4 Phenomena You Won’t Believe Are Real
From Floating Ships to Rolling Clouds, Here’s Some of the Strangest Phenomena in the World.
Our planet is a fascinating place, full of both intriguing and unsettling phenomena. I find this stuff so interesting and enjoy learning about it and sharing it with my readers. Because unless we actively search for it, we will never know about it. And believe me when I say there are some trippy things happening on our earth that you think you would only see in the movies.
If you’ve got a question you’re wondering about anything, science most likely has an answer. But sometimes, even science struggles to explain things. We like to think we know it all, but we don’t. Several phenomena remain unexplained. Physicists, for example, have yet to unravel the enigma of time and if it’s a real construct. Is time really passing, or is it simply a human construct to help us differentiate between now and our perception of the past? But other phenomena are so rarely seen that scientists never observe them, and that’s what we’ll be exploring today.
1. Floating ship captured off the English Coast
Nope, this isn’t Photoshop. This is a real image captured of a ship seemingly floating off the South West English coast in Cornwall country. The photo, taken by David Morris, quickly went viral, piquing the interest of several news outlets. One of them was David Braine, a BBC meteorologist who characterized the occurrence as a “super mirage” that caused the ship to appear floating in the air when it was sailing on the water.
The phenomenon, as explained by Braine:
“Superior mirages occur because of the weather condition known as a temperature inversion, where cold air lies close to the sea with warmer air above it. Since cold air is denser than warm air, it bends light towards the eyes of someone standing on the ground or on the coast, changing how a distant object appears.”
The image produced resulted from very specific atmospheric conditions that bend light. However, super mirages may produce various results; in this case, the image appears to be above the water floating, but objects even below the horizon can become visible in other instances.
Another example of the same sort of optical illusion was recorded in this photograph. It’s amazing how things may look to be something they aren’t.
2. “Morning Glory” — tube-shaped clouds
Imagine: You’re lying on the beach on the coast of Australia, and suddenly, you notice shadows passing by your face, one by one. So you look up to the sky to find multiple tunnel-shaped clouds seemingly rolling over the sky.
Well, these magnificent clouds are called ‘morning glory.’ These clouds are a very rare phenomenon occurring mostly in Australia, and each ‘tube’ can measure up to 1000 km long, even in groups. The event has not been clarified completely, and little is known of their formation. They often occur during strong winds, leading scientists to believe that they’re formed by the mesoscale circulations associated with sea breezes in the areas. Existing in these areas.
“Scientists posit that one of the main causes are particular patterns of air circulation created by the sea breezes that develop over the peninsula and the gulf, as well as an expression of the larger weather fronts crossing each other over different air pressures and temperatures in the region.” — Kimberley Mok
Think it’s too good to be true? Watch this video of a pilot surfing across the clouds.
3. Red tidal waves
In Early 2013, an image of a perceived red tidal wave towering across the Australian coast ended up on the internet, causing a debate among many web sleuths and some experts as to the true nature of this phenomenon.
Geoscientist Sian Proctor’s first instinct was that this was a towering tsunami. If this was a tsunami, the red coloring of the wave would result from a red tide algae bloom, which has the potential to turn areas of seawater red, thus causing the tsunami to be red in color, too, as theorized by Biologist Roland Kays.
But Earth scientist Alessandro Grippo disagrees with the theories of other experts, as a tsunami would have left evidence. However, that doesn’t discount their theories as untrue, as it could be a real instance somewhere. There are many instances of seawater turning red due to harmful algae blooms; look at this image below.
Atmospheric scientist Angela Fritz believes it’s a result of a bushfire. But neuroscientist Jayde Lovell believes one of the more believable theories is that this is simply a strange image of a bad case of a sandstorm or haboob.
“A haboob is when a huge storm creates this massive wind. In an area with lots of dust or sand, it can whip up a huge sandstorm that moves incredibly quickly.” — Jayde Lovell.
But what about the coloring? According to experts, the iron in the dirt causes the storm to be red-rich.
Here’s another image of the Australian phenomenon from a different angle:
4. The feeling of re-experiencing the unexperienced
Wait… have I seen this before? Read this before? Been here before? Sometimes, we experience something new, but then we get a creepy feeling that it’s not the first time we’ve done this. For those few creepy seconds, it feels like we’re replaying something that happened in the past. This sensation is known as déjà vu, which is translated from French as ‘already seen.’
In the past, it was believed that déjà vu resulted from our brain creating false memories, but newer hypotheses suggest otherwise. As with most unknown phenomena, its research is limited due to the nature of the sensation being unpredictable and fleeting, only lasting for a few seconds. There have been numerous theories to explain the phenomenon, from a clairvoyant “message from the Gods” to an array of scientific theories.
Expert Dr Akira O’Connor, a senior psychology lecturer at the University of St Andrews, explains the sensation:
“Déjà vu is basically a conflict between the sensation of familiarity and the awareness that the familiarity is incorrect. And it’s the awareness that you’re being tricked that makes déjà vu so unique compared to other memory events.”
Have you ever seen or experienced any of these phenomena before? Let me know in the comments.
