[HN Gopher] 'Hovering ship' photographed off Cornish coast by wa...
___________________________________________________________________
'Hovering ship' photographed off Cornish coast by walker
Author : jmkd
Score : 592 points
Date : 2021-03-05 11:10 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.co.uk)
| strawBarry wrote:
| "Venus was at its peak brilliance last night. You probably
| thought you saw something up in the sky other than Venus, but I
| assure you, it was Venus." - Jesse Ventura
| jonplackett wrote:
| This is making me think again about all those UFO sightings in
| The Phenomenon!
| randomsearch wrote:
| When I see things like this, I imagine how people would have
| reacted before we had explanations... it isn't difficult to
| imagine where some myths and religious stories originate.
| kubanczyk wrote:
| The Flying Dutchman :)
| contingencies wrote:
| The most famous related Chinese mythology is from Yantai in
| Shandong which is at a roughly similar latitude. They call it
| "the eight immortals crossing the sea" (Ba Xian Guo Hai ; _ba
| xian guo hai_ ). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_Immortals
| https://penglaicity.blogspot.com/2010/06/visions-of-immortal...
| Unfortunately in a misguided bid to generate more tourist
| dollars in 2011 the local government razed the previously
| beautiful port and replaced it with a walled fake ancient town.
| http://pratyeka.org/penglai-destroyed/
| [deleted]
| tartoran wrote:
| Id pinch myself if I ever see that before my eyes. And when I see
| that Im not dreaming I'd be stunned. I still am as I've never
| seen this one so up in the air before
| sandworm101 wrote:
| I know these things are happen and I understand the effect, but
| has anyone looked into whether this was photoshopped? Major news
| outlets have been fooled in the past. Maybe it is a compression
| artifact, but the lines of this image look so perfect that I have
| to at least ask.
| mythbuster1969 wrote:
| I think it was photoshopped. I zoomed in on the photo and if
| you look closely at the edges around the ship, the colors do
| not match up with the rest of the photo. As in most photoshop
| fails, the ship was not cleanly cropped from its original
| photo, and the parts around the edges of the ship in the
| original photo don't match the photo in which the ship was
| inserted.
| mikhailfranco wrote:
| What has the world come to, when a BBC 'journalist' can write an
| article like this, without even including the words 'fata
| morgana'?
|
| Of course, we know the answer, it is a _comprehensive_ lack of
| education, and a total failure of any claim to knowledge, by a
| self-appointed class, which pretends to tell us about the world.
|
| I would normally just say _caveat emptor,_ and hope the
| journalist would be fired, or the news agency go out of business
| immediately, but the Brits have a mandatory tax, called the 'TV
| License' to sustain all this bullshit.
| Ragnarork wrote:
| If this is your metric for how the world is doing, then it's
| fine.
|
| Of course we know it isn't, but this right here is absolutely
| not a core issue with it.
| kiba wrote:
| Comprehensive lack of education? People received an education
| for ~12 years.
|
| _In most parts of the world, I would say _caveat emptor_ and
| the agency would go out of business immediately, but the Brits
| have a mandatory tax, called the 'TV License' to pay for this
| bullshit._
|
| Would they?
|
| This is the first time I heard of this phenomena, so I wouldn't
| know.
| mikhailfranco wrote:
| If you are British, you will recognise my italics.
|
| It is perfectly acceptable for any member of the public to be
| ignorant of some unusual phenomenon. It would be fine if this
| was a blog from the walker who took the photo. But it is not
| acceptable for a professional 'journalist': either they are a
| 'science correspondent' and they should know the answer; or
| they are temp-ing in the science department, and should ask
| an expert, or at least find 5 minutes from their busy day to
| google the explanation.
|
| Then again, most 'journalists' these days seem to be employed
| by the 'social media' department.
| danbruc wrote:
| I am not an expert but according to Wikipedia this is a
| superior mirage just as the article says but not a Fata
| Morgana [2] which is a subclass of superior mirage that has
| multiple stacked images. So the uneducated author got it
| right after all. ;-)
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirage
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fata_Morgana_(mirage)
| mikhailfranco wrote:
| Your 5 minutes of googling is already more informative
| than the article. Did the article say it was not a 'fata
| morgana'? No. How long did the effect last? We don't
| know. Did the ship image move, or disappear, or return to
| the horizon? We don't know. Were there multiple images?
| We don't know. Did he take just one photo? We don't
| know...
| brokencode wrote:
| Wow, what a toxic attitude you have towards journalists. This
| is a fluff piece, not a serious piece of investigative
| journalism. The bar does not not need to be very high for this
| kind of article.
| mikhailfranco wrote:
| Well, the bar should be a little higher, and in particular,
| it should be higher for the taxpayer-funded BBC, which would
| once have thought it had a reputation to protect, but now
| seems to have destroyed its integrity in favour of _fluff
| pieces_ - whatever that is supposed to mean - empty articles
| for empty people?
| brokencode wrote:
| I don't look at BBC news much, but now looking at its
| website, I have to agree with you that there is too much of
| this kind of content there. Its home page has articles
| about flying ships, eggs, and pterodactyls.. it does look
| like they are hitting a pretty low bar across the board, so
| maybe you're on to something.
| Ragnarork wrote:
| Even for a fluff piece, this clears a relatively simple yet
| efficient bar: get the impressions of the photographer, bring
| in an expert's take to explain the science behind it, and
| that's it.
|
| Note that apparently the expert didn't need to mention the
| words "fata morgana" either, so maybe that's a stupid focus
| point after all which just sounds like elitism at this point.
|
| I know who here "pretends to tell us about the world" and
| it's not the journalist.
| [deleted]
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Overloaded Helium tanker?
| peq wrote:
| A vacuum "filled" tanker would be lighter than a helium filled
| one :D
| injb wrote:
| But why does the ship appear in that location, and not the water
| it's sitting on? What's special about the ship?
| Someone wrote:
| The ship is higher up than the water it is floating on.
|
| You don't see the keel of the ship, but only parts of it that
| are above the waterline, and not all of those (corollary: this
| ship is as good as empty)
|
| Less impressive versions of this would show only the top of the
| bridge, or the entire ship and some of the water it's floating
| on (actually, this image might show some water below the ship.
| That tiny whitish line below it could be that)
| clord wrote:
| The ship is over the horizon but a fiber optic effect caused by
| inverted thermals projects the ship into the sky for the
| distant observer.
| voodootrucker wrote:
| As near as I can tell from the wikipedia link in the comments
| below, it's because the ship is perpendicular to the water and
| the light just happens to be being refracted to that particular
| observer right at the water line.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fata_Morgana_(mirage)#/media/F...
| x3n0ph3n3 wrote:
| It's not a Fata Morgana or a superior mirage. It's a false
| horizon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er1mh90wN-k
| shawnz wrote:
| Look close and you can dimly see water surrounding the ship
| above the horizon too, but it is much more faint than the water
| which you can see below the horizon.
| leetrout wrote:
| I wouldn't be surprised to discover the photographer had to
| adjust their position to capture just the ship
| pavon wrote:
| I think the explanation in the article is incorrect. This looks
| more like a false horizon caused by reflection of the fog on
| the water, rather than a mirage.
|
| There is fog out past the ship. The water close to the viewer
| is reflecting the sky, and is blue, while water further out is
| reflecting the fog. The fog above the horizon blends in with
| the water reflecting the fog making it hard to see the true
| horizon line (but it is there in the picture if you look
| closely). The line where this reflection changes stands out
| much more strongly and the eye mistakes it for the horizon
| line.
|
| This page has more examples of cases where these two different
| effects were confused:
| https://www.metabunk.org/threads/debunked-fata-morgana-or-mi...
| danaliv wrote:
| I think you're right. I've seen Fata Morgana and it looks
| nothing like this. With atmospheric ducting you get (even
| more) surreal images, with all kinds of distortion and
| mirroring. If you've ever driven through salt flats and seen
| floating, horizontally symmetric mountains, you'll know what
| I mean. Look more closely at these pictures and you'll see
| that the fog and the true horizon are indeed visible.
