Since childhood, I have been interested in mysterious natural phenomena. One of them is mirages. After all, it’s just magic to see something that doesn’t exist or is hundreds of kilometers away from the observer. Fabulous, isn't it? As a child, everything seems so simple. A mirage is a small miracle. By the way, it’s not only children who think this way. After reading a large number of various articles, I made a small discovery for myself. It turns out that people have seen mirages since ancient times. And they explained them by the ordinary intervention of gods or spirits. This information is still kept in various legends.

The crusaders, who went with their good purpose to Palestine, described the mirages especially colorfully and vividly. But, unfortunately, no one believed them. Well, in those days they really loved to tell tales about the wonders of the East.

Even before the Crusaders, mirages were observed, and quite often, by residents Ancient Egypt. They believed that mirages were nothing more than the ghost of a country that had disappeared many hundreds of years ago. According to this legend, every place on earth has its own soul. And so the soul of the lost country wandered across the vast Egyptian deserts, trying to find peace.

Yes, the ancients believed in miracles. It turns out that everything is much simpler and the intervention of otherworldly forces is not necessary for the occurrence of mirages. In a purely scientific definition, a mirage (French mirage - literally visibility) is nothing more than an optical phenomenon in the atmosphere, due to which images of objects appear in the visual zone that under normal conditions are hidden from observation.

That is, a mirage is nothing more than a play of light rays. The fact is that in the desert the earth warms up very much. But at the same time, the air temperature above the ground at different distances from it varies greatly. For example, the temperature of the air layer ten centimeters above ground level is 30-50 degrees less than the surface temperature.

All laws of physics say: light propagates in a homogeneous medium in a straight line. However, with such extreme conditions, the law does not apply. What's going on? The rays simply begin to refract at such temperature differences, and generally begin to be reflected near the ground, creating illusions that we are accustomed to calling mirages. That is, the air near the surface becomes a mirror.

Although mirages are usually associated with deserts, they can often be observed above the water surface, in the mountains, and sometimes even in large cities. In other words, wherever it occurs sudden changes temperatures, you can see these fabulous pictures.

This phenomenon is quite common. For example, in the largest desert on our planet, about 160 thousand mirages are observed annually.

How did the scientific observation of mirages develop?

The first and honorable place can be given to Monsieur Gaspard Monge. This man, in 1799, was the first to give a written explanation of this phenomenon, which is quite similar to the modern one. He took part in the Egyptian campaign of the famous commander Napoleon Bonaparte. The participants of this expedition walked in the direction of the Nile. The monotonous and rather dull appearance of the plains was broken only occasionally by small hills, on which villages were sometimes visible.

And then one day the soldiers noticed that periodically the plains seemed to be flooded with water, and the villages seemed to them like small islands. Moreover, what especially amazed the people from the expedition was that under each of these islands there was a mirror image of it, and the sky was also reflected.

Naturally, as we got closer, the mirage dissipated. Naturally, the soldiers interpreted this as the machinations of enemies and foreign gods. And Monsieur Monge explained everything with scientific point sight, which incomparably helped Bonaparte restore order in the ranks.

The commander of the Baffin ship undoubtedly deserved second place. A significant event occurred back in 1820. In the ship's log, he described a wonderful city, in which there are a huge number of ancient castles and temples. Moreover, this phenomenon was not only recorded, but also in more detail sketched by the same captain. Naturally, his evidence was not confirmed.

Third place can be given to the residents of a small island in the north of England. In 1840, they saw magnificent white buildings in the skies. They had never seen anything like this and decided that this was the famous crystal city inhabited by the Finn people. By the way, it is interesting that this vision was repeated 17 years later for three hours.

It is very interesting that although mirages are considered children of deserts, Alaska has long been recognized as the undisputed leader in their occurrence. The colder it is, the clearer and more beautiful the observed mirage.

No matter how common this phenomenon is, it is very difficult to study. Why? Yes, everything is very simple. No one knows where and when he will appear, what he will be like and how long he will live.

After many different records about mirages appeared, naturally, they had to be classified. It turned out that, despite all their diversity, it was possible to identify only six types of mirages: lower (lake), upper (appearing in the sky), side, “Fata Morgana”, ghost mirages and werewolf mirages.

