1
00:00:05,720 --> 00:00:07,520
Speaker 1: Hey, are you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

2
00:00:07,600 --> 00:00:10,640
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and

3
00:00:10,720 --> 00:00:13,640
Speaker 1: it's Saturday. Time for a vault episode, folks. This one

4
00:00:13,920 --> 00:00:17,680
Speaker 1: is from March fourth, and this is the one we

5
00:00:17,720 --> 00:00:20,600
Speaker 1: did on Fathom or Ghana. This is a type of

6
00:00:20,600 --> 00:00:24,760
Speaker 1: optical phenomenon uh that has caused people to report all

7
00:00:24,840 --> 00:00:29,080
Speaker 1: kinds of strange sites throughout the years, phantom islands, castles

8
00:00:29,080 --> 00:00:33,040
Speaker 1: floating in the sky, and sea monsters and things. This

9
00:00:33,080 --> 00:00:35,120
Speaker 1: one was a lot of fun. Yeah, that's probably one

10
00:00:35,120 --> 00:00:39,680
Speaker 1: of my favorite episodes that we did. Okay, downloading into

11
00:00:39,680 --> 00:00:45,840
Speaker 1: your Brain. Now welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind,

12
00:00:46,120 --> 00:00:55,560
Speaker 1: production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to

13
00:00:55,560 --> 00:00:58,440
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm

14
00:00:58,520 --> 00:01:00,960
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick. And you know, we just came off of

15
00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:04,280
Speaker 1: doing a couple of episodes about the artistic convention of

16
00:01:04,319 --> 00:01:08,000
Speaker 1: the halo and how that comes through in in various

17
00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:11,920
Speaker 1: different religious concepts, and how it might be related to

18
00:01:12,520 --> 00:01:15,920
Speaker 1: optical phenomena that are sometimes observed in the sky, like

19
00:01:15,920 --> 00:01:20,080
Speaker 1: like solar halos or sun dogs, and jumping off of that,

20
00:01:20,160 --> 00:01:23,319
Speaker 1: we wanted to hop over to explore another theme today

21
00:01:23,319 --> 00:01:25,839
Speaker 1: that the sort of in the same wheelhouse, not quite halos,

22
00:01:25,920 --> 00:01:29,840
Speaker 1: but an optical phenomenon that has some connection to legendary

23
00:01:29,880 --> 00:01:32,560
Speaker 1: accounts and myths. And so I thought a great place

24
00:01:32,600 --> 00:01:34,800
Speaker 1: to start today to get us in the mood would

25
00:01:34,840 --> 00:01:37,880
Speaker 1: be a reading from the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner

26
00:01:37,959 --> 00:01:41,000
Speaker 1: by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Now, I think this is going

27
00:01:41,040 --> 00:01:43,360
Speaker 1: to be probably what would you guess, Rob, like the

28
00:01:43,440 --> 00:01:46,240
Speaker 1: seventh time we've quoted this poem on the show, always

29
00:01:46,440 --> 00:01:49,160
Speaker 1: introducing a different type of subject matter. It seems to

30
00:01:49,200 --> 00:01:51,480
Speaker 1: go off in a lot of great directions. Well, you know,

31
00:01:51,520 --> 00:01:54,080
Speaker 1: it's a it's a long work, and it it has

32
00:01:54,120 --> 00:01:56,200
Speaker 1: a lot of cool things happening in it has a

33
00:01:56,200 --> 00:01:59,800
Speaker 1: great story and just an infectious cadence. You know, it's

34
00:01:59,800 --> 00:02:03,040
Speaker 1: just gets gets into your brain. Right. Uh So in

35
00:02:03,120 --> 00:02:05,200
Speaker 1: this poem, the narrator here, I guess this is a

36
00:02:05,280 --> 00:02:08,520
Speaker 1: narration within a narration. So this guy gets accosted by

37
00:02:08,639 --> 00:02:12,400
Speaker 1: an ancient graybeard. He says, like, unhand me, graybeard loon.

38
00:02:12,560 --> 00:02:15,640
Speaker 1: But then the graybeard loon starts telling his story and

39
00:02:15,639 --> 00:02:18,040
Speaker 1: and his story is of course one of of terror

40
00:02:18,040 --> 00:02:20,560
Speaker 1: and tragedy in the high sea is he He tells

41
00:02:20,639 --> 00:02:22,720
Speaker 1: that he was once out on a ship and I

42
00:02:22,720 --> 00:02:26,040
Speaker 1: think they've been sailing around in the south seas, and uh,

43
00:02:26,080 --> 00:02:29,200
Speaker 1: he somehow brings a curse upon his ship and its

44
00:02:29,240 --> 00:02:32,240
Speaker 1: crew by shooting an albatross out of the sky with

45
00:02:32,320 --> 00:02:35,760
Speaker 1: an arrow. And after this their ship falls into unnatural

46
00:02:35,919 --> 00:02:39,080
Speaker 1: duldrums in the equatorial regions. There are no winds for

47
00:02:39,160 --> 00:02:41,919
Speaker 1: it to sail, so it's just sitting there in the water,

48
00:02:42,160 --> 00:02:44,160
Speaker 1: and and the mariner and the rest of the crew

49
00:02:44,520 --> 00:02:48,400
Speaker 1: are dying of thirst without fresh water. Yeah, And it's

50
00:02:48,440 --> 00:02:50,320
Speaker 1: one thing that I guess worth noting about this. You know,

51
00:02:50,320 --> 00:02:52,720
Speaker 1: we were talking about the ships at sea in these

52
00:02:52,800 --> 00:02:56,520
Speaker 1: days and superstition among the um among the crew is

53
00:02:56,560 --> 00:03:01,680
Speaker 1: that on one hand, absolutely the best science and navigation

54
00:03:01,800 --> 00:03:05,320
Speaker 1: of the day was utilized to get where you're going

55
00:03:05,360 --> 00:03:08,240
Speaker 1: and to survive on the open seas. But the crew

56
00:03:08,280 --> 00:03:11,119
Speaker 1: was often held together by by also this this tenuous

57
00:03:11,160 --> 00:03:15,079
Speaker 1: web of superstitions, and you you read about some of them,

58
00:03:15,080 --> 00:03:17,240
Speaker 1: and at times it seems like it would not take

59
00:03:17,360 --> 00:03:20,920
Speaker 1: much to shift things into the realm of of of

60
00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:24,240
Speaker 1: you know, dire omens well sailing vessels really are at

61
00:03:24,280 --> 00:03:27,440
Speaker 1: the at the mercy of forces beyond your control. Yeah,

62
00:03:27,480 --> 00:03:29,320
Speaker 1: I mean there's a lot you can do to design

63
00:03:29,320 --> 00:03:31,800
Speaker 1: a ship well and work hard to you know, do

64
00:03:31,880 --> 00:03:33,560
Speaker 1: everything you can to get where you're going, but you're

65
00:03:33,560 --> 00:03:35,520
Speaker 1: still at the mercy of the seas and the weather,

66
00:03:35,840 --> 00:03:38,000
Speaker 1: and that can make it feel very much like you

67
00:03:38,040 --> 00:03:40,840
Speaker 1: are a sinner in the hands of an angry god. Yeah,

68
00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:44,640
Speaker 1: sailing beneath this uncertain sky and uh a top this

69
00:03:45,040 --> 00:03:48,680
Speaker 1: just dark, unfathomable ocean. Right, So, in the context of

70
00:03:48,720 --> 00:03:50,320
Speaker 1: the part of the poem we're about to read, so

71
00:03:50,360 --> 00:03:53,040
Speaker 1: the curses already come upon them. They're out there diet

72
00:03:53,120 --> 00:03:55,280
Speaker 1: you know. You get to the part about water, water everywhere,

73
00:03:55,320 --> 00:03:57,920
Speaker 1: and not a drop to drink. They're all parched and thirsty,

74
00:03:58,080 --> 00:04:00,520
Speaker 1: and the boat is just floating around in the oldrums.

75
00:04:00,520 --> 00:04:02,920
Speaker 1: And then the mariners see something horrible. So I'm gonna

76
00:04:02,920 --> 00:04:05,280
Speaker 1: read this first bit here and then Rob I I

77
00:04:05,320 --> 00:04:07,080
Speaker 1: don't think I can do a sailor voice, but I

78
00:04:07,080 --> 00:04:10,360
Speaker 1: hope you can hear the sailor voice for your part. Okay,

79
00:04:10,640 --> 00:04:19,320
Speaker 1: So the mariner says, there past a weary time. Each

80
00:04:19,400 --> 00:04:23,400
Speaker 1: throat was parched and glazed, each eye a weary time,

81
00:04:23,520 --> 00:04:28,200
Speaker 1: A weary time how glazed each weary eye. When looking westward,

82
00:04:28,240 --> 00:04:32,040
Speaker 1: I beheld something in the sky. At first it seemed

83
00:04:32,080 --> 00:04:35,039
Speaker 1: a little speck, and then it seemed a mist. It

84
00:04:35,240 --> 00:04:38,640
Speaker 1: moved and moved, and took at last a certain shape.