| tobr wrote:
| As far as I can tell, it's just a lucky coincidence that the
| distortion "cropped out" the water in this case, causing an
| exceptionally clean illusion. Compare with other images of fata
| Morgana[1] and you can see how it tends to look more distorted.
|
| 1: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=fata+morgana&iax=images&ia=images
| hu3 wrote:
| From your link I found this picture of 3 flying ships.
|
| https://i0.wp.com/www.astropt.org/blog/wp-
| content/uploads/20...
|
| I can feel my brain contorting a bit.
| hntrader wrote:
| But again with these 3 ships why is it only the ships
| themselves being precisely cropped out and not even small
| remnants of the immediately surrounding water?
| kortilla wrote:
| They aren't cropped. They are sitting in fog. The fog is
| the same color as the sky and there is no backdrop to see
| through the fog other than the ships. In other words,
| anything in the fog would be "floating".
| slim wrote:
| indeed the real horizon line is apparent on the right of
| the picture
| [deleted]
| marcodiego wrote:
| Food for conspiracy theorists and flat-earthers.
| ashton314 wrote:
| Really neat to see what deploying a containerized application to
| the cloud looks like!
|
| (Seriously, people. It's been hours--has no one cracked a
| kubernetes joke about this yet?)
| kortex wrote:
| I was looking for the CSS offset joke but I like this one
| better
| cvaidya1986 wrote:
| Best cover up article yet for alien hovering tech
| chenning wrote:
| "Just say it's the warm air and the cold air and bending light
| and stuff. They'll buy it."
| Thomashuet wrote:
| The title should be 'Hovering ship', as it is in the BBC article.
| There is nothing special about a floating ship.
| dang wrote:
| The submitter posted the title that the article had at the
| time. Then the BBC changed it there. Then a moderator changed
| it here. And then a moderator (this one!) marked this subthread
| --which was stuck to the top of the page, gathering mass and
| choking out anything interesting--off topic.
|
| I don't fault the comment for that so much as the upvotes, but
| downweighting top subthreads that are off-topic and/or generic
| in uninteresting ways is probably the highest-leverage
| intervention that moderators do here. Unfortunately it requires
| human intervention, and we don't see all the threads, so if
| anyone notices an off-topic or generic top subthread before we
| do, letting us know at hn@ycombinator.com is super helpful.
| balabaster wrote:
| To be fair, there's nothing particularly special about hovering
| ships either given the invention of the hovercraft...
| agumonkey wrote:
| Hey don't diminish human prowess.
| klingon79 wrote:
| Yes, we've had hovering craft for a while; they typically
| appear to be closer to the water, though.
| mdeck_ wrote:
| Hm. But is there anything particularly special about a hovering
| ship... a hovering... craft? :)
| dylan604 wrote:
| It would be very special if it were built by aliens
| klingon79 wrote:
| It likely was- but probably the terrestrial, non-
| xenobiological kind.
| dylan604 wrote:
| the use of this term in this manner has been deprecated
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| By whom?
| dylan604 wrote:
| current US Pres Admin. there was a memo. did you not get
| it?
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| No, I don't get US Presidential memos. Also, last I
| checked, the US President was not in charge of how words
| are allowed to be used on HN.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Like there's really a memo. It's been in so many
| different news outlets. The current admin is trying to
| distance from previous use of the word. And if you think
| I was being serious, then you must not have gotten the
| memo on sarcasm. You should really declutter your inbox.
| You seem to be missing a lot of memos.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Perhaps you didn't get the memo - about charity, about
| not replying with snark or sneering, and about sarcasm
| often not coming across well in a text-only medium. All
| have been said here, by dang, frequently.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| Yes, because it's full of eels.
| gnabgib wrote:
| I will not buy this record, it is scratched
| dllthomas wrote:
| This is a tobacconist's.
| capableweb wrote:
| I think "Flying" would be even better, as the ship is most
| likely moving somewhere, not just standing still.
|
| Would also tie the story into the story of the Flying Dutchman
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Dutchman) and maybe
| provide some explanation for why people been seeing it as
| flying
| throwawayForMe2 wrote:
| Especially if you can see big sails flapping or moving with
| the wind.
| 8note wrote:
| Or if it's got a hydrofoil. Those are also flying, just in
| water
| vidarh wrote:
| The first time I read about optical illusions like these as a
| kid was this Uncle Scrooge story referencing the Flying
| Dutchman:
|
| http://duckcomicsrevue.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-flying-
| dutch...
| jarmitage wrote:
| In this case, being off the coast of Falmouth, the ship is
| more than likely standing still.
| tendencydriven wrote:
| It is more than likely not moving anywhere.
| mannykannot wrote:
| The original title may have changed in response to similar
| comments.
| dustinmoris wrote:
| BBC article names change very frequently, often multiple
| times in only a few hours.
| itcrowd wrote:
| Probably A/B testing through social media clicks.
| [deleted]
| tasogare wrote:
| Le Monde in France do that too. They even go as far as
| rewriting portions of their articles after publishing, and
| partially re-using them under different title(s). Hard to
| take them seriously when they cry about fake news when
| their own articles are so malleable.
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| reassuring to know i'm not the only one we [edit:who] (the
| irony) edits my post:)
| petercooper wrote:
| Just for fun, you can track title edits happening on HN
| as well! https://hackernewstitles.netlify.app/
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| thanks.
| codetrotter wrote:
| For future reference, the current title on HN is:
|
| > 'Floating ship' photographed off Cornish coast by walker
|
| https://archive.is/JcBUY
|
| And the current title on BBC is:
|
| > 'Hovering ship' photographed off Cornish coast by walker
|
| https://archive.is/AyAK4
|
| Interestingly though, because of the quotation marks I
| understood "floating" to mean, as intended, that it looked like
| the ship was in the air and didn't even think about the
| possible ambiguity until I read your comment about it.
| jmkd wrote:
| BBC article at the time of posting was indeed 'Floating ship'
| judge2020 wrote:
| For reference:
| https://twitter.com/KeirGiles/status/1367742771017224196
| dvtrn wrote:
| _I might even go so far as to say that that is their
| desirable default state._
|
| As long as the front doesn't fall off.
| lostlogin wrote:
| If anyone doesn't get the reference, this is required
| viewing. It's gold. https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM
| mrec wrote:
| Marvellous; I'd never seen this.
|
| The format and humour remind me very strongly of the Bird
| & Fortune (aka The Long Johns) skits here in the UK:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=bird+%26+for
| tun...
| dvtrn wrote:
| You should watch more of these two, Clark and Dawe on
| YouTube. Behind the humor is biting commentary but a lot
| of education, I learned a lot through their humorous and
| pretend political interviews as an American about the
| Australian government and even the European debt crisis.
|
| John Clark (the one who kept insisting the front fell
| off) passed away a few years ago.
| btilly wrote:
| See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirki_(tanker) for the
| real life ship that inspired that piece of comedy.
| Cullinet wrote:
| under the related articles is the 1990 spill of the
| tanker "Mega Borg". After reading the first time about
| "the front fell off", I am given to think that the
| earlier comedic opportunity has gone sadly missed. [Ed.
| but I don't know if Scorpio Tankers Inc took the ticker
| STNG for related reasons...]
| dennis_jeeves wrote:
| > their desirable default state.
|
| Who would have guessed...
| mindcrime wrote:
| I can honestly say I laughed until I cried the first time
| I saw that. Possibly the most hilarious thing I've ever
| seen in my life.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| When I read the title I assumed it meant something like a
| hovercraft.
| gumby wrote:
| Since, as you say, one expects a ship to float, I assumed
| "hover" was intended and the title to be deliberately jocular.