More complex look mirage is called " Fata Morgana". No explanation has yet been found for it. Aurora borealis or werewolf mirages are usually classified as a type of mirages.

Lower (lake) mirage.

These are the most common mirages. They got their name because of the places where they originated. As you probably already guessed, Bonaparte’s expedition saw exactly them. They are observed on the surface of the earth and water (it’s not for nothing that their second name is “lake”).

This type of mirage is as simple in origin as the previous type. However, such mirages are much more diverse and beautiful.

They appear in the air. The most fascinating of them are the famous ghost towns. It is very interesting that they usually represent images of objects - cities, mountains, islands - that are located many thousands of kilometers away.

Side mirages

They appear near vertical surfaces that are strongly heated by the sun. These can be rocky shores of the sea or lake, when the shore is already illuminated by the Sun, but the surface of the water and the air above it are still cold. This type of mirage is a very common occurrence in Lake Geneva.

Fata Morgana

Fata Morgana is the most complex type of mirages. It is a combination of several forms of mirages. At the same time, the objects that the mirage depicts are magnified many times over and are quite distorted.

Interestingly, this type of mirage got its name from Morgana, the sister of the famous Arthur. She allegedly took offense at Lancelot for rejecting her. To spite him, she settled in underwater world and began to take revenge on all men, deceiving them with phantasmal visions

TO Fata Morgana can be attributed to numerous “ flying dutchmen “, which are still seen by sailors.

They usually show ships that are hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away from observers.

Mirages-ghosts or mirages-werewolves.

They produce a special psychological effect on their victims. Some visions baffle modern scientists too. For example, a French colonial detachment crossed the Algerian desert. Not far away they saw a flock of flamingos. But as soon as they crossed the border of the mirage, instead of two legs, each had four. A real Arabian horseman in white.

The detachment commander, naturally, was frightened and sent a scout to check what kind of people were in the desert. When the soldier got into the mirage zone, he figured it all out. But the metamorphoses that happened to him, observed by his comrades, plunged them into shock. His horse's legs became so long that he seemed to be sitting on a fantastic monster.

Perhaps there is nothing more to say about the types of mirages.

I would like to add that although this is an extremely beautiful and mysterious sight, it is also very dangerous. I kill mirages and drive my victims crazy. This is especially true for desert mirages. And the explanation of this phenomenon does not make the fate of travelers easier.

However, people are trying to fight this. They create special guides that indicate the places where mirages most often appear, and sometimes their forms.

Well, that seems to be it. By the way, mirages are obtained in laboratory conditions. Another mystery, I hope, solved. Thank you for your attention.

People have seen mirages since ancient times, about which many legends have been preserved. On the one hand, it is difficult to find a person who, at least once in his life, has not seen the simplest mirage - a blue lake on a hot highway. On the other hand, thousands of people have observed literally hanging cities, quaint castles and even entire armies in the sky, but here experts have no explanation for this natural phenomenon.

1. Mirages come in several types: lake, or lower; upper (they appear directly in the sky) or distant vision mirages; lateral mirages. A more complex type of mirage is called Fata Morgana.

2. Lower (lake) mirage. Inferior mirages occur primarily in cases where the layers of air near the surface of the Earth (for example, in a desert) are so heated that the rays of light emanating from objects are strongly bent.

3. Caravans in the Erg-er-Ravi desert in North Africa are especially often victims of mirages. People see oases “with their own eyes” at a distance of 2-3 kilometers, which in reality are at least 700 kilometers away

4. Superior mirage (distance vision mirage)

The air is heated from the Earth's surface, and its temperature drops with height. However, if above the layer of cool air there is a warmer (brought, for example, by southern winds) and very rarefied air layer, and the transition between them is quite sharp, then the refraction increases significantly. Rays of light coming from objects on Earth describe something like an arc and return down, sometimes tens, even hundreds of kilometers from their source. Then a “raising of the horizon” or superior mirage is observed.

5. On a clear morning, residents of the Côte d'Azur of France have seen more than once how on the horizon of the Mediterranean Sea, where the water merges with the sky, the chain of Corsican mountains rises from the sea, about two hundred kilometers from the Côte d'Azur.