85
00:04:38,640 --> 00:04:42,320
Speaker 1: I whist, A spec a mist A shape, I whist,

86
00:04:42,760 --> 00:04:45,760
Speaker 1: And still it neared and neared, as if it dodged

87
00:04:45,800 --> 00:04:49,800
Speaker 1: a water sprite. It plunged and tacked, and veered, with

88
00:04:49,880 --> 00:04:53,720
Speaker 1: throats unslaked, with black lips baked. We could not laugh

89
00:04:53,839 --> 00:04:57,600
Speaker 1: nor whale through utter drought. All dumb we stood. I

90
00:04:57,640 --> 00:05:01,320
Speaker 1: bit my arm, I sucked the blood, and cried A sail,

91
00:05:01,760 --> 00:05:05,840
Speaker 1: a sail. The western wave was all aflame. The day

92
00:05:06,040 --> 00:05:10,560
Speaker 1: was well nigh done. Almost upon the western wave rested

93
00:05:10,600 --> 00:05:13,920
Speaker 1: the broad bright sun. When that strange shape s dove

94
00:05:14,040 --> 00:05:17,760
Speaker 1: suddenly betwixt us and the sun, and straight the sun

95
00:05:17,920 --> 00:05:21,800
Speaker 1: was flecked with bars. Heaven's mother send us grace, as

96
00:05:21,839 --> 00:05:25,039
Speaker 1: if through a dungeon grade. He peered with broad and

97
00:05:25,160 --> 00:05:29,400
Speaker 1: burning face. Alas thought I, and my heart beat loud.

98
00:05:29,640 --> 00:05:33,960
Speaker 1: How fast she nears and nears? Are those her sails

99
00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:41,080
Speaker 1: that glance in the sun like restless Gossimir's rob I

100
00:05:41,160 --> 00:05:46,400
Speaker 1: give that four hours? Why why thank you? Uh so? Yeah,

101
00:05:46,440 --> 00:05:49,800
Speaker 1: so he sees something approaching. They see a weird, a

102
00:05:49,960 --> 00:05:53,760
Speaker 1: spectral type of ship coming close. And when this phantom

103
00:05:53,800 --> 00:05:56,560
Speaker 1: ship gets up close to them, they see the figures

104
00:05:56,600 --> 00:05:59,880
Speaker 1: of death and life in death I think, represented as

105
00:05:59,880 --> 00:06:03,680
Speaker 1: a skeleton and then like a pale naked body casting

106
00:06:03,839 --> 00:06:07,480
Speaker 1: lots to claim the fate of the sailors. Creepy stuff. Yeah.

107
00:06:07,960 --> 00:06:11,520
Speaker 1: Also a great couple's halloween cost him to keep in mind, right,

108
00:06:11,640 --> 00:06:14,480
Speaker 1: death and life and death I call life and death.

109
00:06:16,480 --> 00:06:19,239
Speaker 1: Uh So these passages from the rhyme of the ancient mariner.

110
00:06:19,480 --> 00:06:22,600
Speaker 1: Uh It's not known for sure, but they may well

111
00:06:22,640 --> 00:06:27,160
Speaker 1: have been influenced by the legend of the flying Dutchman,

112
00:06:27,800 --> 00:06:31,640
Speaker 1: a set of related folk tales shared by the seafaring

113
00:06:31,680 --> 00:06:34,080
Speaker 1: people of Europe at least as far back as the

114
00:06:34,120 --> 00:06:38,880
Speaker 1: eighteenth century, probably earlier. And usually the way this legend

115
00:06:38,920 --> 00:06:42,680
Speaker 1: goes is that there is some kind of spectral ship,

116
00:06:43,200 --> 00:06:46,719
Speaker 1: a ghost vessel that's doomed to sail the globe in

117
00:06:46,720 --> 00:06:51,040
Speaker 1: a terrible limbo, forever circling the seas and never allowed

118
00:06:51,080 --> 00:06:54,000
Speaker 1: to come into port. Often it's regarded as an omen

119
00:06:54,080 --> 00:06:57,840
Speaker 1: of disaster. If a sailor sees the flying Dutchman. He

120
00:06:57,880 --> 00:07:00,840
Speaker 1: knows he's going to die in a shipwreck. Yeah, like

121
00:07:00,880 --> 00:07:02,960
Speaker 1: this is one of the big ones, uh, you know,

122
00:07:03,120 --> 00:07:05,599
Speaker 1: as opposed to you know, things like say killing I mean,

123
00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:08,440
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly killing an albatross clearly can be a

124
00:07:08,800 --> 00:07:11,920
Speaker 1: big deal, you know, not touching the horseshoe nailed to

125
00:07:11,960 --> 00:07:14,760
Speaker 1: the mast, you know, things like that. But to see

126
00:07:14,800 --> 00:07:18,440
Speaker 1: the flying Dutchman like all is lost. In some versions,

127
00:07:18,480 --> 00:07:21,280
Speaker 1: even worse than seeing it is that sometimes the ship

128
00:07:21,360 --> 00:07:24,160
Speaker 1: will come up next to you and the doomed crew

129
00:07:24,200 --> 00:07:26,520
Speaker 1: will try to hand off letters for you to give

130
00:07:26,600 --> 00:07:28,640
Speaker 1: to their loved ones, because you know, they can't call

131
00:07:28,760 --> 00:07:31,160
Speaker 1: de port to send the letters themselves, and you are

132
00:07:31,200 --> 00:07:34,160
Speaker 1: not supposed to accept these letters. You you say, sorry,

133
00:07:34,240 --> 00:07:36,800
Speaker 1: I I can't, I can't do it. Oh man, that's

134
00:07:36,800 --> 00:07:39,280
Speaker 1: so creepy that that totally holds up. Now. There are

135
00:07:39,320 --> 00:07:43,040
Speaker 1: a number of popular stories explaining the origin of the

136
00:07:43,040 --> 00:07:46,200
Speaker 1: Flying Dutchman. I think the belief itself goes back farther

137
00:07:46,360 --> 00:07:49,280
Speaker 1: than any of these, like written versions of the stories.

138
00:07:49,320 --> 00:07:53,640
Speaker 1: But in one version, there's a captain named Vanderdecken or

139
00:07:53,800 --> 00:07:57,520
Speaker 1: sometimes just the Dutchman, who's on a sea voyage home

140
00:07:57,600 --> 00:08:00,760
Speaker 1: from Batavia, which is in present day into Nisia around

141
00:08:00,800 --> 00:08:03,400
Speaker 1: the area of Jakarta, but at the time would have

142
00:08:03,440 --> 00:08:08,080
Speaker 1: been in the duchyst Indies. And he's traveling from Batavia

143
00:08:08,240 --> 00:08:11,240
Speaker 1: trying to go back around the southern tip of Africa

144
00:08:11,360 --> 00:08:14,200
Speaker 1: to a place called Table Bay. And so he's trying

145
00:08:14,240 --> 00:08:17,840
Speaker 1: to round the Cape of Good Hope, but his ship

146
00:08:17,960 --> 00:08:21,960
Speaker 1: falls under a terrible squall, and in defiance of God,

147
00:08:22,160 --> 00:08:25,320
Speaker 1: he swears a brazen oath that he will round the

148
00:08:25,360 --> 00:08:28,280
Speaker 1: Cape of Good Hope despite the storm, even if it

149
00:08:28,320 --> 00:08:32,679
Speaker 1: takes him until Armageddon to do it. And as this

150
00:08:32,800 --> 00:08:37,079
Speaker 1: oath leaves his lips, the ship sinks, but before it does,

151
00:08:37,160 --> 00:08:41,120
Speaker 1: the devil hears Vanderdecken's promise and he holds him to it,

152
00:08:41,520 --> 00:08:44,240
Speaker 1: and this turns the Dutchman and the ghost of his

153
00:08:44,360 --> 00:08:47,080
Speaker 1: vessel into a kind of wraith of the seas, and

154
00:08:47,120 --> 00:08:51,080
Speaker 1: they sail forever between life and death without rest until

155
00:08:51,240 --> 00:08:54,520
Speaker 1: he can reach his destination. Uh This version is the

156
00:08:54,559 --> 00:08:57,000
Speaker 1: subject of an opera by Wagner, and I think in

157
00:08:57,000 --> 00:09:00,880
Speaker 1: that version he actually can go to land once every

158
00:09:00,960 --> 00:09:03,720
Speaker 1: seven years so that he can try to find the

159
00:09:03,800 --> 00:09:08,400
Speaker 1: true love that will break the curse. Presumably stop at

160
00:09:08,400 --> 00:09:12,400
Speaker 1: White Castle or something that this sounds this sounds like

161
00:09:12,400 --> 00:09:15,079
Speaker 1: a great setup for like a modern horror film, or

162
00:09:15,120 --> 00:09:16,920
Speaker 1: maybe not a Morrow one modern one, but at least

163
00:09:16,960 --> 00:09:19,160
Speaker 1: like a nineteen seventies film, you know, or like it

164
00:09:19,200 --> 00:09:20,920
Speaker 1: could have been a hammer horror film. You could have

165
00:09:20,920 --> 00:09:24,640
Speaker 1: have a Vanderdecken as your sort of Dracula s ghostly

166
00:09:25,120 --> 00:09:28,679
Speaker 1: sailor chap that has come on shore to seduce a

167
00:09:29,040 --> 00:09:31,960
Speaker 1: hapless woman that that has no idea that this attractive

168
00:09:31,960 --> 00:09:34,400
Speaker 1: man is actually the captain of a damn ship. Oh.