| jader201 wrote:
| I'm guessing the (current) HN title was the original BBC title,
| and someone figured this out and changed it (after it was
| posted here).
| HenryBemis wrote:
| Sigur Ros - Valtari (2012)
|
| Imho it s a great album. It also has a 'hovering ship' on its
| cover:
| http://www.progarchives.com/progressive_rock_discography_cov...
| mc32 wrote:
| Title should be 'Fata Morgana sighted off Cornish Coast.'
| danbruc wrote:
| No, it is not a Fata Morgana [1] but a superior mirage [2] as
| the article says. A Fata Morgana is a subclass of superior
| mirage that has multiple distorted images. Just learned this
| because of another comment. Whether calling it a Fata Morgana
| would be appropriate because it is the common laymen term for
| mirages in English I can not tell as non-native speaker.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fata_Morgana_(mirage)
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirage
| wnoise wrote:
| The requirement for multiple distorted images is ... in
| dispute.
| rapnie wrote:
| Another form of mirage are the Marfa Lights on Route 67,
| where (of course) UFO's were quickly in the picture. Most
| probably headlights, campfires.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marfa_lights
| quickthrowman wrote:
| I've seen one similar to the Marfa Lights, Paulding Light
| in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Paulding Light is
| caused by car headlights.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulding_Light
| pavon wrote:
| Actually, in this case, I don't think it is any type of
| mirage. Rather it is a false horizon [1] caused by
| reflection of fog.
|
| [1] https://www.metabunk.org/threads/debunked-fata-morgana-
| or-mi...
| whateveryoua381 wrote:
| While not special, it is accurate!
| cbogie wrote:
| due to a contextualized cognitive hiccup, i noticed another
| illusion in the article. my brain told me the meteorologist's
| name was 'david blaine', the catatonic magician.
| [deleted]
| throwawaycodrrr wrote:
| This is why you never use negative margin in CSS.
| piinbinary wrote:
| I wonder if effects like these were the inspiration for the
| design of the imperial star destroyers in Star Wars.
| im3w1l wrote:
| Why is there a hovering ship but no hovering sea?
| MauranKilom wrote:
| Briefly: Because the ship is above the sea. If conditions were
| slightly different you might also see some part of the sea
| hovering, or the lower part of the ship missing. In this case
| the "cutoff" happens to align with where the sea would end
| (i.e. the horizon).
| x3n0ph3n3 wrote:
| It's actually a false horizon, not a superior mirage.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er1mh90wN-k
| Marazan wrote:
| The only important question in the world right now.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| The image of the ship would be dominated by reflected light off
| of side of the ship, water would not cause the same turn around
| due to the grazing rays.
| TexasfoldsEm wrote:
| What are the giant cities that appeared in the clouds in India
| and China on several occasions. I thought it was a fake the first
| time until I saw that there were thousands of different people
| who uploaded video of this. There were ,amy uploads every time it
| was not some crap prank. Sometimes they look like it is just an
| illusion of the clouds, but there ar a few times it is so obvious
| and thousands or maybe more people ooohhhing awwwwing and others
| screaming at how obvious it is. I had many different thoughts
| once I saw video after video and angle after angle. I have heard
| of project blue beam which is a pretty ominous program involving
| NATO countries; could these be their own versions of the
| technologies"? If so it truly shows the power of government to
| manipulate the masses to think anything in an extreme way to make
| over reaching changes. I mean the television has most people
| believing mainly lies anyway so their is obviously something
| nefarious planned for the future. Which CIA director was it that
| said once nearly everything the American public thinks and
| believes is false then our plan is nearly complete? Blue Beam
| could scare people out of the rest of their freedoms if they
| believe their is an alien invasion or Jesus is up their telling
| them to do so. hahahaha
|
| The two party fake choice and the ral deep state which are the
| long term embedded scum in government all need to be cleard out.
| I am glad I am from Texas and we are pushing in mass for changes.
| Florida is doing the right thing without much push from the
| people.
|
| I wish you lal the best of luck and happiness. Think for
| yourselves and question everything. Second best advice I ever got
| was that prior statement and the very best is the realization
| that no matter what I think I know; I know nothing for certain.
|
| Cheers
| nerpderp82 wrote:
| Heh, Optical DX
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DXing#DX_Communication
| vanderZwan wrote:
| Anyone else instantly hear the Imperial March and imagining
| X-wings and Tie-fighters flying around it upon seeing that photo?
| (and I'm not even a Star Wars fan)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bzWSJG93P8
| ericmay wrote:
| And now you know the source of the "Flying" Dutchman ;)
| person_of_color wrote:
| Could this be what caused the TicTac video?
| leetrout wrote:
| Some think this affected the crew on the Titanic and prevented
| them from seeing the iceberg and some closer ships from seeing
| her.
|
| https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-03/today-good-re...
| throwawinsider wrote:
| This is just a sample of the possibilities in post Brexit Britain
| jeffmcmahan wrote:
| I live on Lake Erie, and I've seen this effect before. There will
| be a point between the shore and the horizon at which the water
| takes on exactly the hue and luminance of the sky, and makes
| lakers, sailboats, buoys, even a nearby lighthouse, appear to
| hover. If the point of transition in the color of the water is
| pretty straight and is parallel with the actual horizon, the
| effect is convincing.
| jeffwass wrote:
| That's not the case here. In this case the ship was 'hovering'
| due to an atmospheric effect called Superior Mirage.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirage#Superior_mirage
| treesprite82 wrote:
| The image in the article looks more like a false horizon
| (change in color of sea makes it blend into the sky), as
| jeffmcmahan is describing. You can just about make out the
| real horizon in the image.
|
| Clearer example of false horizon:
| https://i.imgur.com/WHzQJ3Z.png
|
| A superior mirage would usually cause more distortion and
| likely wouldn't so cleanly cut out the ship.
|
| Clearer example of superior mirage:
| https://i.imgur.com/pa16mOk.png
| aaron695 wrote:
| This photo is fake. Or it doesn't not represent reality, I guess
| is more true.
|
| If you were there, you would clearly see it's just a boat sitting
| on the water. The water changing color towards the ship
|
| I guess you could take a photo yourself, reduce the resolution
| like here, pick the one that works best and show people, a
| similar 'real' photo and lie and say it's called a 'superior
| mirage' (It's beyond a false horizon). But you will never have
| seen it either, it only exists in the photo.
|
| "Hovering Boats are Usually Not Mirages, they are beyond False
| Horizons" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er1mh90wN-k
| chrisbuc wrote:
| There was one in our local newspaper last year at Folkestone (UK)
|
| https://www.kentonline.co.uk/folkestone/news/floating-ship-a...
| iso1631 wrote:
| Also with the hilarious headline
|
| 'Floating ship' appears over Folkestone harbour
| mgerdts wrote:
| I think I saw Hog Island in Lake Michigan do this trick back in
| 2006.
|
| https://imgur.com/gallery/eopHRkJ
| ksaj wrote:
| I strongly suspect the Marfa Lights (in Texas) are the land
| version of this exact phenomenon. In that case, car headlights
| looking like they are floating above the land horizon instead of
| boats over the water horizon.
| sixstringtheory wrote:
| Another headlight phenomenon, "light pillars":
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_pillar
|
| Really freaked me out the first time I saw some moving about on
| a dark country road from other cars off in the distance.
| ksaj wrote:
| I saw them only one time in my life, a few decades ago. I was
| leaving a band practice, and the drummer's sister and I were
| pretty blown away when we noticed it. Well, that's an
| understatement, because you couldn't miss it. Every light
| that could be seen was at the base of a pillar. We didn't
| know why it was happening, but we were pretty impressed.
|
| Pictures do not give you the full experience, since there is
| a huge 3D element to how they appear, too.
| GameOfKnowing wrote:
| Honestly given that weird explanation, I think Occam's Razor says
| that ship can fly 0.0
| ojnabieoot wrote:
| The schematic here on Wikipedia might help clarify:
| https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fada_morgana_graphnn...
