Floating ship clicked on the English coast, specialist calls it “rare phenomenon”

An image of a ship floating in the air was captured by a man on the English coast near Falmouth, Cornwall, the BBC reported. Several reports also talked about the bizarre-looking image shared by David Morris. Morris, speaking to the announcer, said he was “surprised” to see the image of a ship floating in the air.

A BBC meteorologist, David Braine, explained the phenomenon and said that “a super mirage” made the ship appear to be floating in the air, because of “special atmospheric conditions that bend light”. “Higher mirages occur because of the climatic condition known as temperature inversion, in which the cold air is close to the sea with the warmer air above it. Since cold air is denser than hot air, it diverts light into the eyes of someone on the ground or on the coast, changing the appearance of a distant object, ”Braine told the BBC.

Read also | As China looks to Taiwan and beyond, Quad’s Indo-Pacific agenda takes priority

“Higher mirages can produce a few different types of images – here, a distant ship appears to float well above its real position, but sometimes an object below the horizon can become visible,” he added. Braine also noted that such illusions appear “very rarely” in the UK during the winter, but are common in the Arctic.

A similar image was shared by a Facebook user named Colin McCallum, who also photographed what appeared to be a floating ship, near Banff, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. However, it turned out to be an optical illusion as well.

“When I first saw the boat, I had to look twice, because I really thought it was floating. After a closer inspection, however, I realized that it was really just a remarkable optical illusion, ”said McCallum when speaking to the British newspaper Daily Mail in February.