169
00:09:34,440 --> 00:09:37,280
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a great sort of variation on Dracula, right,

170
00:09:37,320 --> 00:09:41,040
Speaker 1: the more seductive versions of Dracula, where where you know

171
00:09:41,160 --> 00:09:43,440
Speaker 1: he he falls in love with a woman and he's like,

172
00:09:43,480 --> 00:09:45,520
Speaker 1: you can be with me, you can we can live forever,

173
00:09:45,640 --> 00:09:48,720
Speaker 1: but she doesn't realize that that involves being damned along

174
00:09:48,760 --> 00:09:51,959
Speaker 1: with him. Yeah, should have been Christopher Lee. Yeah, he

175
00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:53,120
Speaker 1: would have. He would have. He would have made a

176
00:09:53,120 --> 00:09:55,959
Speaker 1: good vanderdeck and for sure. But the story that this

177
00:09:56,040 --> 00:09:58,440
Speaker 1: version of the story was I think very strong around

178
00:09:58,480 --> 00:10:00,760
Speaker 1: the area of the South Seas and the southern tip

179
00:10:00,800 --> 00:10:03,840
Speaker 1: of Africa. But there's another common version that takes place

180
00:10:03,840 --> 00:10:06,439
Speaker 1: in the North Sea, and this is a captain named

181
00:10:06,480 --> 00:10:10,880
Speaker 1: Heir von Falconberg who sails without rest around the North

182
00:10:10,920 --> 00:10:13,880
Speaker 1: Sea while playing dice with Satan for the possession of

183
00:10:13,880 --> 00:10:16,720
Speaker 1: his soul. And the part about playing dice with the

184
00:10:16,760 --> 00:10:19,960
Speaker 1: devil for for his soul that recalls very much what

185
00:10:20,040 --> 00:10:22,280
Speaker 1: happens in the rhyme of the ancient mariner right after

186
00:10:22,320 --> 00:10:25,400
Speaker 1: the part we read, because remember death and life and

187
00:10:25,480 --> 00:10:28,760
Speaker 1: death are gambling for the souls of the crew. But

188
00:10:28,840 --> 00:10:30,880
Speaker 1: there are a lot of other variations on this story

189
00:10:30,920 --> 00:10:33,600
Speaker 1: with a good deal of elasticity. It is not known

190
00:10:33,679 --> 00:10:36,880
Speaker 1: for sure exactly where the legend comes from. Originally. I

191
00:10:36,920 --> 00:10:39,600
Speaker 1: think I've read some speculation that it could have to

192
00:10:39,640 --> 00:10:42,640
Speaker 1: do with the Norse legend about a sailor who encounters

193
00:10:42,640 --> 00:10:46,320
Speaker 1: a kind of uh damned limbo fate, But records of

194
00:10:46,320 --> 00:10:48,640
Speaker 1: this story go at least as far back as the

195
00:10:48,720 --> 00:10:51,679
Speaker 1: late seventeen hundreds. I found one early reference to it

196
00:10:52,040 --> 00:10:55,480
Speaker 1: from the memoirs of a Scottish man named John McDonald

197
00:10:55,559 --> 00:10:59,160
Speaker 1: who lived seventeen forty one to seventeen ninety six, and

198
00:10:59,200 --> 00:11:02,200
Speaker 1: in writing about one of his sea voyages, he writes, quote,

199
00:11:02,440 --> 00:11:05,120
Speaker 1: the weather was so stormy that the sailors said they

200
00:11:05,160 --> 00:11:08,760
Speaker 1: saw the flying Dutchman. The common story is that this

201
00:11:08,880 --> 00:11:11,880
Speaker 1: Dutchman came to the cape in distress of weather and

202
00:11:11,960 --> 00:11:14,120
Speaker 1: wanted to get into harbor, but could not get a

203
00:11:14,120 --> 00:11:17,640
Speaker 1: pilot to conduct her and was lost, and that ever since,

204
00:11:17,679 --> 00:11:21,440
Speaker 1: in very bad weather her vision appears. Now in some

205
00:11:21,600 --> 00:11:24,000
Speaker 1: versions of the story, I think the ship is even

206
00:11:24,120 --> 00:11:28,480
Speaker 1: more spectral, even more of just a clear apparition, something

207
00:11:28,520 --> 00:11:31,240
Speaker 1: that is on the horizon and with a kind of

208
00:11:31,240 --> 00:11:35,200
Speaker 1: like ghostly silhouette, or even appears over the horizon. I

209
00:11:35,200 --> 00:11:38,760
Speaker 1: think it's not exactly clear in the version of the

210
00:11:38,800 --> 00:11:41,880
Speaker 1: Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner whether the ship is said

211
00:11:41,920 --> 00:11:44,360
Speaker 1: to be approaching on the water or when they first

212
00:11:44,400 --> 00:11:46,920
Speaker 1: see it it's above the water. He he does say

213
00:11:46,920 --> 00:11:49,959
Speaker 1: that he looked and he beheld something in the sky

214
00:11:50,000 --> 00:11:52,000
Speaker 1: that it first looked like it looks like a speck,

215
00:11:52,080 --> 00:11:55,640
Speaker 1: and then later he realizes it's a ship coming toward them. Uh.

216
00:11:55,679 --> 00:11:57,080
Speaker 1: And I guess there are a couple of ways you

217
00:11:57,080 --> 00:11:59,920
Speaker 1: could read that. I know I've always read that as

218
00:12:00,040 --> 00:12:02,719
Speaker 1: he originally saw the ship flying in the sky. I

219
00:12:02,760 --> 00:12:05,160
Speaker 1: guess you could also read it as they see the

220
00:12:05,160 --> 00:12:07,480
Speaker 1: ship on the water and what he's seeing is the

221
00:12:07,600 --> 00:12:10,920
Speaker 1: sails poking up over the horizon and the sky. But

222
00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:13,160
Speaker 1: either way, I think there are some versions where there's

223
00:12:13,160 --> 00:12:16,280
Speaker 1: a kind of ghost ship that isn't necessarily even confined

224
00:12:16,360 --> 00:12:19,640
Speaker 1: to the water like it flies. Yeah, yeah, that a

225
00:12:19,679 --> 00:12:23,040
Speaker 1: true flying flying Dutchman. Yeah. And of course this is

226
00:12:23,040 --> 00:12:26,200
Speaker 1: gonna lead us into what we're really talking about here today,

227
00:12:26,679 --> 00:12:30,760
Speaker 1: a very particular type of of optical phenomena, uh that

228
00:12:30,960 --> 00:12:34,480
Speaker 1: may be responsible at least in part for legends like this,

229
00:12:34,760 --> 00:12:37,560
Speaker 1: though of course is always worth remembering that you know,

230
00:12:37,720 --> 00:12:40,080
Speaker 1: anything like this, like the flying Dutchman for example, in

231
00:12:40,120 --> 00:12:43,280
Speaker 1: all likelihood, we're dealing with the story that has multiple

232
00:12:43,320 --> 00:12:46,840
Speaker 1: converging origins. To what extent they are based on things

233
00:12:46,840 --> 00:12:50,200
Speaker 1: that people really saw. They were likely different things, you know,

234
00:12:50,320 --> 00:12:53,080
Speaker 1: like somebody staring into a dark night on a ship,

235
00:12:53,440 --> 00:12:57,480
Speaker 1: somebody seeing an optical phenomena on the horizon, or somebody

236
00:12:57,640 --> 00:12:59,800
Speaker 1: you know, looking into the chaos of a storm and

237
00:13:00,160 --> 00:13:04,360
Speaker 1: momentarily making out some shape in the flash of lightning. Right,

238
00:13:04,480 --> 00:13:08,920
Speaker 1: But there are some well known optical phenomenon that fit

239
00:13:09,080 --> 00:13:11,920
Speaker 1: with some of these accounts so closely that you have

240
00:13:12,040 --> 00:13:14,880
Speaker 1: to assume at least some of these accounts probably are

241
00:13:14,920 --> 00:13:17,200
Speaker 1: based on the thing we're gonna be talking about today,

242
00:13:17,559 --> 00:13:21,360
Speaker 1: which is known as the Superior Mirage, or a variation

243
00:13:21,440 --> 00:13:25,480
Speaker 1: of Superior mirage known as the Fata Morgana. Um. Now,

244
00:13:25,920 --> 00:13:28,120
Speaker 1: one thing that will tie into this before we explain

245
00:13:28,240 --> 00:13:31,720
Speaker 1: the Superior Mirage and the fatim Organa. Something I noticed

246
00:13:31,760 --> 00:13:34,160
Speaker 1: that was kind of interesting about the flying Dutchman accounts.

247
00:13:34,440 --> 00:13:38,199
Speaker 1: A lot of these accounts seemed concentrated towards the polar

248
00:13:38,240 --> 00:13:42,160
Speaker 1: regions rather than the equatorial ones. The ghost ship usually

249
00:13:42,200 --> 00:13:45,400
Speaker 1: seems to be sailing either the North Seas or the

250
00:13:45,440 --> 00:13:50,120
Speaker 1: South Seas more so than anywhere in between. Yeah, quite interesting,

251
00:13:50,120 --> 00:13:52,720
Speaker 1: So I keep keep that in mind as we proceed here.