|
| If instead of layers of warm/cold air there were giant glass
| lenses hovering over the ocean, the mirage wouldn't be
| mysterious.
| xaduha wrote:
| I think they were attempting a joke. Hot-road mirage is a
| common thing that most people that were in a car trip during
| summer have seen, same principles.
| ojnabieoot wrote:
| I'm aware it was a joke :) But I think the confusion was
| sincere; the explanation in the article is lacking if you
| don't have a clear picture to begin with.
| leobabauta wrote:
| I'd find giant lenses hovering over the ocean to be pretty
| mysterious.
| Igelau wrote:
| Ah, so there's a man on an island bobbing fake ships on his
| massive attenae. It's like the myth of the Sirens but instead
| of ladies saying, "come heeeeere" it's a dude saying, "look a
| shiiiip".
| PhilosAccnting wrote:
| Even if this was shopped, the illusion was correct, meaning the
| sailors' tall tales from a few hundred years ago _weren 't_ quite
| so tall.
|
| I mean, mermaids [?] dolphins, so ghost ship [?] floating ship.
| prepend wrote:
| Off topic, but BBC blocks me because I use iPhone's Adblock.
|
| BBC is government funded with a mission to inform the British
| people. Why would they require ad viewing and default to not
| showing news without ads? Seems against their mission.
|
| For profit news I understand as the whole "maximize shareholder
| equity" thing, but when government news sources use these anti-
| consumer tactics it's depressing to me.
| pmontra wrote:
| uBlock Origin with Firefox on Android. The site loaded fine.
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| The BBC is _not_ a government news source. It 's not even
| funded by the UK government.[0] It is - by law[1] - required to
| be completely editorially independent.
|
| The BBC is primarily funded by the TV Licence. The licence is
| levvied on anyone who watches live TV (any live TV) or uses
| BBC's SVoD service, BBC iPlayer.
|
| The BBC does operate a commercial subsidiary (BBC Studios), and
| the main BBC does have other revenue sources like patents owned
| by BBC R&D and, as you have noted, advertising on bbc.com for
| people who are outside of the UK.
|
| [0] Well... there are some grants given to the BBC to fund its
| activities internationally, but those are quite limited in
| scope and size.
|
| [1] https://www.bbc.com/aboutthebbc/governance/charter
| switch007 wrote:
| This is cherry picking information about the BBC.
|
| The chairman has worked for the PM and the Chancellor and has
| donated large sums to the Conservative party.
|
| The BBC Director General is an ex Conservative Party
| councillor.
|
| The BBC board Chairman and the non-executives are effectively
| appointed by the government.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > required to be completely editorially independent.
|
| Although historically it seems very rare that the BBC view on
| any international politics differs from that of the UK
| government.
|
| Hopefully that's because both cater to the views of the
| British public, but it also seems possible that there is some
| kind of informal backchannel going on...
| hardlianotion wrote:
| > Although historically it seems very rare that the BBC
| view on any international politics differs from that of the
| UK government.
|
| I know a lot of Britishers that would dispute this version
| of affairs. To my mind the typical BBC point of view is
| mildly left-of-centre, well-to-do and urban.
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| >To my mind the typical BBC point of view is mildly left-
| of-centre, well-to-do and urban.
|
| sounds accurate.
| statstutor wrote:
| > the typical BBC point of view is mildly left-of-centre
|
| Many people would claim that the BBC is left-of-centre,
| but if you look at their most prominent/best paid
| journalists, that is near-objectively not the case.
|
| Andrew Neil was been one of the highest paid BBC
| journalists 2003-2020, having previously worked for
| Rupert Murdoch, and has gone on to be Chair [correction:
| Chairman] of "GB News".
|
| GB News hosts the most right-wing voices in British
| political discourse, and been compared to Fox News in
| this respect.
|
| I might concede that the BBC is left-of-centre compared
| to the average British news media, but given that British
| news media is exclusively owned by conservative
| billionaires, I'm not convinced this is a great anchor
| point.
| iso1631 wrote:
| On the flip side you could argue that Andrew Neil leaving
| the BBC shows evidence of it not being right wing.
|
| Fundamentally the BBC is definitely left wing[0], with
| enourmous right wing bias[1]
|
| Everyone agrees [2] it's biased.
|
| [0] https://www.cps.org.uk/files/reports/original/1308141
| 02945-B...
|
| [1] https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/bbc-left-
| right-wing-b...
|
| [2] https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/bbc-left-
| right-wing-b...
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| The TV license is a tax imposed by the government, ergo the
| BBC is funded by the UK government.
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| >The TV license is a tax imposed by the government
|
| The requirement to hold a licence is a statutory one.
| Likewise, payment of the fee must, by law, be made to the
| BBC, and enforcement of the licensing regime must be done
| by (or on behalf of) the BBC.
|
| Thus, it is Parliament, not the government, that imposes
| the tax.
|
| (Yes, I know that all taxes must have a statutory basis,
| but this is one that is levied outside of the usual
| budgetary process using Finance Acts (the passage of which
| are traditionally considered confidence votes), and the TV
| Licence is not considered by government as part of its
| annual budget).
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Parliament is a part of the government, at least under
| the en_us understanding of the word.
|
| Government n. 1. the governing body of a nation, state,
| or community.
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| That's a very broad definition. It's definitely not one
| that is shared in en-GB nor, at least to my knowledge,
| amongst other English dialects.
|
| Are opposition legislators considered "members of the
| government", even if they don't actually, well, govern
| anything?
| asdfasgasdgasdg wrote:
| Yes, in the same way that I would consider a government
| employee who does not have carte blanche to be part of
| the government, even when not every decision they make is
| implemented. The government is the entire apparatus that
| governs a state, under the en_us definition.
|
| If you changed the funding of RT to be controlled by the
| Duma, but left all other details intact, would you then
| say that RT is not government sponsored? To me, that
| seems like an odd distinction to make. It doesn't capture
| what most people find salient when talking about
| government sponsorship of the media. To wit: where is the
| money -- and therefore power -- coming from? Is it
| primarily controlled by the people or is it controlled by
| the rulers?
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Wait, hold up, the Parliament is not the government?
| That's a very confusing take.
| monadgonad wrote:
| > the Parliament is not the government?
|
| Correct. In the UK, "government" refers to the ministers
| currently in power, the "executive branch of the
| government" in US terms.
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| What's confusing about it?
|
| The government wields executive power, Parliament
| legislates and holds the government to account.
| iso1631 wrote:
| The confusing part is that the government has to maintain
| the confidence of the house, and is comprised of members
| of parliament.
|
| Normally the government whips mean that parliament does
| whatever the government tell it to do, so "holds the
| government to account" is a laughable statement.
|
| Unlike the US system where the president can easily not
| have the confidence of the Senate or House (R president,
| D House, D Senate for example), and appoints his own
| secretaries from a pool of 300+m people, in the UK, the
| prime minister appoints ministers from parliament
| (usually the house of commons but can appoint from house
| of lords). Technically the PM could make a new lord (like
| Blair did with Sugar), but it's convoluted, and
| conventionally the main jobs must go to MPs
|
| Most people think "I like Boris, I vote for him as PM, he
| runs the country". In the last 5 years this has broken
| down and parliament has asserted itself more -- this
| independence was punished at the ballot box in December
| 2019.
