Fata Morgana & the Quest for UFO Evidence
By Allen Tiller, originally published on
Paranormal New Zealand on 03/03/2014
“Fata Morgana” sounds like the name of a
sorceress from the legendary stories of King Arthur and the Knights of the
Round Table, and believe it or not, that’s indeed where the term’s origins lie!
However,
it is also the name given to a complex atmospheric mirage that could explain at
least some UFO reports in the Australian desert and outback, both day and
night.
Many
people report strange sightings in the Australian outback, day and night, of
shimmering lights, glowing objects, and other unexplained phenomena, usually described as UFOs — unidentified flying objects. (Which, when you
think about it, is a very broad category of objects, as anything you cannot
identify that flies remains an unidentified flying object. The UFO community
may need to create some more specific sighting categories — but that is a whole
other area of discussion!)
Have you ever driven your car on a hot
summer’s day and noticed that watery mirage out on the horizon — the one you
can never reach, but is always there? That is a type of mirage associated with
hot surfaces, but it is more accurately described as an inferior mirage, rather
than a Fata Morgana. The natural phenomenon behind these effects, however, is
much more interesting than many people realise.
A Fata Morgana can occur over land or sea. It
is an optical phenomenon caused by refraction as light passes through
layers of air with different temperatures and densities. Under normal
atmospheric conditions, air tends to become cooler with increasing height.
However, during a temperature inversion, warmer air can exist above a layer of
colder, denser air.
This is important because light rays bend as
they pass through air of different densities. In a strong temperature
inversion, the bending can become sufficiently pronounced to produce a superior
mirage, where distant objects can appear elevated above their true position.
Under more complex temperature profiles, multiple images can form, some
inverted and some upright, stacked vertically and rapidly changing in
appearance. This more extreme and complicated form is what is commonly called a
Fata Morgana.
What happens is that distant objects on or
near the horizon become part of the mirage our eyes see. Because the light is refracted through layers of air with different temperatures and
densities, the image can become distorted, stretched, compressed, inverted or vertically displaced.
Any
object — let’s say a distant car on the horizon — can suddenly appear above the
road, possibly distorted and apparently floating in the sky, moving quickly or
changing shape. Sounds like some UFO sightings you’ve heard about, right?
The interesting thing about these atmospheric
mirages is that they can happen at night as well. In the Australian outback,
the right combination of a warm day, a cool or cold night, calm conditions and
relatively flat terrain can create the temperature structure necessary for
unusual mirages to occur.
Fata Morgana can make distant objects appear
stacked horizontally or vertically, inverted, mirrored or distorted. In fact,
it can distort objects so significantly that they become almost unrecognisable.
Now,
before I go any further, we should distinguish a true Fata Morgana from an
ordinary superior mirage or an inferior mirage. An ordinary superior mirage
occurs when the miraged image appears above the true object. It is commonly
associated with a temperature inversion, where colder air is trapped beneath
warmer air. Light passing through these layers is refracted, causing distant
objects to appear higher than they really are.
A Fata Morgana is generally considered an
extreme or particularly complex form of superior mirage. Instead of producing a
simple displaced image, the atmosphere can produce multiple erect and inverted
images that appear stacked on top of one another. These images can change
rapidly, become stretched or compressed, and sometimes produce bizarre shapes
that bear little resemblance to the original object.
An inferior mirage, on the other hand, is the
terminology used to describe the classic mirage most of us know, where what
appears to be water can be seen in the distance, often beneath an object such
as a sand dune, road or other landscape feature.
This is the familiar “water on the road”
effect seen on hot summer days. It occurs because the air close to a hot
surface becomes warmer and less dense than the air above it, causing light rays
to bend as they pass through the different layers. The apparent water is often
actually a refracted image of the sky.
While
both superior and inferior mirages are related to atmospheric refraction, there
is more happening in a Fata Morgana. The temperature structure of the
atmosphere can create multiple images and dramatic vertical distortions, making
the phenomenon much more visually spectacular — and potentially much more
confusing to an observer.
As I said earlier in this article, a
temperature inversion is an important part of many superior mirages and Fata
Morgana effects, but the exact atmospheric structure is important. Under
suitable conditions, a layer of air can act as an atmospheric duct, allowing
light to travel much farther than it normally would while also being strongly
refracted. This can allow distant objects or lights that would normally be
hidden below the horizon to become visible to an observer.
This is
where it gets a little weirder.
A Fata
Morgana can cause not only horizontal distortions but also significant vertical
distortions, making a recognisable image into something totally unrecognisable
to the human eye. The phenomenon can also produce considerable apparent
magnification or vertical stretching.
For a
Fata Morgana to be visible to you, the viewer, the atmospheric conditions and
temperature profile must be suitable for strong refraction. The geometry
between the observer, the distant object and the atmospheric layers is also
important. It isn't simply a matter of having hot air over cold air — the
strength and structure of the inversion determine what kind of mirage is
produced.
So,
taking all that into account, it boils down to this…
If you
have the right weather conditions — say, a really hot day followed by a cool or
cold, relatively calm night — an atmospheric temperature inversion can develop
close to the ground. In suitable terrain, particularly flat or gently
undulating country where cold air can become trapped, distant lights or objects
may become visible through atmospheric refraction.
And this
is not just theoretical. In an experiment investigating the mysterious Min Min
lights of the Australian outback, a distant vehicle was positioned
approximately 10 kilometres away, beyond a slight rise in the landscape. Under
suitable atmospheric conditions, observers were able to see the vehicle’s light
apparently floating above the horizon. The following morning, a spectacular
Fata Morgana was also observed under the same general atmospheric conditions.
This is particularly interesting when
considering reports of mysterious lights in remote parts of Australia. A
distant car headlight, campfire or other light source can potentially be
refracted by the atmosphere and appear to be somewhere it isn't, possibly even
appearing to move as the observer or atmospheric conditions change.
This
does not debunk every UFO sighting, of course, far from it. But it certainly
makes you think about many of the sightings you read about that happen in the
Australian outback. Could Fata Morgana, superior mirages and other forms of
atmospheric refraction be responsible for some of these sightings? The answer
is quite possibly yes.
But the
important point is that each sighting needs to be considered on its own
evidence. A strange light seen near the horizon under strong inversion
conditions may have a very different explanation from a close-range object
observed overhead.
And that
is what makes the search for UFO evidence so interesting!
For more
on how the effect works, please follow this link:
http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/mirages/mirintro.html
Further
Reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fata_Morgana_(mirage))
http://english.pravda.ru/science/tech/19-04-2003/2614-light-0/
http://www.skepticblog.org/2012/04/05/terrifying-ufos-or-fata-morgana-mirages/
Researched
and Written by © Allen Tiller, 2014 (re-edited 2026)
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