252
00:13:52,960 --> 00:13:55,720
Speaker 1: So yeah, basically from here we're gonna talk about the

253
00:13:55,760 --> 00:13:59,040
Speaker 1: mirage itself and mirages in general. But then we'll get

254
00:13:59,040 --> 00:14:02,640
Speaker 1: back into some more examples of various folk tales and

255
00:14:02,720 --> 00:14:07,720
Speaker 1: myths that seem to be or perhaps are inspired by

256
00:14:08,040 --> 00:14:11,760
Speaker 1: fatam Organa sightings. So let's start by talking about the

257
00:14:11,800 --> 00:14:15,000
Speaker 1: mirage itself. A mirage in general is an optical effect

258
00:14:15,160 --> 00:14:17,760
Speaker 1: that is sometimes seen at sea, or in the desert

259
00:14:17,960 --> 00:14:21,360
Speaker 1: or over hot pavement, and in some cases these may

260
00:14:21,400 --> 00:14:23,520
Speaker 1: take on the appearance of, say a pool of water.

261
00:14:24,160 --> 00:14:27,400
Speaker 1: Or a mirror surface, and this can cause distant objects

262
00:14:27,440 --> 00:14:30,960
Speaker 1: to appear inverted. Uh. Now, to be clear on the

263
00:14:31,040 --> 00:14:34,640
Speaker 1: language here, you do find the word mirage sometimes used

264
00:14:34,680 --> 00:14:38,200
Speaker 1: interchangeably with the notion all an illusion, right, and it

265
00:14:38,600 --> 00:14:42,080
Speaker 1: is something that you're seeing but is not there. So

266
00:14:42,120 --> 00:14:45,120
Speaker 1: in common language it's sometimes conflated with even like the

267
00:14:45,160 --> 00:14:47,880
Speaker 1: idea of a hallucination. You know, somebody is just seeing

268
00:14:47,960 --> 00:14:50,320
Speaker 1: something like it's real in their perception, but there is

269
00:14:50,360 --> 00:14:53,360
Speaker 1: not an external reality to it, And that's not the

270
00:14:53,400 --> 00:14:56,880
Speaker 1: case with the technical meaning of a mirage, right. And

271
00:14:56,920 --> 00:15:00,440
Speaker 1: I feel like this is also Uh. This is also

272
00:15:00,560 --> 00:15:03,480
Speaker 1: complicated because a lot of us grew up watching, especially

273
00:15:03,480 --> 00:15:07,800
Speaker 1: cartoons that would occasionally have a mirage scene, and those

274
00:15:07,840 --> 00:15:09,600
Speaker 1: would be a bit confusing because a lot of times

275
00:15:09,600 --> 00:15:11,080
Speaker 1: I feel like they would play it up like just

276
00:15:11,160 --> 00:15:14,400
Speaker 1: something magical that you're you only saw because you were

277
00:15:14,480 --> 00:15:16,720
Speaker 1: you were thirsty and dying and you were also a

278
00:15:16,720 --> 00:15:19,560
Speaker 1: cartoon dog. Right. Well, in cartoons, I feel like the

279
00:15:19,600 --> 00:15:22,680
Speaker 1: mirage is always shown in the desert rather than say,

280
00:15:22,760 --> 00:15:25,520
Speaker 1: over an ice sheet or on the seas. Uh. And

281
00:15:25,520 --> 00:15:28,320
Speaker 1: and that over the desert you were probably looking at

282
00:15:28,320 --> 00:15:31,360
Speaker 1: a particular type of mirage. The inferior mirage. Will get

283
00:15:31,360 --> 00:15:33,920
Speaker 1: into more of the distinctions there in just a minute.

284
00:15:33,920 --> 00:15:36,960
Speaker 1: But yeah, in the cartoons, it's always like, I don't

285
00:15:36,960 --> 00:15:39,720
Speaker 1: know that you know, Daffy Duck is seeing a mirage

286
00:15:39,800 --> 00:15:41,880
Speaker 1: in the desert and it's like an ice cream stand

287
00:15:42,040 --> 00:15:44,800
Speaker 1: or something. It's some variation of the oasis in the

288
00:15:44,840 --> 00:15:48,680
Speaker 1: desert yet, right, it's something very specific that gives the

289
00:15:48,720 --> 00:15:53,880
Speaker 1: suggestion that you're seeing like a complicated, detailed hallucination, right,

290
00:15:54,200 --> 00:15:57,960
Speaker 1: But in reality, the sort of mirage, the specific mirrage

291
00:15:58,000 --> 00:16:00,880
Speaker 1: that we're talking about here, this is an optical effect

292
00:16:01,000 --> 00:16:03,760
Speaker 1: that is visible to all. Like if there is a mirage,

293
00:16:04,000 --> 00:16:06,160
Speaker 1: if you're in a party of say, you know, five

294
00:16:06,200 --> 00:16:08,960
Speaker 1: people in the desert or on a ship wherever, if

295
00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:12,200
Speaker 1: you see a mirage in the distance, everyone with you,

296
00:16:12,200 --> 00:16:14,960
Speaker 1: you know, assuming they have the same site capacity that

297
00:16:15,040 --> 00:16:17,440
Speaker 1: you have, they will be able to see the mirage

298
00:16:17,440 --> 00:16:21,560
Speaker 1: as well, and assuming they're looking from the same place also, right, right, yeah,

299
00:16:21,600 --> 00:16:24,720
Speaker 1: you gotta have the same vantage point for sure. Um,

300
00:16:24,760 --> 00:16:27,240
Speaker 1: but you know, now that's not also not to say

301
00:16:27,240 --> 00:16:29,600
Speaker 1: that you know, this could not be further distorted by

302
00:16:29,600 --> 00:16:32,760
Speaker 1: the individual, either visually or in memory, but it is

303
00:16:32,800 --> 00:16:36,080
Speaker 1: a thing that you could and be people can and

304
00:16:36,120 --> 00:16:39,640
Speaker 1: do capture photographically or on you know, or with a

305
00:16:39,800 --> 00:16:42,320
Speaker 1: like a video camera. So it is it is not

306
00:16:42,480 --> 00:16:44,800
Speaker 1: something you're seeing that isn't there. It is an actual

307
00:16:45,240 --> 00:16:49,640
Speaker 1: optical phenomena. Right. Uh. You you are seeing something that

308
00:16:49,840 --> 00:16:52,320
Speaker 1: is really light coming into your eyes looking that way.

309
00:16:52,360 --> 00:16:54,880
Speaker 1: It's not in your head though. What you're seeing is

310
00:16:55,000 --> 00:16:58,200
Speaker 1: very distorted, so you're probably wanted. Okay, mirage. How does

311
00:16:58,240 --> 00:17:01,520
Speaker 1: a mirage happen? It's you know, not caused by you know, um,

312
00:17:01,520 --> 00:17:03,640
Speaker 1: you know, weird spirits and the you know, in the

313
00:17:03,720 --> 00:17:07,480
Speaker 1: desert or on the seas well. Mirages in general occur

314
00:17:07,600 --> 00:17:11,439
Speaker 1: when light passes through air of differing temperatures and the

315
00:17:11,560 --> 00:17:15,160
Speaker 1: light is reflected or refracted a k A. Bent. And

316
00:17:15,200 --> 00:17:18,080
Speaker 1: there are two types of mirages. We can divide them

317
00:17:18,160 --> 00:17:22,919
Speaker 1: up generally into inferior mirages and superior mirages. This is

318
00:17:22,960 --> 00:17:25,840
Speaker 1: not a about their quality. It's not like you know,

319
00:17:26,240 --> 00:17:30,240
Speaker 1: discount mirages and bespoke mirrages. It has to do with

320
00:17:30,560 --> 00:17:34,040
Speaker 1: where they fall in relation to the horizon. Right. So

321
00:17:34,080 --> 00:17:38,240
Speaker 1: the inferior mirage is the kind that is being lampooned

322
00:17:38,240 --> 00:17:40,600
Speaker 1: in the cartoons where a character isn't you know, daffy

323
00:17:40,680 --> 00:17:43,160
Speaker 1: ducks in the desert and he thinks he sees an oasis.

324
00:17:43,520 --> 00:17:46,359
Speaker 1: This is a very real thing that people often experience

325
00:17:46,400 --> 00:17:49,439
Speaker 1: in desert climates. And this is the inferior mirage. Yes,

326
00:17:49,520 --> 00:17:52,720
Speaker 1: so the inferior mirage again is your stereotypical oasis mirrage.

327
00:17:53,000 --> 00:17:56,159
Speaker 1: It looks like a pool of blue water sometimes, you know,

328
00:17:56,160 --> 00:17:59,040
Speaker 1: appears when you also look out across the desert or

329
00:17:59,080 --> 00:18:01,760
Speaker 1: down the highway. You've probably seen one of these on

330
00:18:01,800 --> 00:18:04,800
Speaker 1: your own drives or in movies, especially in movies that

331
00:18:04,840 --> 00:18:07,640
Speaker 1: have a desert highway. This is this is like cat

332
00:18:07,680 --> 00:18:09,840
Speaker 1: Neet two. Directors, they they got to have it, you know,

333
00:18:09,880 --> 00:18:11,680
Speaker 1: so they'll they'll get a little bit of that mirrage

334
00:18:12,040 --> 00:18:14,840
Speaker 1: in their in their shot. Right. And it's not only

335
00:18:14,920 --> 00:18:17,600
Speaker 1: because the desert is hot and you're thirsty that it

336
00:18:17,600 --> 00:18:19,800
Speaker 1: looks like there's water on the desert. There is a

337
00:18:19,840 --> 00:18:23,760
Speaker 1: specific climate related reason that you're likely to see a

338
00:18:23,800 --> 00:18:27,040
Speaker 1: mirage in the desert that looks like a pool of water. Yeah.