6. Fata Morgana is a complex optical phenomenon in the atmosphere, consisting of several forms of mirages, in which distant objects are visible repeatedly and with various distortions. No convincing explanation has yet been found for this most mysterious type of mirage. But, there are many theories.

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Mirage of water

A strip of water across the road, moving away every time a car approaches it. A large steamship hanging in the sky above Lake Michigan with its masts down. Gloomy medieval castles hovering above the sea. What do these pictures have in common?

These are mirages. They are created as a result challenging game air and light. Mirages can be as simple as a strip of water across the highway 100 meters in front of the car. But there are mirages that are very complex in design.

Description of the mirage

In 1643, the Italian priest Angelucci described an incredible and miraculous vision that appeared to him during a sea voyage. This is what he says. At first, his gaze saw nothing but the calm surface of the sea, stretching to the very horizon. Then a dark one appeared on the horizon Mountain chain. Ahead mountain peaks Tall dirty white columns began to grow from the sea. Gradually the columns began to bend and turned into Romanesque arches. At the end of this grandiose spectacle, silhouettes of towers and walls of a mighty fortress appeared on the arches.

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The Italians call such a mirage fata morgana (from the Italian fata - “miracle”). There are ancient Celtic legends about King Arthur and his knights. Arthur had a sister - the sorceress Morgana le Fay. She could create castles that floated in the air. Air is indeed a magical component of a mirage. From physics we know that at the boundary of two media, light rays are refracted, that is, they change their direction. These two media in the atmosphere are layers of air.

How does a mirage occur?

In hot weather, the layer of air adjacent to the hot ground has more high temperature than the upper layers of the atmosphere. The higher the air temperature, the lower its density. This is where the whole trick lies. Denser air refracts light more strongly than less dense air. That is, a ray of light, crossing the border of warm and cold air, is refracted. Now consider the path of rays falling from the sky.

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These rays are mainly colored blue - the color of the sky. Some of the rays, without being refracted, reach the observer’s eye and form a picture of the sky. The other part is refracted and falls to the ground in front of the observer. Having been reflected from the ground, these reflected rays, in turn, also fall into the eye of the observer. But these are still the same rays of the blue sky. Therefore, car passengers see a blue area ahead. The surface layer of air on a hot day constantly fluctuates, resulting in the appearance, and this creates the illusion of a water surface.

A mysterious natural phenomenon - a mirage...

Happens in the desert, in the mountains and in the ocean... Have you heard about the “Flying Dutchman” - this is the story of a missing ship. A ghost ship that can be seen in the ocean from afar, even today. And how many people died in the deserts, moving towards a ghostly body of water...

Today the site - Travel around the world, will introduce you to interesting facts about miraculous optical illusions.

Specular reflections of air in the sky. The shimmering and glowing illusion can deceive even experienced travelers.

Not long ago, a large caravan perished in the Sahara Desert. About a hundred people and the same number of camels went astray. It was only 1 day's journey to the settlement where they were expected. But a deceptive ghostly hoax led everyone astray. The satellite connection could not be oriented correctly and failed.

The mirage phenomenon does not follow rules and laws

Experienced guides even have special cards With detailed descriptions and marks of places with possible mirages.

Among all the phenomena that nature has created, there is nothing more curious and mysterious than this.

Clouds of vapor from seas, oceans, fogs and lakes contain a lot of sea and plant salts. They create smooth, as if polished, atmospheric surfaces for reflections.

An interesting example of a mirage phenomenon is the rising or setting of the Sun or Moon.

In the rays of light you can see objects and entire stories with people, ships and castles. The light of the sun and even the moon is distorted and refracted in all sorts of directions and objects incredibly increase in size and shape.

Images of ancient castles and palaces with extraordinary architecture are formed. Beautiful plant landscapes and forest groves. The colors of light and shadow have incredible shades that the most modern cameras cannot convey.

The mystery of the mirage phenomenon remains the ability of nature from an ordinary board with remains old paint and rust reflect huge trees and houses. As realistic as your imagination allows you to see.

Varieties of the mirage phenomenon

Inferior Mirage

You have definitely encountered this phenomenon when driving along an asphalt road in a car. The road ahead seems to be flooded with water. And you drive closer and it’s completely dry. It seems that puddles lie on a hot molten road. Very realistic and deceptive.