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| > The confusing part is that the government has to
| maintain the confidence of the house, and is comprised of
| members of parliament.
|
| Confidence of the Commons, yes. The government doesn't
| have a majority in the Lords.
|
| >Normally the government whips mean that parliament does
| whatever the government tell it to do, so "holds the
| government to account" is a laughable statement.
|
| To an extent, that's true. The select committee system
| enables alternate power base within Parliament
| (especially the Commons) so that independently-minded
| backbench MPs to scrutinise ministers and other public
| officials with less interference from the whips.
|
| And over the past 2 parliaments we have seen the rise of
| the Tory "research groups" - especially the ERG - which
| have been very influential on the government.
|
| I'm not saying that everything is perfect here, until we
| ditch the first-past-the-post electoral system everything
| is still screwed up, but the government _does_ have to
| listen to Parliament when the latter wants something.
| iso1631 wrote:
| The Tory "Research groups" and the 1918 are influential
| inside the tory party, but tories always stick together.
|
| Nothing new, Redwood challenged Major in the 90s, and
| Thatcher lost support of the tory party before that, but
| various backbenchers might arrange for PMs to leave, but
| they would never dream of voting against the government
| in a vote of confidence.
|
| Parliament isn't important, internal politics of the
| conservative party are important. (And Labour, but less
| so as (apart from Blair), Labour don't win elections)
|
| The government in the last few years has broken the law
| time and time again, but nothing happens. They did lose
| support of parliament, some tory members actually
| rebelled - including grandees like Ken Clarke. The
| electorate put them where they belong.
|
| Democracy doesn't really exist in the UK, we have 40+
| years of a dysfunctional opposition party that only won
| thanks to Blair, and the only times that parliament
| started to assert itself, it was massively punished.
|
| AV wasn't perfect, but it was still far better than FPTP,
| and the masively rejected it. We can have a government
| that kills hundreds of thousands of people, flushes
| billions into the back pockets of tory donors, and we
| reward them with ever higher approval ratings.
| Turing_Machine wrote:
| > Thus, it is Parliament, not the government, that
| imposes the tax.
|
| I think we're encountering the "two countries separated
| by a common language" thing here.
|
| "Government" (in the UK sense) refers only to the current
| Prime Minister and assistants, yes? In the US sense,
| Congress is considered to be part of the "government".
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| >"Government" (in the UK sense) refers only to the
| current Prime Minister and assistants, yes? In the US
| sense, Congress is considered to be part of the
| "government".
|
| Broadly, yes; "The government" almost exclusively refers
| to the executive. So, The Crown, ministers, and perhaps
| the civil service depending on the context.
| fsckboy wrote:
| but the license fee is not imposed by one government
| after another, it is imposed by law, a law passed by a
| government and enforced by a sequence of governments
| thereafter
| seneca wrote:
| > It's not even funded by the UK government.[0]
|
| > The BBC is primarily funded by the TV Licence. The licence
| is levvied on anyone who watches live TV (any live TV)
|
| Who mandates the payment of a TV License and allocates the
| funds from it to the BBC? I would assume that's the UK
| government. These terms may be used differently in the UK,
| but in the US that would be considered government funded.
| iso1631 wrote:
| The license is mandated (in certain circumstances), however
| the funds are collected by the BBC directly.
|
| The US mandates obamacare I believe, does that mean it's
| government funded?
| seneca wrote:
| > The license is mandated (in certain circumstances),
| however the funds are collected by the BBC directly.
|
| Interesting. I would still consider that government
| funded, personally, since it's a mandatory fee imposed by
| the government and applied to all TV watchers, not just
| consumers of the BBc. It's certainly a bit more blurry
| though with the direct collection.
|
| > The US mandates obamacare I believe, does that mean
| it's government funded?
|
| It depends what you mean. "Obamacare" is an extremely
| broad term.
|
| Speaking generally: If the government is mandating a fee
| for some activity, and allocating the funds from said fee
| to some entity, that entity is government funded. Those
| fees are defacto taxes.
| iso1631 wrote:
| > Interesting. I would still consider that government
| funded, personally, since it's a mandatory fee imposed by
| the government and applied to all TV watchers, not just
| consumers of the BBc. It's certainly a bit more blurry
| though with the direct collection.
|
| Not all consumers. No need for a TV license to listen to
| radio 4, or use the website.
|
| I do have a TV license, but that's mainly because I very
| occasionally use iplayer - I don't even own a TV aerial.
|
| Some states in America require a dog license and/or a cat
| license, is that a tax? Is a fishing license a tax? How
| about a fee to enter a national park?
|
| In at least some states in the US the government mandates
| you to have car insurance if the car is operated on the
| public highway. This mandatory fee is collected by
| private companies and goes to private companies, is it a
| tax?
| seneca wrote:
| > Not all consumers. No need for a TV license to listen
| to radio 4, or use the website.
|
| I may misunderstand then. In order to watch live TV in
| the UK you must pay a fee, mandated by the government,
| and that fee is paid to the BBC? If that's the case, I
| stand by what I said previously.
|
| > Some states in America require a dog license and/or a
| cat license, is that a tax? Is a fishing license a tax?
| How about a fee to enter a national park?
|
| A defacto tax, yes, to all of these. Taking the
| definition of tax I receive from Google and trimming to
| the relevant bit: "a compulsory contribution to state
| revenue ... added to the cost of some goods, services,
| and transactions." The state says "you must have
| permission to have a dog. If you want permission, you
| must pay". That's a compulsory contribution added to the
| cost of some service.
|
| > In at least some states in the US the government
| mandates you to have car insurance if the car is operated
| on the public highway. This mandatory fee is collected by
| private companies and goes to private companies, is it a
| tax?
|
| That's an interesting question! My knee jerk reaction is
| no, and I think it is because the insurance provider is
| actually selling me a service separate and distinct from
| the activity. That is to say, the BBC is selling "TV" and
| you're paying a fee. The insurance carrier is selling me
| a promise that they'll pay me if something should go
| wrong while I drive, not driving itself.
|
| I fully admit that's a tenuous difference, and I could
| probably be convinced otherwise. You make a good point.
| iso1631 wrote:
| "a compulsory contribution to state revenue ... added to
| the cost of some goods, services, and transactions"
|
| A license fee, be it for a dog, cat, or television
|
| 1) Is not compulsory
|
| 2) Is not added to the cost of anything
|
| And in the case of a UK Television license it doesn't go
| to the state.
|
| I think the problem is getting hung up on the definition
| of tax, which itself is a rather meaningless debate. The
| UK government, and indeed parliament, has no say over the
| BBC budget or income, only the level of the license. If a
| million more houses decided to license a tv set, BBC
| income increases by PS150m, if a million more houses "cut
| the cord" and just watch netflix, disney, etc, then BBC
| income decreases by PS150m.
|
| Compare with primary/secondary education, where the
| government decides how much money to spend on education
| each year. It could increase it one year, decrease it the
| next, it's a government funded service.
|
| Trying to define the BBC funding model as "tax for a
| government department" or "not a tax to an independent
| company" is itself problematic, the BBC is pretty much
| unique in its funding model and its control. It's
| overseen by a board which comprises of zero members of
| government, although the chair and some non-executive
| directors are appointed by the government.
|
| EDF, the energy company, is owned by the French state,
| but I don't think people consider it to be government
| funded.
| grkvlt wrote:
| So, is car insurance a tax, then?
| arghwhat wrote:
| Same in Denmark, but the collective opinion is that the
| structure makes the license a TV tax (a yearly fee you must
| pay by government mandate as a result of owning a type of
| device irrespective of use) that goes to the media company,
| thus making it state funded by that tax, regardless of what
| the company and government claim.
|
| If it was independent it would have to sell its services on
| its own, with citizens purchasing the service only if they
| wished to use it.
|
| In Denmark we're also soon abolishing the license and just
| making it a normal tax. The structure was pointless and the
| attempted indirection only angered people, especially as it
| was expanded to also apply to anyone having internet access
| over a certain bandwidth.
|
| Furthermore, anything funded by law cannot be truly
| independent in content either, as it will wish to appease the
| hand that feeds it.
| iso1631 wrote:
| > a TV tax (a yearly fee you must pay by government mandate
| as a result of owning a type of device irrespective of use
|
| That's not the case in the UK. You only need a TV license
| if you use equipment to receive a live TV programme (which
| is something that falls under the remit of OFCOM[1] - not a
| livestream of Everyday Astronaut), or if you use BBC's
| iplayer.