339
00:18:27,280 --> 00:18:29,879
Speaker 1: These occur when a dense layer of cold air sits

340
00:18:29,960 --> 00:18:32,719
Speaker 1: on or above line of sight with a layer of

341
00:18:33,040 --> 00:18:36,159
Speaker 1: less dense, warmer air below line of sight. Now, um

342
00:18:36,960 --> 00:18:41,119
Speaker 1: an example to pull from here is consider the desert highway. Okay,

343
00:18:41,119 --> 00:18:44,240
Speaker 1: the sun beats down heats the asphalt, and the hot

344
00:18:44,280 --> 00:18:48,200
Speaker 1: asphalt heats up the bottom portion of the air. Rays

345
00:18:48,280 --> 00:18:52,080
Speaker 1: of light from above are refracted when they hit that

346
00:18:52,600 --> 00:18:56,280
Speaker 1: refracted towards your eyes, resulting in the mirage. So the

347
00:18:56,400 --> 00:18:59,280
Speaker 1: light of the blue sky above is bent back towards

348
00:18:59,280 --> 00:19:02,080
Speaker 1: you from the low the horizon, and thus you have

349
00:19:02,160 --> 00:19:04,440
Speaker 1: this you know, it's it's like a pool of water,

350
00:19:04,480 --> 00:19:07,040
Speaker 1: but essentially like what seems like a pool of sky. Yeah,

351
00:19:07,080 --> 00:19:09,639
Speaker 1: you're essentially seeing the blue light of the sky that

352
00:19:09,800 --> 00:19:13,399
Speaker 1: is refracted as it changes from the cooler air above

353
00:19:13,760 --> 00:19:16,840
Speaker 1: to this pocket of warmer air below, and it bends

354
00:19:16,880 --> 00:19:19,280
Speaker 1: down and makes it look like part of the sky

355
00:19:19,560 --> 00:19:22,480
Speaker 1: is just sitting on the ground. And when you see that,

356
00:19:22,480 --> 00:19:26,160
Speaker 1: that blue sky looks a lot like water. Yeah. Now,

357
00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:30,240
Speaker 1: the superior mirage works the opposite way. Warm air sits

358
00:19:30,280 --> 00:19:35,239
Speaker 1: above line of side, cool layer beneath it, light bends down. Uh.

359
00:19:35,320 --> 00:19:38,399
Speaker 1: The light is not traveling straight at us, but our

360
00:19:38,480 --> 00:19:41,320
Speaker 1: visual process assumes that it is, so it makes it

361
00:19:41,359 --> 00:19:44,080
Speaker 1: appear as if it is. Uh, it is above its

362
00:19:44,119 --> 00:19:47,720
Speaker 1: actual position, such as above the horizon, hanging in the

363
00:19:47,760 --> 00:19:50,280
Speaker 1: sky and so of course, in some cases this can

364
00:19:50,320 --> 00:19:54,240
Speaker 1: cause objects that are actually past where you can see

365
00:19:54,480 --> 00:19:57,040
Speaker 1: on the horizon, so they're you know, beyond the curve

366
00:19:57,080 --> 00:20:00,200
Speaker 1: of the Earth from your vision, to appear as if

367
00:20:00,200 --> 00:20:03,240
Speaker 1: they are popping up over the horizon. Yeah, they can

368
00:20:03,280 --> 00:20:06,280
Speaker 1: make something that's that's actually just beyond the optical horizons,

369
00:20:06,280 --> 00:20:08,520
Speaker 1: such as mountain tops, appear ahead of schedule. You can

370
00:20:08,520 --> 00:20:12,439
Speaker 1: imagine how this would play into some of your expectations

371
00:20:12,480 --> 00:20:16,439
Speaker 1: whilst whilst out on the open seas. Uh. It can

372
00:20:16,480 --> 00:20:19,879
Speaker 1: also make objects appear closer or further away, larger or

373
00:20:19,920 --> 00:20:24,400
Speaker 1: smaller than they actually are. Um, it's quite interesting. Uh.

374
00:20:24,480 --> 00:20:27,560
Speaker 1: And and and for another example of this. Apparently, the

375
00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:31,600
Speaker 1: most common example of a superior mirage, according to Christine

376
00:20:32,040 --> 00:20:35,359
Speaker 1: Polam in two thousand eight speaking to Robert Siegel of NPR,

377
00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:39,240
Speaker 1: is a sunrise or a sunset. Quote. The same phenomenon

378
00:20:39,280 --> 00:20:42,040
Speaker 1: occurs to the Sun every day and makes it appear

379
00:20:42,080 --> 00:20:45,680
Speaker 1: to be above the horizon when it's actually slightly below it. Oh,

380
00:20:45,720 --> 00:20:47,880
Speaker 1: I think I've read that this is even more common,

381
00:20:47,920 --> 00:20:50,480
Speaker 1: like in polar regions. This might be related to what's

382
00:20:50,520 --> 00:20:54,520
Speaker 1: known as the Novaya Zimileia effect. Oh yeah, yeah, it's

383
00:20:54,600 --> 00:20:57,119
Speaker 1: of course, the thing with the sunrise and sunset is

384
00:20:57,200 --> 00:21:00,959
Speaker 1: since it happens every day, and you know, generally it's

385
00:21:01,000 --> 00:21:02,280
Speaker 1: the kind of thing you see every day, it doesn't

386
00:21:02,280 --> 00:21:04,760
Speaker 1: seem out of place. But where we get into these,

387
00:21:05,040 --> 00:21:10,040
Speaker 1: you know, remarkable stories and legends arising from from sightings

388
00:21:10,080 --> 00:21:13,400
Speaker 1: of of superior mirrages, it's because they occur. They don't

389
00:21:13,400 --> 00:21:16,040
Speaker 1: occur every day. It's something you would see maybe with

390
00:21:16,160 --> 00:21:18,000
Speaker 1: some frequency, depending on what part of the world and

391
00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:21,200
Speaker 1: what the exactive environmental settings happen to be. But they

392
00:21:21,200 --> 00:21:23,320
Speaker 1: have more mystery to them. They're not part of just

393
00:21:23,359 --> 00:21:28,600
Speaker 1: the everyday movements of the sun or everyday atmospheric behavior. Yeah,

394
00:21:28,600 --> 00:21:33,240
Speaker 1: the conditions have to be right, So superior mirages they

395
00:21:33,280 --> 00:21:36,200
Speaker 1: require there to be a certain kind of pocket of

396
00:21:36,320 --> 00:21:39,920
Speaker 1: warmer air sitting above a pocket of cooler air, which

397
00:21:39,960 --> 00:21:42,960
Speaker 1: is not normally how the atmosphere works. Right, Usually the

398
00:21:43,119 --> 00:21:45,200
Speaker 1: air up higher is going to be cooler, even though

399
00:21:45,240 --> 00:21:48,040
Speaker 1: heat rises. Usually it's just farther away from the earth

400
00:21:48,040 --> 00:21:50,640
Speaker 1: and it's going to be cooler. Now, if you're completely

401
00:21:50,640 --> 00:21:52,640
Speaker 1: lost at this point, which I will, I will forgive

402
00:21:52,680 --> 00:21:55,080
Speaker 1: you for for being so um, I will say a

403
00:21:55,119 --> 00:21:57,680
Speaker 1: couple of resources you can turn to. How Stuff Works

404
00:21:57,680 --> 00:21:59,920
Speaker 1: dot Com has an article about mirages, but also the

405
00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:03,520
Speaker 1: University of British Columbia's Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences.

406
00:22:03,920 --> 00:22:06,520
Speaker 1: They have a great page that I was looking at

407
00:22:06,560 --> 00:22:10,200
Speaker 1: earlier with very helpful illustrations, included one of these for

408
00:22:10,280 --> 00:22:12,639
Speaker 1: you to see here, Joe. But uh, just very well

409
00:22:12,680 --> 00:22:16,480
Speaker 1: presented information about like light bending downward, that's your superior mirage,

410
00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:26,000
Speaker 1: light bending upward, that's your inferior mirrage. Than now, the

411
00:22:26,119 --> 00:22:29,840
Speaker 1: superior mirrage can actually get even more complicated than just

412
00:22:30,080 --> 00:22:34,080
Speaker 1: making something appear above where it actually is, because of

413
00:22:34,119 --> 00:22:37,480
Speaker 1: the bending of light through these pockets of air when

414
00:22:37,520 --> 00:22:40,160
Speaker 1: there are very specific conditions. I think this is something

415
00:22:40,200 --> 00:22:43,520
Speaker 1: that's usually called atmospheric ducting, Like when a certain kind

416
00:22:43,560 --> 00:22:47,080
Speaker 1: of duct or column of atmospheric conditions and different temperature

417
00:22:47,119 --> 00:22:51,440
Speaker 1: gradients in the atmospheric gases are created. This can lead

418
00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:55,199
Speaker 1: to what's known as fata Morgana right. These occur when

419
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:57,800
Speaker 1: there are several layers of warm and cold air that

420
00:22:57,880 --> 00:23:00,399
Speaker 1: cause what is actually a combination of superi area and

421
00:23:00,600 --> 00:23:05,520
Speaker 1: inferior images. The uneven inversion causes the light to refract

422
00:23:05,560 --> 00:23:08,639
Speaker 1: and ultimately bizarre ways, so you can wind up with

423
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:13,280
Speaker 1: multiple segmented reflections in there. So um, you know, it's

424
00:23:13,280 --> 00:23:15,720
Speaker 1: here that we get into the you know, the confusing

425
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:20,200
Speaker 1: images that may be interpreted as floating walls or castles

426
00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:23,520
Speaker 1: in the sky, or gigantic ships that are flying through

427
00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:26,960
Speaker 1: the atmosphere above the horizon, that sort of thing. Now

428
00:23:27,119 --> 00:23:31,359
Speaker 1: you might wonder where the name Fatim Morgana actually comes from,

429
00:23:31,400 --> 00:23:33,800
Speaker 1: like why would an optical effect have a name like this?

