue the Twilight Zone music.)
…I know it’s a bit of a stretch but no one was thinking about Iran Contra before that was exposed either.
#5, you’re the journalist. Learn to corroborate.
The Chinese are cranking out vacant buildings at the same pace they crank out iPad’s. Local residents were mystified when they woke up and discovered that these new empty building popped up over night.
How many vacant overpriced/unaffordable housing units in China now… 70 million or so? Last month it was 65 million.
Some people are physics-challenged. They don’t know how to evaluate phenomena they see or feel with anything like a sense of accuracy.
In this example the reporter who amplified the story into “mirage” status has zero experience evaluating mirages. But not all of us are that novice.
Mirages form when layers of air or particulates in air cause optical effects. The road mirage or desert mirage that produces the illusion of a watery surface is quite common. Sun dogs that make halos, streaks and bright areas are less common.
On the ocean, mirages form that can look like “distant cities” in the eyes of inexperienced viewers. But that’s a variation of the road mirage over water that causes further details to stretch, usually quite vertically, and always in watery motion. If ice floes or distant shore features get tangled in this sort of illusion, then the effect of vertical lines can look quite a bit like far off apartment complexes, hence the “city”-like description that people pass around.
When low fog over a flooded river area sticks to the ground, distant city parts can appear to be floating, somewhat. Mirages never produce solid, optically perfect images of real places. The closest they come to that is when a very, very flat thermal layer above observer eye height reflects something very far away.
A very few instances of people thinking they saw distant ships are in the literature, but not so many recently since sea captains learned how to make accurate observations.
On the face of it, the idea of seeing buildings, cranes, lights, windows and city detail this optically correct can only come from one place: the optically correct view through relatively calm air.
None of the Fatima Morgana mirages have no such optically correct qualities, but people hear incomplete descriptions of them, then turn around and label phenomena like this one as an example of something they have no direct experience with. Through words alone, they assume things.
Here’s a Fatima: http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/graphics/photos/fatamorg.jpg
If the words of the interview subjects are to become part of the story, one will find that no sense of “mirage” was present at all. And nothing at all—AT ALL—in the story suggests any special phenomena in the slightest.
It’s an ILLUSION that the city elements are floating. Because the bridge is higher than the top of the fog bank.
That’s all there is.
Here:
http://aukiman.blogspot.com/2011/06/huangshan-city-mirage-all-down-to-bad.html
#21 The forest fire did not start at Los Alamos labs. It started some distance away in a forest. I live in Denver and here about this fire half dozen times a day. We get forest fire updates all the time. There is always a forest burning somewhere in Colorado/New Mexico this year.
So Sarah Palin really did see Russia from her house.
This may have been debunked, but lets blame Bush.
Buzz, #24, you mean Fata Morgana. If you’re interested in optics, check out the Specter of the Brocken. I trust you can find the link yourself.
Maybe it was just David Copperfield playing a prank.
Speaking of optical artifacts
http://anothermonkey.blogspot.com/2011/07/dragon-of-huangshan.html
There is an issue. You can recognize that this is a city. If it is a reflection of a known city somebody ought to be saying hey, that big building is the______. They aren’t or if they have they need to share.
That’s somewhat like Obama’s summer of recovery.
“Nice voice on the news reader.”
Yeah, she sounds like she needs to put down another carton of cigarettes.