This phenomenon often occurs in summer. This type occurs when the surface of the earth or road is very hot, in contrast to the air, which is slightly higher. It is called inferior because it appears below the horizon.

Streams of light are refracted due to differences in temperature and density of air layers.

Inferior Mirage in the Sahara

Superior Mirage

This type of illusion is formed above the horizon. Occurs when cooler air levels are lower than higher air levels. Typically over icy landscapes or very cold water.

This illusory deception causes you to observe the scene much higher than it should be. For example, you may see a mountain or a boat floating in the air. In this case, very large distortions of objects occur, making, for example, a boat much higher and wider than it actually is.

You can often see the superior mirage near the Cote d'Azur in France.

Fata Morgana

Mirage may cause polar explorers to underestimate the distance between objects. The Fata Morgana effect involves the visibility of mountains, ships, etc. above the surface of the seas and oceans.

Complex repeating mirage

There was such a fairy Morgana in fairy tales. And it was she who played her jokes on the sailors, luring them into the abyss of the waters.

Fata Morgana is a complex and repeated optical illusion. Double, triple and...

Moon illusion

An interesting example of the mirage phenomenon is the rising or setting of the Sun and Moon. You definitely observed this and didn’t even think about why this was happening (for example, I was just admiring the beauty of a hot star or the Moon). A cosmic body of unrealistically huge size and fantastic color appears on the horizon.

Astronomers observe the same false magnifications of constellations far from us. In fact, their sizes actually differ to a smaller extent from those reflected.

The illusion is greatly enhanced when familiar objects are nearby on the horizon. For example, when the setting sun is visible simultaneously between buildings several blocks away.

Astronomers are observing the same false magnifications of distant constellations

"Flying Dutchman"

A ghost ship that rushes across the seas and oceans. Meeting him promises misfortune and is a harbinger of shipwreck. Appears suddenly and disappears into the fog just as instantly.

In 1941, on the transport ship Venor, sailors led by the captain rushed to save the ship, which was apparently in distress. Everyone observed the fire on the ship and smoke. Imagine their surprise when, coming closer, the phantom disappeared and there were no signs of the disaster left on the water.

Much later, the team of sailors learned that it was at that time that a cruiser attacked by the Japanese was sinking more than 1,000 miles away.

A clear example from reality. Not far from St. Petersburg there is the town of Lomonosov. It's on Gulf of Finland. IN certain days, when nature decides to show its trick, residents see the beautiful St. Petersburg in full view. Clear and precise. Buildings, streets and even people on the streets.

An amazing and mysterious phenomenon of optical illusion is often observed in Alaska. And there is such a pattern that the more severe the frost, the brighter and more beautiful the illusion, which can be located hundreds of thousands of kilometers to the side.

It is absolutely impossible to study the mirage phenomenon and be prepared for its appearance. Nature doesn't follow rules.

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Mirage deceives people and gives them unrealistic hopes. Destroys entire caravans and interferes with rescue operations. Ghosts appear before the astonished gaze of the public, thereby bringing them to the point of losing consciousness - and at the last moment they dissipate like smoke.

A mirage is a unique and completely unpredictable natural phenomenon. Researchers of this phenomenon know almost everything about it. They can easily tell you step by step how they arise, what they are like and why they disappear. But it is quite rare to see them with your own eyes, since the conditions for their creation are not always and not everywhere.

Scientists who study this miracle of nature claim that a mirage is an optical effect and is formed when light is reflected between unevenly heated, and therefore different in density, layers of air. Or in the case when air masses for some reason are unusually distributed vertically.

Speaking about a mirage, it can be argued, not without reason, that this is a kind of play of air with light, as a result of which one can see imaginary images of a wide variety of objects.

Original objects, phantoms of which suddenly appear before the eyes of the surprised public, actually exist, but at a great distance from the place where they suddenly became visible. And the audience sees only a projection of the picture, which is broadcast at a great distance from original object through multiple refraction of light rays in the presence of optimal conditions for image transmission. When the temperature near the earth's surface significantly exceeds the temperature in higher atmospheric layers.

How do they appear?

Mirages occur when so-called “atmospheric mirrors” are formed. This happens when one of the upper layers of air begins to reflect light rays.