430
00:23:34,000 --> 00:23:37,600
Speaker 1: The name Fati Morgana actually comes from the character from

431
00:23:37,720 --> 00:23:42,040
Speaker 1: our Thurian legend, usually known by her French name Morgan

432
00:23:42,119 --> 00:23:45,000
Speaker 1: la Fay. In English, of course, Morgan la Fay is

433
00:23:45,040 --> 00:23:48,560
Speaker 1: Morgan the Fairy. Though when I was writing about this,

434
00:23:48,640 --> 00:23:51,560
Speaker 1: for some reason, I kept thinking back to our episodes

435
00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:54,000
Speaker 1: of Invention where we were talking about Alice sky Blush

436
00:23:54,359 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 1: and her first film, The Cabbage Fairy La Faye a shoe,

437
00:23:58,720 --> 00:24:01,600
Speaker 1: So I kept thinking about Organ the cabbage Faery. But

438
00:24:01,680 --> 00:24:04,399
Speaker 1: she she is not merely a cabbage fairy. She is

439
00:24:04,440 --> 00:24:08,640
Speaker 1: a fairy, sometimes a fairy of of helpfulness and and medicine,

440
00:24:08,800 --> 00:24:12,480
Speaker 1: and sometimes a fairy of lies and destruction. It always

441
00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:15,400
Speaker 1: makes me think of the wonderful film ex caliber where

442
00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:19,640
Speaker 1: Helen Mirren plays MORGANA do you remember seen it? Oh?

443
00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:21,760
Speaker 1: It's pretty great, has a very shiny armor, a great

444
00:24:21,800 --> 00:24:25,920
Speaker 1: cast John Boorman picture. He's got Nissan's in it. Oh really, yeah,

445
00:24:26,119 --> 00:24:28,119
Speaker 1: this is John Boorman. Did he do it before or

446
00:24:28,160 --> 00:24:33,159
Speaker 1: after Deliverance? That's a strange eighty one? So okay, I

447
00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:35,640
Speaker 1: can't remember when Deliverance came out. It was seventies film, right,

448
00:24:36,200 --> 00:24:39,199
Speaker 1: I think, so? Yeah, Well, maybe i'll check that one

449
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:42,760
Speaker 1: out soon. Yeah, Deliverance was seventy two. Okay, well, so

450
00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:48,320
Speaker 1: Morgan suddenly I'm imagining Burt Reynolds is King Arthur, but

451
00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:51,640
Speaker 1: Morgan la Faye is a character that exists in multiple

452
00:24:51,680 --> 00:24:56,120
Speaker 1: stages throughout the evolution of the Arthurian legendary corpus uh As.

453
00:24:56,160 --> 00:24:59,120
Speaker 1: You probably know that there are lots of different types

454
00:24:59,160 --> 00:25:02,040
Speaker 1: of stories of Arthur and the character of Arthur and

455
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:04,760
Speaker 1: the stories about him and all the characters around him.

456
00:25:04,800 --> 00:25:08,560
Speaker 1: They change a lot over the centuries as this story,

457
00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:12,040
Speaker 1: uh As, the story is retold and retold, and so

458
00:25:12,280 --> 00:25:16,720
Speaker 1: she is usually some kind of sorceress or witch or fairy.

459
00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:20,639
Speaker 1: In earlier sources, it seems she's more often a sympathetic character,

460
00:25:20,720 --> 00:25:24,040
Speaker 1: a kind of helper or a healer, sometimes a sister

461
00:25:24,320 --> 00:25:27,960
Speaker 1: or half sister of King Arthur. In later stories, she's

462
00:25:28,000 --> 00:25:32,159
Speaker 1: presented as more morally ambiguous, or even the vindictive and

463
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:36,360
Speaker 1: deceitful villainous of the plot, as in the fifteenth century

464
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:40,040
Speaker 1: Lamorte d'artour in by That one's by Thomas Mallory, Sir

465
00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:43,399
Speaker 1: Thomas Mallory, uh, and that one is the source of

466
00:25:43,440 --> 00:25:46,760
Speaker 1: a lot of the Arthurian stories that people know. But

467
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:50,000
Speaker 1: La fata Morgana is just the Italian for Morgan la

468
00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:53,080
Speaker 1: Fay or Morgan the fairy. But you still might be wondering,

469
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:56,800
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, why is this type of complex superior

470
00:25:56,920 --> 00:26:03,200
Speaker 1: mirage associated with a fairy or sorceress from Arthurian literature. Well,

471
00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:07,040
Speaker 1: remember that fairies are tricksters first of all, and Morgan

472
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 1: le Fay in these later tellings of the arthur saga,

473
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:13,280
Speaker 1: is known for her deceptions. But the connection appears to

474
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:16,280
Speaker 1: run even deeper than that. So I was reading about

475
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:20,720
Speaker 1: this in a article for Wired by Matt Simon, that is,

476
00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:23,040
Speaker 1: in part, I think a review of a book by

477
00:26:23,080 --> 00:26:28,440
Speaker 1: Marina Warner called Phantasmagoria, published in two thousand eight from

478
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:32,320
Speaker 1: Oxford University press, and Matt Simon is writing up a

479
00:26:32,880 --> 00:26:36,359
Speaker 1: section from this book that is about the discovery of

480
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:39,119
Speaker 1: the Fatim Morgana, or at least an early documentation of

481
00:26:39,119 --> 00:26:42,240
Speaker 1: the Fatim Morgana with a with a scientific point of view.

482
00:26:42,720 --> 00:26:46,160
Speaker 1: So he tells the story of a Jesuit priest named

483
00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:50,560
Speaker 1: Father Domenico Giardina, who lived in the seventeenth century on

484
00:26:50,600 --> 00:26:55,080
Speaker 1: the island of Sicily. And so I'm about to describe

485
00:26:55,119 --> 00:26:59,160
Speaker 1: some visions. I think there's some confusion about whether Giardina

486
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 1: saw the visions himself or whether he was describing the

487
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:05,320
Speaker 1: visions of another person. But either way, one day in

488
00:27:05,359 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 1: the sixteen forties, somebody, maybe Jardina, was gazing out across

489
00:27:10,160 --> 00:27:12,880
Speaker 1: the Strait of Messina, which is the stretch of ocean

490
00:27:13,000 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 1: between Sicily and mainland Italy. And according to Jardina's writings, uh,

491
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:22,440
Speaker 1: what was seen here was quote a city all floating

492
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 1: in the air, and so measureless and so splendid, so

493
00:27:26,160 --> 00:27:29,800
Speaker 1: adorned with magnificent buildings, all of which was found on

494
00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:34,040
Speaker 1: a base of a luminous crystal. So, okay, that's impressive,

495
00:27:34,440 --> 00:27:37,439
Speaker 1: but it didn't just remain that way. Jardina claims that

496
00:27:37,480 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 1: the city transformed itself into a garden and then into

497
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:43,919
Speaker 1: a forest. And I can't help but notice the dangerous

498
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:47,199
Speaker 1: inversion that might imply the city, of course is the

499
00:27:47,240 --> 00:27:51,199
Speaker 1: place of order and humanity, and it transforms into the woods,

500
00:27:51,240 --> 00:27:53,679
Speaker 1: which is the place where the power of nature rules

501
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:57,280
Speaker 1: and travelers become lost. And in some of the classic

502
00:27:57,400 --> 00:28:00,520
Speaker 1: Arthurian stories, I think that's a place you you really

503
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 1: see this like civilization versus the woods distinction where the

504
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:08,520
Speaker 1: woods are just full of unaccountable magic that has power

505
00:28:08,600 --> 00:28:12,439
Speaker 1: over you rather than you over it. Yeah. Absolutely, And uh.

506
00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 1: One thing I love about this is this is already

507
00:28:14,920 --> 00:28:18,199
Speaker 1: hit on several different themes that we will find not

508
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:22,119
Speaker 1: only in you know, um, you know, tales from you know,

509
00:28:22,160 --> 00:28:24,640
Speaker 1: elsewhere in Europe, but but tales from the other side

510
00:28:24,680 --> 00:28:27,399
Speaker 1: of the world. Uh, and you know other you know,

511
00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:30,439
Speaker 1: other other cultures seem to have possibly or in some

512
00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:35,080
Speaker 1: cases possibly seen um optical phenomena of this nature and

513
00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:41,240
Speaker 1: had some of the same interpretations. Uh So, anyway, Jardina's

514
00:28:41,280 --> 00:28:44,280
Speaker 1: description goes on after that, even after it becomes a

515
00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:47,720
Speaker 1: bunch of woods, there are more transformations and more chaos.