|
| [1] Specifically from 2003 communications act
| "television programme service" means any of the following--
| * a television broadcasting service; * a television
| licensable content service; * a digital television
| programme service; * a restricted television service
| [consists in the broadcasting of television programmes for
| a particular establishment or other defined location, or a
| particular event, in the United Kingdom, which is
| licensable by OFCOM]
| arghwhat wrote:
| > You only need a TV license if you use equipment to
| receive a live TV programme
|
| Better than Denmark, but the quoted legal snippet is not
| restricted to BBC content, but instead applies to
| reception or any kind of television broadcast
| irrespective of provider or source (foreign satellite TV
| being an obvious alternative).
|
| It's a different TV tax than that in Denmark, but
| absolutely a government mandated tax.
|
| (I am unsure how to interpret the _digital_ television
| broadcast service aspect. I wonder if they mean something
| wider than DVB, as the previous points do not use
| "analogue" as classifier. It's need more of the text to
| figure that out.)
| M2Ys4U wrote:
| > Same in Denmark, but the collective opinion is that the
| structure makes the license a TV tax (a yearly fee you must
| pay by government mandate as a result of owning a type of
| device irrespective of use) that goes to the media company,
| thus making it state funded by that tax, regardless of what
| the company and government claim.
|
| >If it was independent it would have to sell its services
| on its own, with citizens purchasing the service only if
| they wished to use it.
|
| It's similar here. the Office of National Statistics has
| considered the licence fee a tax rather than a service
| charge for ~15 years. But I don't think that changes the
| nature of how the BBC is funded.
|
| >In Denmark we're also soon abolishing the license and just
| making it a normal tax. The structure was pointless and the
| attempted indirection only angered people, especially as it
| was expanded to also apply to anyone having internet access
| over a certain bandwidth.
|
| There has been a live discussion around the continuation of
| the licence fee here, too. Although that seems to have -
| mostly - gone away since the BBC proved its value during
| the pandemic. I think it helps that the requirement is
| still fairly narrow here.
|
| The indirection is a feature - having the BBC's funding
| taken out of the regular budgetary process adds to its
| independence.
|
| Politically it's a distinct action to change the value of
| the licence fee.
|
| >Furthermore, anything funded by law cannot be truly
| independent in content either, as it will wish to appease
| the hand that feeds it.
|
| To be fair that applies to more than funding. As an
| example, if trade unions piss the government off too much
| they can get a majority in the legislature to rewrite
| industrial relations law.
| grkvlt wrote:
| > the _unique_ nature of how the BBC is funded.
|
| of course, other funding sources are available...
| patrickmcnamara wrote:
| What is iPhone's Adblock? Is there some default iOS ad-blocker
| that I don't know about?
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Probably talking about the anti-tracking stuff built into
| safari. It's not exactly an adblocker but if they're tracking
| you and can't (a typical but not exclusive adver tactic) then
| it could certainly be dropping their javascript/cookies so
| it's functionally blocking their ads. Same goes for Firefox
| which bills itself as antitracking rather than anti-ads
| mywacaday wrote:
| BBC news used to be so good for a long time but over the last
| few years it seems to be gravitating more towards advertising
| and click bait.
| agd wrote:
| BBC is free to UK viewers but ad-supported for international
| viewers. This seems fair to me as UK citizens are the ones
| funding it.
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| exactly! we don't want just anyone reading OUR news for
| free;) (I'm a bit horrible that i'm happy because someone
| else is having a worse internet experience then me. I'll try
| and work on myself.)
| statstutor wrote:
| I have occasionally sent BBC articles to my friends in the
| UK, only to find the article is blocked in the UK.
|
| I guess it's shockingly difficult to identify advertorials.
| prepend wrote:
| The marginal cost of UK vs international viewers is less than
| the ad revenue collected, I expect. Since the ads are the
| same as CNN or other for profit news agencies it also seems
| odd that a non-profit, government (in the English language
| sense, not the UK part of government sense) would have more
| stringent ad controls than for profit.
|
| Making a government news source profit seeking is a pretty
| bad plan, I think.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| BBC Worldwide has always been profit seeking (because it
| subsidizes the UK taxpayer so the license fee can be
| lower). If you're not going to see the Ads, then the
| website also has a right to deny you access.
| mrighele wrote:
| I use NoScript, and the page loaded fine: if you don't load any
| JS there is no code to detect an ad blocker :-). (This doesn't
| always work of course, but it does for many websites).
|
| Oh, and the website loaded in ~500ms with a 50kb of data
| downloaded. The "full version" loaded > 5MB of data in 10+
| seconds.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Sure but lots of pages won't load without javascript so it's
| double edged. If the javascript won't load it can't download
| the page via js only mechanisms.
| CaptainSwing wrote:
| Underfunding and neoliberal management. There's a fair chance
| the government is hollowing it out to undermine public
| perception of the institution so they cang et away with doing
| away with it completely.
| tempodox wrote:
| The Flying Dutchman?
| hrnnnnnn wrote:
| The Action Lab had a great video about this effect recently.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrgKUFbwNf0
| istjohn wrote:
| Fascinating. From the video, this same effect can even invert
| the image so that a ship appears to hover upside down: a ghost
| ship.
| [deleted]
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| ghost ship are supposed to hover upside down? I thought they
| were just supposed to be ghostly and spooky?
| IgorPartola wrote:
| This is what I came here for. Thank you for the link.
| jcims wrote:
| I love this guy's channel. He's constantly cranking out new
| ideas.
| centimeter wrote:
| I'm always really impressed how he can make a video that
| _sounds_ like clickbait, but usually go into pretty
| interesting (and accurate) scientific detail.
| brundolf wrote:
| Holy geez. I expected a tiny gap; this thing looks like an
| aircraft. Wild.
|
| I wonder if this effect has contributed to some "ghost ship"
| legends in the past?
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| It's strange that the air and the water below the "floating" ship
| is so crisp and clear. In a superior illusion, there normally is
| quite a bit of distortion appearing like a wall of fog or galss
| under the ship (or island etc). It's also strange that this was
| seen at a very close range when such illusions normally involve
| objects far away, near the horizon.
|
| Is it possible this image is a hoax, or that it was edited to
| exaggerate the real effect?
| CRConrad wrote:
| The BBC says lots of people saw it, so I'd guess not a hoax.
| Sure, it _could_ be edited, but Occam 's razor suggests this
| guy just happened to be the one standing where it looked the
| clearest, so his photo was the one they selected to publish.
| (Also, what's to say it "was seen at a very close range" --
| does the picture on the web page include meta info on what
| degree of zoom he used?)
| htkyoholk wrote:
| Maybe the photograph took 100 pictures from various positions,
| like tourists holding up the Pisa tower.
| jpcooper wrote:
| If anyone wants to learn more about paranormal activity in
| Cornwall, they can check out a relevant episode of Fortean TV, a
| fantastic documentary series from the 90s:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aEX3Z3mjCk.
| mprev wrote:
| But this isn't paranormal.
|
| Fortean TV was, admittedly, fun but silly fun nonetheless.
| depaya wrote:
| Tangentially related, the fantastic WWII submarine book 'Thunder
| Down Below' talks about a similar mirage issue being a common
| occurrence in their submarine warfare. They would see ships that
| appear to be on the horizon but are actually hundreds of miles
| away.
|
| [0] https://books.google.com/books?id=Jm-iiEis05AC
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| wow! hundreds of miles! that's extraordinary. tell me this is
| only possible using specialist telescopes etc.
| 51Cards wrote:
| Next international helium shipment on its way.
| peterburkimsher wrote:
| You must be thinking of an airship, not an air ship.
| ridaj wrote:
| I sort of freaked out the first time I saw something like this.
