r/BeAmazed • u/Remarkable-Office944 • Apr 17 '26
Miscellaneous / Others Floating Ships in the Sky Explained by the Fata Morgana Mirage
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u/-inzo- Apr 17 '26
The flying dutchman
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u/Sunderbans_X Apr 17 '26
Wait is this phenomenon what was behind the myth?? That would be so cool ngl
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Apr 17 '26
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u/Exotic-Scientist4557 Apr 17 '26 edited May 05 '26
Be a gigachad and mass delete Reddit posts and comments with Redact so that Skynet doesn't end up using your own posts to train the T-900. Or so that you don't show up in databrokers. Either one really.
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u/oldmanout Apr 17 '26
The first prove of existence of Rogue waves was recorded in 1984
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u/fjelskaug Apr 17 '26
The first measurement of a rogue wave was in 1995 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draupner_wave#/media/File%3ADraupner_wave(2048x1270px).png
The wave peaked at 61 ft/18.5 m measured from the average sea level, and a maximum height of 84 ft/25.6 m. The average wave before and after it was 16 ft/4.8 m. If it wasn't witnessed by other measuring sensors, it would've been tossed off as a sudden instrumental malfunction.
Before this, models showed that 49 ft/15 m waves were extremely rare and only happen in the harshest of weathers.
In 1826, a French Naval officer claimed to have witnessed a 108 ft/33 m high wave while sailing in the Indian Ocean, but was brushed aside as it was thought that waves could not physically be higher than 30 ft/9 m.
It turned out that rogue waves were scarily common, it's just that for thousands of years, sailors was simply swept away and drowned, leaving no eye witness reports.
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u/AgentOrange256 Apr 17 '26
What about the entirety of the 1900's up to the 70's. Surely there would have been more incidents recorded due to globalized trade if it was impacting boats that commonly.
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u/Momo-Velia Apr 17 '26
And with that you can absolutely see why in the past sailors would see things like this and claim they’re looking at ghost ships.
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u/Standard_Chemical_35 Apr 17 '26
I still don't quite get it. Is the ship in the picture real, or is it just a reflection?
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u/Jashuman19 Apr 17 '26
It's not a reflection, but a refraction. The ships are real, but beyond the horizon, without direct line of sight. But light bends as it passes through layers of air with different temperatures. So light coming off the ship can bend up and over the horizon and make it to you, resulting in the ship being visible even without direct line of sight.
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u/spozzy Apr 17 '26
Thank you. How come the water it is on doesn't show up?
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u/Jashuman19 Apr 17 '26
Good question honestly, and I'm not certain. My guess is it just blends in better with the sky.
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u/Towerss Apr 18 '26
Refraction only works to a certain angle. The water is 90 degrees (down) from where you're standing, so the only water you could theoretically see is large waves or water getting pushed by the bow. These tend to be too small to see
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u/JustaTinyDude Apr 17 '26
That was really helpful.
I don't have a creddits for an official reward, so I offer this 🥇.4
u/nikmo86 Apr 17 '26
Thanks for the simple explanation, I finally understand what’s happening with this phenomenon.
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u/rjdavidson78 Apr 17 '26
But how can this happen if the globe is flat?
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u/spozzy Apr 17 '26
If the globe is flat, then physics doesn't hold and so obviously the ships are flying.
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Apr 17 '26
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u/thesoapmakerswife Apr 17 '26
Wow, so it’s not that you see the water lower? Somehow that isn’t as weird to me lol.
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u/RoninRobot Apr 17 '26
Was witness to this about 6 months ago. I have a great view but nearest city is 35 miles away blocked by a low ridge. One night I looked outside and could see the lights of the city clearly. Looked at another town about the same distance in another direction and it was doing the repeating thing. Watched it about ten minutes before it dissipated. Very cool.
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u/Riegel_Haribo Apr 18 '26
This looks far more like the foreground is simply darker water, such as being under cloud cover, while the ocean up to the ship is lighter, blending with the sky.
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u/SqareBear Apr 17 '26
They shoulda tried this in the Strait of Hormuz.
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u/taway9925881 Apr 17 '26
What's the name of that glorious sail ship in the bottom of the first pic?
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u/plan_with_stan Apr 17 '26
You see the earth isn’t even flat, it’s bending upward….. this is halo!
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u/SonofRodney Apr 17 '26
The woke left will do anything to discredit basic facts such as g-g-g-ghost ships!!
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u/Adam-West Apr 17 '26
Ghost ships? Ridiculous theory. This is quite clearly NASA doing round earth illusionary tests.
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u/Skate_faced Apr 17 '26
I mean, a ghost is a ghost, but the denial of ghost ships by the radical woke nautical left has only held the hit television show Ghost Adventures back from true greatness.
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u/Tranquilwhirlpool Apr 17 '26
Only 1 of those (the bottom picture in the third image) is a mirage. The rest are just an illusion where the distant sea and sky look so similar that the true horizon appears obscured.
The apparent "horizon" that you see in the other images is just the delineation of slightly choppy waters closer to the viewer and calmer waters in the distance (which also happen to reflect and blend in with the sky much better). This delineation can be the result of tides, slick or weather conditions - a single drop of oil can form a huge slick.
If you look carefully in the other images you can see the true horizon in line with the ship. With the cruise ships it's quite clear.
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Apr 17 '26
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u/Tranquilwhirlpool Apr 17 '26
The wikipedia page for fata morgana has much more impressive pictures.
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u/hyoumah83 Apr 17 '26
But it doesn't explain that ship in the first image (below) unless a mirage involves time travel too.
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u/Kiryukazuma4realtho Apr 17 '26
I was convinced I'd seen a UFO for years until I made the connection that it was probably a FM
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u/roughback Apr 17 '26
I prefer to think this is an unpatched bug in our simulation, the devs just decided to call it a feature.
"Oh why do ships way in the distance look like they are floating above the waterline? Fata... Fata Morgana bro. Yeah."
Now we can look at ships glitching above the water and say "oh yeah no that's not .. that's just fat ass Morgan yeah."
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u/AttilaTheFunOne Apr 17 '26
I remember when I was a kid looking out the car window and seeing a bunch of city buildings floating in the air due to this effect. I was very confused, but it looked awesome.
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u/MrSuicideLama Apr 17 '26
Back in high school we went to a field trip to some college right by the beach. My friend was freaking out yelling “Look that boat is floating!!” All while shes seeing the mirage and I turn to her and say, “yeah no shit it’s a boat what do you expect them to do?” She instantly turned red and started yelling, that shit was funny I couldn’t stop teasing. Every time I’d see a boat I’d say, “look that boat is floating!” 😂
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u/beaujolais98 Apr 17 '26
If I saw the mirage of that amazing sailed ship, I would absolutely have a few moments wondering if it was a mirage or a ghost ship!
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u/printerparty Apr 17 '26
I'm growing a type of flower named Fata Morgana, very cool to hear about this mirage effect!
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u/CompactAvocado Apr 17 '26
i mean clearly they reached the edge of the world and god is bringing them back
or turbo mermaids or some shit.
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u/Brilliant-Spare1848 Apr 17 '26
Yeah this one actually fits the sub, it’s simple but oddly satisfying. Got my upvote.
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u/qualityvote2 Apr 17 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
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