516
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 1: He saw what looked like armies attacking towns and then

517
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:55,800
Speaker 1: eventually the entire scene just vanishes. And Jardina tried to

518
00:28:55,920 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 1: explain this vision in terms of science other than magic.

519
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:04,400
Speaker 1: He he blamed salts in the region, which he wrote,

520
00:29:04,480 --> 00:29:07,560
Speaker 1: quote rise up in hot weather in vapors from the

521
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:11,320
Speaker 1: sea to form clouds which then condensed in the cooler

522
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:14,760
Speaker 1: upper air to become a mobile specchio, which means a

523
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:19,400
Speaker 1: moving polyhedracal mirror. Now this is not correct, but as

524
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 1: we've seen, this actually isn't very far off. It doesn't

525
00:29:22,320 --> 00:29:25,760
Speaker 1: necessarily have to do with salts, but the effect probably

526
00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:30,400
Speaker 1: was something like a superior mirage of the opposing shore

527
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:35,040
Speaker 1: and things on it, or a fata morgana even more complex,

528
00:29:35,200 --> 00:29:39,760
Speaker 1: uh sort of shifting, quickly transforming mirage that was caused

529
00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:44,760
Speaker 1: by the vertical arrangement of of gases of different temperatures

530
00:29:44,800 --> 00:29:47,960
Speaker 1: and atmospheric ducting. Yeah, and you know, one of the

531
00:29:48,000 --> 00:29:50,600
Speaker 1: interesting things about this I was reading from a source

532
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:53,400
Speaker 1: that i'll side later in the episode, and they were

533
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:56,840
Speaker 1: talking about how indeed we we didn't really um begin

534
00:29:56,880 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 1: to understand what was going on with mirages like this,

535
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:02,960
Speaker 1: and the eighteenth and nineteenth century and even even a

536
00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:07,400
Speaker 1: say Arab scientists who during the medieval period. Like that was,

537
00:30:07,600 --> 00:30:10,080
Speaker 1: they knew more about optics than anyone else in the world.

538
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:13,240
Speaker 1: Even they were not able to to make sense of

539
00:30:13,280 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 1: what they were experiencing when they too experienced uh you know,

540
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:21,040
Speaker 1: superior inferior mirages on the horizon. Yeah, exactly so. So

541
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 1: this explanation is not correct, but I think it's surprising

542
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:28,320
Speaker 1: how close he got yea. So here here's the question,

543
00:30:28,520 --> 00:30:31,640
Speaker 1: where does Morgan la fay come in? Right? Well, here

544
00:30:31,680 --> 00:30:35,920
Speaker 1: I'm going to read from from Simon's article. According to Warner,

545
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:40,680
Speaker 1: the Norman's brought stories of Morgan's magic to Italy, particularly

546
00:30:40,800 --> 00:30:44,719
Speaker 1: her penchant for luring sailors to an undersea palace with

547
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 1: visions of castles in the air. Fata Morgana is particularly

548
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:54,040
Speaker 1: prevalent in southern Italy straight of Messina, where Father Giardina

549
00:30:54,160 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 1: experienced his own vision, and then later Simon writes, and

550
00:30:58,680 --> 00:31:02,160
Speaker 1: long before arthury legend it could have been the sightings

551
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:05,600
Speaker 1: of these phenomena gave rise to any number of woe

552
00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:10,800
Speaker 1: something is appearing in the sky scenes in antiquity. Warner argues, So,

553
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 1: I think the the idea of the fatim organa is

554
00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:17,080
Speaker 1: that there is some equation of this optical phenomena of

555
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:21,640
Speaker 1: seeing things far away or over the horizon, appearing up

556
00:31:21,640 --> 00:31:24,320
Speaker 1: in the air above the horizon, and in some cases

557
00:31:24,360 --> 00:31:30,200
Speaker 1: even uh distorted, inverted and stacked upon themselves, forming bizarre

558
00:31:30,320 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 1: visions that could look like castles in the sky, cities

559
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:37,720
Speaker 1: in the sky, uh, weird floating objects, ships sailing in

560
00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 1: the air, or among the clouds. And you might be tempted,

561
00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:43,680
Speaker 1: reading accounts of things like this to think, well, okay,

562
00:31:43,680 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 1: you know, it's either just creative the creative mind at work,

563
00:31:47,200 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 1: or it is uh it is you know that these

564
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:54,840
Speaker 1: people's mythology or or legends that are then described. But

565
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:58,600
Speaker 1: the fatim organa gives us the opportunity to look to

566
00:31:58,920 --> 00:32:01,880
Speaker 1: actual optical nomina as a is it possible or in

567
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:05,720
Speaker 1: some cases like it seems almost definite? Cause yes, though

568
00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:08,440
Speaker 1: I guess somebody would not be could not be blamed

569
00:32:08,520 --> 00:32:10,720
Speaker 1: too too much for thinking of it as a kind

570
00:32:10,760 --> 00:32:14,760
Speaker 1: of deceptive fairy magic. Yeah, no, I think so, because ultimately,

571
00:32:14,800 --> 00:32:17,040
Speaker 1: like we've said before, when you when you witness something

572
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 1: that you cannot explain, a lot of times you have

573
00:32:20,480 --> 00:32:23,120
Speaker 1: to go to the pre existing h narratives, the pre

574
00:32:23,160 --> 00:32:26,160
Speaker 1: existing scripts uh to figure out what it might be,

575
00:32:26,320 --> 00:32:29,680
Speaker 1: and that might be aliens, it might be um you know,

576
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:32,120
Speaker 1: fit that the fairy folk, it might be the gods

577
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:34,600
Speaker 1: or sea monsters, etcetera. It seems like the sea in

578
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 1: particular is full of a lot of characters who want

579
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:39,000
Speaker 1: to lead you astray and get you into trouble with

580
00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:43,680
Speaker 1: deceptive visions or invitations. You know, the sirens, the all

581
00:32:43,680 --> 00:32:46,120
Speaker 1: those things. So I guess the woods too. I don't know,

582
00:32:46,160 --> 00:32:48,920
Speaker 1: the woods in the sea have some things in common. Yeah,

583
00:32:48,920 --> 00:32:51,720
Speaker 1: they're both wild realms and there you know, there's a

584
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 1: plethora of of mythical creatures and beings and strange lights

585
00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:59,320
Speaker 1: that will lead you astray. Now I came across what

586
00:32:59,480 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 1: I thought was a pretty interesting hypothesis. I'm not sure

587
00:33:03,080 --> 00:33:05,520
Speaker 1: how well supported it is, but at least in this

588
00:33:05,600 --> 00:33:09,560
Speaker 1: one case, the fotom Organo mirage has been said to

589
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:14,880
Speaker 1: not just influence supernatural legends, it may possibly explain specific

590
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 1: catastrophic navigational blunders in maritime history. And the main possibility

591
00:33:20,520 --> 00:33:23,720
Speaker 1: that has been proposed here is the iceberg collision that

592
00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:29,120
Speaker 1: sank the Titanic. Okay, so this hypothesis is covered in

593
00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 1: an April article for the New York Times by William J. Broad.

594
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:38,520
Speaker 1: In short, there's British historian named Tim Malton who was

595
00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 1: working with the help of somebody named Andrew T. Young,

596
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:45,600
Speaker 1: who's an astronomer and mirage specialist at San Diego State

597
00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:51,000
Speaker 1: University and uh. With Young's help, Malton refined and put

598
00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:55,640
Speaker 1: forward a hypothesis that could explain why the Titanics lookouts

599
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:59,360
Speaker 1: failed to spot the iceberg in time to avoid the collision,

600
00:33:59,800 --> 00:34:02,840
Speaker 1: and end why a nearby ship failed to respond to

601
00:34:02,880 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 1: a distress signal. Uh So, Malton claims that the conditions

602
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:11,000
Speaker 1: of the icy water in the North Atlantic on the

603
00:34:11,120 --> 00:34:14,279
Speaker 1: night of the sinking of the Titanic were responsible for

604
00:34:14,480 --> 00:34:17,920
Speaker 1: creating a kind of wall of water illusion that could

605
00:34:17,960 --> 00:34:23,239
Speaker 1: have obscured the approaching iceberg from view. And Broad describes

606
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:26,920
Speaker 1: the fatim organa effect as follows quote. Most people know

607
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:30,440
Speaker 1: mirages as natural phenomena caused when hot air near the

608
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:34,200
Speaker 1: earth surface bends light rays upward. In a desert, the

609
00:34:34,239 --> 00:34:38,080
Speaker 1: effect prompts lost travelers to mistake patches of blue sky

610
00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:41,480
Speaker 1: for pools of water. But another kind of mirage occurs

611
00:34:41,520 --> 00:34:45,480
Speaker 1: when cold air bends light rays downward. In that case,

612
00:34:45,520 --> 00:34:49,160
Speaker 1: observers can see objects and settings far over the horizon.

