A floating ship clicked off the coast of England, the expert calls it a “rare phenomenon”

An image of a ship floating in the air was captured by a man off the English coast near Falmouth in Cornwall, the BBC reported. Several news outlets also talked about the bizarre-looking image shared by David Morris. Speaking to the broadcaster, Morris said he was “amazed” when he saw the image of a ship floating in the air.

A BBC meteorologist, David Braine, explained the phenomenon and said that “a super mirage” caused the ship to appear floating in the air, due to “special atmospheric conditions that bend the light”. “The superior mirages appear due to the meteorological conditions known as temperature reversal, where the cold air is close to the sea, with warmer air above it. Because cold air is denser than warm air, it bends light into the eyes of someone sitting on the ground or on the shore, changing the way a distant object appears, ”Braine was quoted as saying by the BBC.

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“Higher mirages can produce several different types of images – here a distant ship seems to float above its real position, but sometimes an object below the horizon can become visible,” he added. Braine also noted that such illusions occur “very rarely” in the United Kingdom 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 off Banff, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. However, it also proved to be an optical illusion.

“When I first saw the boat, I had to take a double take, because I really thought it was floating. On further inspection, however, I noticed that it was in fact just a remarkable optical illusion, “McCallum told the British Daily Mail in February.