This, for example, can happen in the morning, while the lower atmospheric layers have not yet warmed up, and therefore are greatly cooled due to contact with the ground. At the same time, the layers that are above them are warmer, so one of upper layers begins to mirror everything that is located on Earth.

You can often see even those objects that are located at a great distance from the viewer - cities, archipelagos, forests, mountains, trains, ships. For example, there is a known case when a traveler once noticed a city floating in the air on the sea coast, and upside down. But the most interesting thing happened later, when a few kilometers later he saw a hail, a copy of which he had previously contemplated.

Kinds

Mirages can be stable and wandering, horizontal and vertical. Each of them arises somewhat differently, since the atmospheric phenomena that cause them are completely different not only in form, but also because of the cause of their occurrence, so the classification of this phenomenon is rather arbitrary.

Atmospheric: lower or lake

It was lake-type illusions that brought despair to travelers who wandered through the desert, saw the coveted water not far away - and stubbornly moved towards it, spending their last strength on it. But she constantly retreated and stubbornly stayed at the same distance from them. After which, having mocked her enough, she slowly dissipated in space.

You can see a lake-type phantom on an extremely hot day in the form of non-existent water on hot asphalt. Or watching some object along a wall heated by the sun - a copy of this object almost always appears near it some time later.

A lake phantom appears as follows:

• The rays of the Sun heat up the earth's surface (in the desert - sand), due to which the lower layer of air heats up, which immediately goes up, and is replaced by the next layer - and the same thing happens.
• The sun's rays are always reflected from warm layers towards cold ones - this is how refraction occurs.
• Because the sky is near the horizon at this moment light color, the rays from it, moving towards the ground, are reflected and, at a certain degree, enter the field of vision of a person from below.
• Because of this, the traveler sees a piece of blue sky located much lower than it actually is, and mistakes it for water, which also shines and shimmers. Shining and shimmering waves are heterogeneous flows of warm air that rise above the hot ground (sand).

Lateral

Side mirages appear when air layers that have the same density are not, as always, in a horizontal position, but at an angle or vertically. They can usually be seen near rocks on the shore of the sea or lake, immediately after the Sun has risen or when it is high, but neither the water element nor the air above it has yet warmed up.

An example of such a phantom could be a vision of a boat actually approaching the coast, and next to it a phantom copy of it, but already moving away from the coast.

This type of phantom can be observed using a single optical focus as an example. To do this, you need to stand half a meter (plus ten to twenty centimeters) from a wall whose length is more than ten meters, and ask a friend to gradually bring some shiny object closer to the opposite end of the wall. You need to look closely at this object. When it is near the wall, its contours will be distorted, and a copy of the object will be displayed on the wall (if the day turns out to be hot, then more than one).

Far Vision Phantom

One of the most striking examples of such phantoms is the Flying Dutchman. According to maritime myths, the captain of a ghost ship is forever condemned to wander the seas, never landing anywhere. Sailors never expected anything good from a meeting with a mystical ship - it always meant misfortune and shipwreck.

Almost all the stories about it sounded approximately the same - a ghostly ship sailed straight towards them, did not respond to signals and cries, and then suddenly disappeared into the fog. In fact, the ship's crew saw in front of them a projection of ships that were at that time at a great distance from them.

Another example is the story that happened to the ship of Captain Willem Barents (1596), when he got stuck among the ice of Novaya Zemlya, which is why the crew had to wait out the polar night there. It is noteworthy that thanks to the mirage, they saw the sunrise half a month earlier than it actually happened.

A distant vision mirage appears when the earth's surface heats air masses, after which they rise upward and cool. If, for one reason or another, above the layer of cold air masses there is a warmer (for example, winds from the south brought it here) and at the same time a very rarefied layer, and the temperature difference between them turns out to be quite large, then refraction will occur. Light rays that are reflected from objects located on the earth's surface will make an arc and go back down, but not to their immediate source. They find themselves tens and sometimes hundreds of kilometers away.

Fata Morgana

One example of the Fata Morgana phenomenon is the so-called werewolf mirages, when original objects change so much that they are unrecognizable. For example, there is a known case when French soldiers walking through the desert noticed flamingos walking one after another. After the birds found themselves in the mirage zone, they separated - each of them suddenly had four legs, and they began to look like horsemen in white robes. Naturally, the captain sent a soldier to clarify the situation and when he found himself in the mirage zone, he also changed - the legs of his horse lengthened significantly and it seemed as if he was riding some mythical monster.