|
| Then Wikipedia held my hand and said everything was OK and this
| even has a name:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fata_Morgana_(mirage)
| mordechai9000 wrote:
| There's a spot where I walk my dog near my house. It follows a
| power line trail up a hill, and you can turn around and see
| Denali. For whatever reason, on warm spring days Fata Morgana
| distortion is fairly common from this spot. I've seen it a few
| times. At it's most obvious, Denali will appear to be sitting
| on a pedestal of sheer cliffs, thousands of feet high,
| surrounded by non existent tabletop mountains and improbable,
| fantastically shaped spires that would be 10,000 feet ASL if
| they were real. My cellphone camera doesn't do it justice to
| though.
| brundolf wrote:
| Have you uploaded pictures anywhere?
| mordechai9000 wrote:
| No, I just tried posting to imgur and it didn't go so well.
| It is a white mountain on the horizon, taken with a cell
| phone. Honestly the pictures don't convey much. If you zoom
| in, you can see the distortion, though. I'm sure a decent
| lens could capture it.
| david422 wrote:
| This new image needs to go in the wikipedia article. The
| example images are kinda bleh. But this one really illustrates
| the concept.
| Biganon wrote:
| A fata morgana is a special type of superior mirage, where
| the object is heavily distorted, often to the point of being
| unrecognizable. The ship in the article kept its shape and is
| very much recognizable.
| x3n0ph3n3 wrote:
| This is not a Fata Morgana, it's a false horizon.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er1mh90wN-k
| midrus wrote:
| "...The optical phenomenon occurs because rays of light are
| bent when they pass through air layers of different
| temperatures in a steep thermal inversion where an atmospheric
| duct has formed..."
|
| To me that's the most Men In Black explanation I've ever heard.
|
| Definitely confirms this is aliens.
| btilly wrote:
| Here is a lay explanation.
|
| Light travels at different speeds in different substances.
| But it always takes a path that is locally fastest - meaning
| that any nearby path would be slower. (This is called the
| Fermat principle.)
|
| You can see this principle at work when you put a stick into
| water. Because light travels more slowly in water, the light
| first heads mostly straight up, then bends when it hits the
| air. The result is that light does not travel a straight path
| to your eye. Which means that the part of the stick in the
| water looks like it is where the light comes out of the
| water, rather than where the stick is. As a result you can
| see the stick visibly bend.
|
| Now what is happening here is that you have a layer of warm
| air over cold air. Light travels faster in warm air. (That is
| because as air warms it expands, making it less dense. Less
| dense means that there is less getting in the way of the
| light and it can move faster.) Therefore that fastest path is
| for the light to go up into the warm air, go along the warm
| air, and then dive back down to your eyes.
|
| In many places you can see the reverse of this on hot days
| where hot ground makes for a hot air layer next to the
| ground. When the conditions are right the light from the sky
| can reach your eyes by skimming along the ground, and you get
| blue patches in the ground. In a desert this can look like
| water in the distance.
| cevn wrote:
| OK so, that's how the air ripples work for heat... because
| of the density of the air.
|
| It makes me wonder, if you had a 10 inch globe of vacuum
| suspended in air, how different looking thru it would
| appear vs the air. It seems like you might be able to
| detect it via sight alone.
| FreeFull wrote:
| Yeah, it'd definitely be visible. I imagine it'd be like
| looking at an air bubble while underwater, in terms of
| refraction, except that air doesn't have surface tension
| so the boundary wouldn't look quite the same.
| Gupie wrote:
| Or proof the earth is flat.
| saalweachter wrote:
| Nah, they're just sailing to Valinor.
| dbetteridge wrote:
| Basically the layers of air above the water have slight
| variations (temperature, humidity, pressure) between them in
| such a way that they each have a small change in refractive
| index that over a distance bends light upwards.
|
| Then you have another group of layers of air further up in
| the 'marine boundary layer' that bends the light back towards
| the waters surface.
|
| This is called an 'atmospheric duct' and is somewhat similar
| in the effect to a fibre optic cable.
|
| Poor mans source: I wrote my thesis 5+ years ago on
| refractive effects in the maritime boundary layer [1]
|
| [1] https://ceed.wa.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/DSTO-
| Refra...
| djrogers wrote:
| Agent D, you're making it worse...
| moron4hire wrote:
| You can confirm it at home
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=968gVUAY9Mg
| mingusrude wrote:
| I've seen it once and I haven't seen an explanation until now.
| My wife and I were kayaking on a lake in Northern Sweden and
| far far away we see a boat that is just moving slowly, lifted
| up in the air. It was completely calm and we could not hear it
| (very far away), it was ghostly.
| jvm_ wrote:
| I've heard of this happening across Lake Erie, people in Canada
| said they could see the color of the traffic lights all the way
| across the lake in Erie PA.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Give it the proper name. This where the "flying" part of the
| Flying Dutchman comes from.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| Two others
|
| https://worldtruth.tv/footage-of-ship-flying-above-the-ocean...
|
| https://digg.com/2018/floating-ships-illusion-fata-morgana
| mc32 wrote:
| Isn't this just Fata Morgana?
| Zenst wrote:
| Yes - it is exactly that, when the ocean is cooler than the
| above air is when this can happen.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fata_Morgana_(mirage)
| boringg wrote:
| I love stuff like this - reminds you that Science Rules
| Everything Around Me and will play tricks on me.
| roelschroeven wrote:
| Does anyone else have intermittent problems resolving BBC
| domains, or is it just me?
|
| Sometimes I can't resolve www.bbc.co.uk, sometimes it works. Same
| for www.bbc.com. I don't have that problem with any other domain
| name I have encountered. The intermittency makes it very hard to
| troubleshoot.
| damau wrote:
| This has happened to me. Do you use a VPN at all?. I think by
| connecting from different perceived places between your IP
| location and the cookie (from a previous visit at a previous IP
| location) can confuse the redirect.
| sfjailbird wrote:
| Maybe this kind of thing is the origin of the 'Flying Dutchman'
| legend.
| [deleted]
| guerrilla wrote:
| This actually happens pretty frequently where I live, except what
| we see is trees on a far off island floating. I've never seen a
| ship float, but now I'll be looking for it.
| broooder wrote:
| Who is walker?
| tremon wrote:
| Cornish ranger.
| djmips wrote:
| It occurred to me that maybe Castle In The Sky (Ghibli) might
| have some origin (possibly) from such illusions. There was a
| Chinese news report of a city in the sky illusion. Here's the
| video, quite impressive.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoP1sh1WXm8
| slacktide wrote:
| Um, "Castle in the Sky" had it's origin in "Gulliver's
| Travels", published in 1726. Part III, a Voyage to Laputa (et
| al.).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulliver%27s_Travels#Part_III:...
| klingon79 wrote:
| And "Castles in the Sky" was about the development of radar
| in England.
| qqii wrote:
| The video, although reported to be from the same phenomenon is
| actually a fake: https://youtu.be/Xmrn2IuSW-Q
| htkyoholk wrote:
| Nice try by the government to cover up testing of anti-gravity
| drive recovered from UFO.
| klingon79 wrote:
| While it's the less plausible explanation, I think this theory
| should be explored further.
|
| With a photo like this, what can we do to assist in proving or
| disproving the theory that it's indeed flying?
|
| Also, is the headline incorrect if it indicates that it's
| flying when it's not, if it appears to be?
| guram11 wrote:
| As always never believe anything until it is officially denied
| dang wrote:
| Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments
| you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site
| guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
|
| You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a
| community, users need some identity for other users to relate
| to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no
| community, and that would be a different kind of forum.
| https://hn.algolia.com/?query=community%20identity%20by:dang...
| it wrote:
| I prefer to think it's antigravity.
|
| If it's just light bending then why don't we also see the
| surrounding water elevated in the supposed mirage?