Fata Morgana can significantly distort the size of objects. For example, one day, one person, being four kilometers from the Strasbourg Bell Tower, saw it and decided that it was no more than two thousand meters away. The structure he saw turned out to be magnified twenty times for him at that moment.

Fata Morgana is an extremely complex optical phenomenon, consisting of several mirages at once, when objects that are located on a fairly long distance from the observer, are visible many times, and each of them is distorted in its own way. There are many theories why this happens.

According to one of them, for such an optical effect to occur, it is necessary that in the lower atmospheric layers (mainly due to temperature differences) layers of air with different densities alternate with each other, which is why they gain the ability to mirror objects. Received specular reflections With the help of refracted rays, several distorted images are projected onto or above the surface at once, which quickly alternate with each other and at the same time partially overlap one another.

Volume phenomenon

Sometimes in the mountains, when there is so-called “standing” water vapor in the air, you can see yourself at close range, only in a slightly distorted version.

Danger!

Unfortunately, mirages are not only an amazing, unforgettable and extremely interesting spectacle, but they also often lead (especially in earlier times) to human casualties. Quite instructive is one of the many cases where, due to this optical effect, more than sixty people and almost a hundred camels died in the desert in North Africa.

And all because this phenomenon managed to successfully deceive an extremely experienced guide, who “bought” the illusion and led the caravan sixty kilometers away from the well to which it was heading.

To avoid such cases, experts draw up maps on which they mark the places where this optical effect can most often be seen. Since mirages in such areas have been studied quite well, such guidebooks usually indicate not only where exactly they occur, but also what they usually depict - wells, palm groves, mountains.

Where is the best place to watch this wondrous phenomenon?

Researchers claim that mirages can be admired anywhere on our planet (the main thing is to be in right time in the right place) – and you can even see them from space. For example, cosmonaut Georgy Grechko managed to photograph an iceberg that hung above the clouds.

But there are regions where they can be found most often, without any additional search expeditions. We are talking primarily about the numerous deserts of our planet. There are places where mirages occur no less often, sometimes even more often.

Alaska

The clearest and most vivid visions arise not in the desert, as is commonly believed, but in Alaska. The colder it is, the better and more clearly the visions are visible. Projections of mountains and even huge cities with skyscrapers, which simply do not exist in Alaska, have been seen here more than once.

They began to constantly record their appearance only in the century before last, and even a special organization was created, which still exists, studying these optical phenomena, and even publishes its own journal. Well, like true Americans who never miss an opportunity to make money, they organize tours for tourists who want to admire mirages.

East coast of China

Once in the Chinese city of Penglai, after heavy rains, visions of modern multi-storey buildings, streets crowded with people and fast cars. This phenomenon was observed for four hours not only by local residents, but also by numerous tourists.

This case is quite typical for this area, since a huge number of phantoms have already been repeatedly recorded here, which is why Penglai was nicknamed the city of the gods.

Baikal

People who live near Lake Baikal often encounter this phenomenon. You can often hear stories from them about how trains, castles and ships suddenly appeared and disappeared over the lake out of nowhere. Here you can often even find Fata Morgana, when a cyclist suddenly turns into a landing Boeing, a fishing boat into a motor ship, and an ordinary duck into a huge boat.

Mirages can be observed here for several days in a row, and sometimes for almost three weeks. And all because on Baikal optimal conditions to manifest this optical phenomenon: warm air over cold water summer period, very coldy with still air - in winter.

Our latitudes

Of course, people living in a temperate climate zone rarely see mirages near their home. If the summer is very hot and there is no wind, it may well occur here, and the cases can be quite funny.

For example, one day residents of the village of Komarovo (near St. Petersburg) were drinking tea, listening to Tchaikovsky on the seventh floor, and when they looked out the window, suddenly they first saw a golden cloud, then a gray stripe, then crosses, monuments, crypts and an alley with fir trees. Fortunately for them, the mirage lasted no more than a minute and quickly dissipated. The women did not fall into hysterics, but they no longer wanted to drink tea while listening to music.