| ardit33 wrote:
| This is not a rare illusion. When I used to be a kid, we saw this
| illusion all the time When we went to the beach in Albania (Port
| of Durres)
|
| The Adriatic see can be very calm sometimes, and the blue waters
| do match the same color/blue hue of the sky.
| andbberger wrote:
| Harmonielehre.
| dmix wrote:
| This picture will help explain the "superior mirage":
|
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/45/Su...
|
| Note in the OP's original link the bottom half is cut off
| entirely.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirage?oldformat=true#Superior...
| CRConrad wrote:
| > Note in the OP's original link the bottom half is cut off
| entirely.
|
| Not by any optical effect, I think -- you're seeing all that's
| visible of it where it actually is, too: The bit that's "cut
| off" is just what's hidden below the water line. (Some other
| post here suggested a thin line of water may actually be barely
| visible along the lower edge of the ship in the "mirage"
| photo.)
| x3n0ph3n3 wrote:
| This _is not_ a superior mirage, it's a false horizon.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er1mh90wN-k
| dmix wrote:
| Thanks for clearing that up, I learned something today. That
| actually makes a lot of sense as well.
|
| It's interesting the BBC experts didn't catch the difference
| but that's the benefit of the internet I guess.
| breck wrote:
| Oh wow! Thanks for sharing. I thought the original looked super
| weird, but seeing your "distorted" version instantly brought
| back flashbacks to when I saw this in South Dennis, MA, a few
| years ago. I took photos and couldn't figure out what the heck
| was out there, but it was this. Thanks!
| ryantgtg wrote:
| Growing up in Santa Barbara, I would see something like this
| everyday. Freighters going through the channel, the oil
| derricks, and the Channels Islands all exhibited it.
| krupan wrote:
| Look up Floating Island on the Utah Salt Flats. Similar type of
| mirage
| helge9210 wrote:
| I've seen illusion like this off Herzelia, Israel coast couple of
| years ago. I think I even made couple of pictures.
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| this kind of steals the thunder from the flying pirates ship in
| Peter Pan. I'll have to reconsider my childhood.
| lebuffon wrote:
| Very nice picture, but how does this advance the "flat earth
| theory"?
|
| :)
| kerblang wrote:
| I know you're joking, but this is highly useful in this regard,
| because flat-earthers often swear up & down that they can see
| beyond the "ostensible" horizon limit without understanding
| that refraction effect. This one is kind of unique but it
| demonstrates refraction nicely.
|
| Really, I think we're usually so busy being dismissive and
| condescending towards flat-earthers, it's easy to forget that
| proving the spherical earth is kind of a tricky matter without
| putting people in spaceships (but if I could afford it, I'd
| happily buy a few tickets for them...)
| chenning wrote:
| That settles it. We're living in a simulation.
| pvarangot wrote:
| Your perception of the ship position is definitely more similar
| to "a simulation" than to "the absolute truth about where the
| ship is", so if you want to understand it like that then yeah.
| If by this statement you mean that the ship or we are all some
| kind of software construct programmed by some other beings that
| can simulate things then I think you should leave religion out
| of the dicussion.
| mythbuster1969 wrote:
| These kinds of stories always seem to originate in the UK. I read
| somewhere that planting fake news stories in the mainstream media
| is a favorite pasttime of the Brits. I believe that this has been
| photoshopped. I zoomed in on the photo and it is clear to me that
| the telltale signs of photoshopping are visible around the edges
| of the ship.
| bumbledraven wrote:
| Neat! Something like this could have been the inspiration for
| _The Wreck of the Zephyr_ by Chris Van Allsburg.
| https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-wreck-of-the-zephyr-30t...
| xyzzyz wrote:
| If you want to see ship hovering for real, check out America Cup
| 75 yacht racing. This year the new rules for yacht design made it
| so that the yachts literally are flying over the water.
|
| https://youtu.be/r6HW52g1JwM
| qqii wrote:
| As a tangent there is this excellent Captain Disillusion video
| debunking the floating city which was attributed to the same
| phenomenon as seen here: https://youtu.be/Xmrn2IuSW-Q
| cs702 wrote:
| I've seen this optical illusion in person, with large container
| ships, off the US Mid-Atlantic coast, and it's really cool.
|
| The photo in this article is fantastic. It shows an extreme
| example of the illusion. The ship appears to be, not just
| hovering over the water, but actually suspended in mid-air.
|
| In my view, it's worth clicking on the link just to see the
| photo.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Something just occurred to me. Is this actually an optical
| illusion? My idea of an optical illusion is one where your
| brain perceives something that is different from reality.
| Indeed, when I look it up I see examples of that (e.g.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_illusion) But in this
| case your brain isn't doing anything wrong, the light reaching
| your eyes is what's "wrong" and your brain is correctly
| interpreting what your eyes see (as shown by the photograph).
| unloco wrote:
| This is a false horizon.
|
| Your eyes are seeing the reflection of the sky on the distant
| water or fog, making it appear the horizon is closer than it
| really is.
|
| So it is an optical illusion, as your brain is what is
| perceiving a horizon where it is not.
| russianbandit wrote:
| It's not just one person's brain, right? Everyone who was
| there would see the same thing. Surely, that means our
| brains are pretty much wired the same. But I wonder if some
| people would see the "correct" thing.
|
| What's also mind blowing is that the camera captures the
| same thing your brain is interpreting!
| checker wrote:
| This is proven to be a physical illusion because the
| light sensor (camera) is capturing the same image as the
| two light sensors in your head (eyes). So no person would
| see the "correct" thing because the light in the scene is
| actually rendering this image with minimal interpretive
| transformations from the mind (this is in contrast to
| cognitive illusions). Unless there is a person with some
| extreme sensitivity to the polarization or color of the
| reflected light but that is probably unlikely.
| danaliv wrote:
| I don't have the reference handy but I recall reading
| years ago that certain classic optical illusions simply
| don't work on people who weren't raised in societies with
| rectangular housing.
| rixed wrote:
| What you describe here is the usual kind of mirage, the one
| you see when light travels over a hot surface (desert sand,
| road) during summer.
|
| This particular kind of mirage ("superior mirage", as the
| author of the picture calls it) works the other way around:
| light bends away from the cold water surface. So, of I
| understand it correctly, the horizon appears where it
| really is whereas the ship appears higher up (contrary to
| normal mirage where the sky appears to come from the
| ground).
| rixed wrote:
| Correction before x3n0ph3n3 has to do it again: indeed
| this does not appear to be either a normal nor a superior
| mirage.
|
| I can only recommand to check
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=er1mh90wN-k and then
| https://metabunk.org/refraction/
| LegitShady wrote:
| I think this is a very fundamental optical illusion with a
| focus on optical, where air temperature bends light so makes
| you perceive something different from what it actually is.
|
| It's much more related to optics than direct perception. Your
| brain is drawing the correct image its received, the light
| has just been bent so that it doesn't form an accurate
| representation of what you're trying to see.
| e_proxus wrote:
| Wikipedia uses the term optical phenomenon.
| Naracion wrote:
| For what it's worth, the meteorologist specifically called it
| a mirage, not an optical illusion. Specifically, this is a
| "superior" mirage, meaning that the object appears to be
| above its actual location.
|
| A mirage is not an optical illusion in the way that you
| describe it. The BBC correspondent is the person that called
| it an optical illusion, not the meteorologist. :)
| red_trumpet wrote:
| The Wikipedia article contains a helpful table [1], which
| classifies optical illusions. One kind are "physical"
| illusions, like rainbows or distortions (think stick in
| water). I think the hovering ship is of that kind. Other
| kinds include "physiological" or "cognitive", which are
| tricking your brain.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_illusion#/media/Fil
| e:G...
| thedanbob wrote:
| I think you're right, this is a mirage. The article uses both
| terms interchangeably.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| It's a 'superior mirage' technically.
| x3n0ph3n3 wrote:
| It's not -- it's a false horizon.
| [deleted]
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-03-06 23:03 UTC)