613
00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:53,720
Speaker 1: The images often undergo quick distortions, not unlike the wavy

614
00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:56,880
Speaker 1: reflections in a fun house mirror. Okay, so this is

615
00:34:56,920 --> 00:35:00,000
Speaker 1: in line with what we've been talking about, but broad

616
00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 1: on to say. In an interview, Mr Malton said he

617
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:05,800
Speaker 1: first learned the possibility of cold mirages when reading a

618
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:10,400
Speaker 1: nine British inquiry on the Titanic sinking. It suggested that

619
00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:13,880
Speaker 1: the icy waters could have cooled the adjacent air and

620
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:18,160
Speaker 1: warped images that confused the Californian, a nearby ship that

621
00:35:18,239 --> 00:35:21,920
Speaker 1: could have rushed to the Titanic's aid but instead did nothing.

622
00:35:22,520 --> 00:35:25,840
Speaker 1: Fascinated Mr Malton, who sailed boats in his youth, dug

623
00:35:25,920 --> 00:35:29,880
Speaker 1: into navigational records and found that both the Californian and

624
00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:33,440
Speaker 1: the Titanic had moved into the icy Labrador current that

625
00:35:33,600 --> 00:35:38,319
Speaker 1: night and had encountered conditions ideal for cold mirages. He

626
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:42,360
Speaker 1: then hunted through reams of official and unofficial testimony to

627
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:45,439
Speaker 1: see what people saw, or what they thought they saw.

628
00:35:45,960 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 1: A drama of misperceptions ensues. Mr Malton's book shows how

629
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:53,960
Speaker 1: mirages could have created false horizons that hid the iceberg

630
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:58,000
Speaker 1: from the Titanic's lookouts by this theory, the intersection of

631
00:35:58,120 --> 00:36:01,799
Speaker 1: dark sea and starry sky would have looked blurry, reducing

632
00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:04,920
Speaker 1: the contrast with the looming iceberg. And then he goes

633
00:36:04,960 --> 00:36:07,400
Speaker 1: on to site some of the testimony of the lookouts

634
00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:10,440
Speaker 1: who were who were watching the horizon that night, and

635
00:36:10,440 --> 00:36:12,960
Speaker 1: and so they put together this idea that superior mirages

636
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:15,440
Speaker 1: could have hidden the iceberg from site as they were

637
00:36:15,480 --> 00:36:18,240
Speaker 1: approaching it by creating a kind of blur or haze

638
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:22,280
Speaker 1: along the horizon. And then also that that a type

639
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:25,680
Speaker 1: of superior mirage caused by the the icy currents in

640
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:30,320
Speaker 1: the cold water could have interfered with the Californians ability.

641
00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:32,280
Speaker 1: I remember that was the other ship that was nearby

642
00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:35,840
Speaker 1: that did not intervene, could have interfered with its ability

643
00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:39,239
Speaker 1: to correctly assess what was going on with the Titanic.

644
00:36:39,520 --> 00:36:43,120
Speaker 1: And this led to a series of misunderstandings that caused

645
00:36:43,120 --> 00:36:47,880
Speaker 1: them not to help. That is interesting. Yeah, Now I

646
00:36:47,920 --> 00:36:51,160
Speaker 1: don't know how much you know, the most relevant experts

647
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:54,239
Speaker 1: would put into this hypothesis. Today, I was trying to

648
00:36:54,280 --> 00:36:57,080
Speaker 1: see if I could find criticisms of it, and I

649
00:36:57,120 --> 00:37:00,120
Speaker 1: did find a series of papers in the journe An

650
00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:04,520
Speaker 1: Old Weather from twenty nineteen by Mila's in Cova. The

651
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:07,520
Speaker 1: first one of the four part series is called Titanic's

652
00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:10,759
Speaker 1: Mirage Part one, The Enigma of the Arctic High and

653
00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:14,240
Speaker 1: a Cold Water Tongue of the Labrador Current. I didn't

654
00:37:14,239 --> 00:37:16,200
Speaker 1: have time to get into this whole series in depth,

655
00:37:16,280 --> 00:37:18,040
Speaker 1: but it looks from what I can tell like the

656
00:37:18,040 --> 00:37:22,239
Speaker 1: author argues that maybe the mirage explanation is possible, but

657
00:37:22,480 --> 00:37:25,759
Speaker 1: probably not the explanation that they think is most consistent

658
00:37:25,800 --> 00:37:29,520
Speaker 1: with the facts, and other explanations for the haze over

659
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:32,960
Speaker 1: the water that night that would reduce visibility would include

660
00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:35,839
Speaker 1: something that is more commonly known as sea smoke, which

661
00:37:35,880 --> 00:37:38,560
Speaker 1: is just a kind of natural fog that forms when

662
00:37:38,640 --> 00:37:42,359
Speaker 1: very cold air moves over warmer water. Yeah, and that,

663
00:37:42,400 --> 00:37:45,400
Speaker 1: coupled with the fact that Billy Zane is chasing Leonardo

664
00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 1: DiCaprio around ship, that's probably distracting everybody. I mean, that's

665
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:53,080
Speaker 1: going to create a steamy fog of its own, right, Yeah,

666
00:37:57,719 --> 00:38:02,800
Speaker 1: thank thank um. Yeah. I have an interesting historic tidbit

667
00:38:02,880 --> 00:38:05,160
Speaker 1: here that I think you know that flows nicely out

668
00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:09,160
Speaker 1: of the Titanic example. Uh, this one takes place uh

669
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:11,560
Speaker 1: well techno, technically it takes place on water as well,

670
00:38:11,600 --> 00:38:15,439
Speaker 1: but on frozen water. Uh. And it concerns uh something

671
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:17,960
Speaker 1: that pops up as well, the idea of like phantom islands,

672
00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:21,120
Speaker 1: phantom mountains. Uh, something in the distance that you know,

673
00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:25,640
Speaker 1: looks like some sort of large geographical um occurrence, but

674
00:38:25,680 --> 00:38:28,080
Speaker 1: then as you get closer it does not. And this

675
00:38:28,160 --> 00:38:31,880
Speaker 1: particular tidbit concerns crocker Land. Have you ever been to

676
00:38:31,880 --> 00:38:35,319
Speaker 1: crocker Land, Joe, I don't think so. Now for some reason,

677
00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:39,359
Speaker 1: I'm thinking Betty crocker Land. Well, as it turns out,

678
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 1: nobody has been to crocker Land, and uh. And here's

679
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:45,160
Speaker 1: the story. So it's nineteen six and Robert E. Perry

680
00:38:45,960 --> 00:38:48,960
Speaker 1: Arctic explorers exploring the polar regions, and he makes an

681
00:38:49,000 --> 00:38:53,000
Speaker 1: alarming sighting a range of mountain peaks rising above the

682
00:38:53,040 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 1: ice cap some what looks like four hundred miles uh,

683
00:38:56,560 --> 00:38:59,799
Speaker 1: you know, west of Greenland's northern tip. So he names

684
00:38:59,840 --> 00:39:02,640
Speaker 1: this crocker Land, and it apparently goes from there. It

685
00:39:02,719 --> 00:39:05,920
Speaker 1: ends up appearing on at least one published map, and

686
00:39:05,920 --> 00:39:10,000
Speaker 1: then seven years later, Arctic explorer Donald B. McMillan he

687
00:39:10,120 --> 00:39:14,080
Speaker 1: ventures into the same region in search of crocker Land. Um,

688
00:39:14,160 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 1: you know, thinking that he's going to, you know, arrive

689
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:20,720
Speaker 1: there and further study it. And he initially sees these mountains,

690
00:39:20,760 --> 00:39:23,759
Speaker 1: but then they slowly vanish as he draws closer, and

691
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 1: as it turns out, there was nothing there at all

692
00:39:26,120 --> 00:39:31,040
Speaker 1: but flat, featureless ice. And this is how he describes it.

693
00:39:31,120 --> 00:39:34,720
Speaker 1: This is from his beliefs. Is from his autobiography quote.

694
00:39:34,960 --> 00:39:37,720
Speaker 1: The day was exceptionally clear, not a cloud or trace

695
00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:41,399
Speaker 1: of mist. If land could be seen now is our time. Yes,

696
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:44,640
Speaker 1: there it was. It could even be seen without a glass.

697
00:39:44,640 --> 00:39:50,360
Speaker 1: Extending from southwest true to north northeast. Are powerful glasses, however,

698
00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:53,960
Speaker 1: brought out more clearly the dark background in contrast with

699
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:57,960
Speaker 1: the white, the whole resembling hills, valleys and snow capped

700
00:39:58,000 --> 00:40:00,640
Speaker 1: peaks to such a degree that, had we not been

701
00:40:00,719 --> 00:40:03,640
Speaker 1: out on the frozen sea for a hundred and fifty miles,

702
00:40:03,680 --> 00:40:06,680
Speaker 1: we would have staked our lives upon its reality. Our

703
00:40:06,760 --> 00:40:09,960
Speaker 1: judgment then, as now is that this was a mirage

704
00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:12,600
Speaker 1: or loom of the sea ice. Oh. I guess the

705
00:40:12,600 --> 00:40:16,640
Speaker 1: thing that we haven't discussed yet but is related, is

706
00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:20,240
Speaker 1: that there is another phenomenon called looming that can also

707
00:40:20,480 --> 00:40:25,120
Speaker 1: cause illusions of this kind. Seeing different things like with

708
00:40:25,239 --> 00:40:28,120
Speaker 1: relationship to the horizons, sort of appearing out of place

709
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:33,040
Speaker 1: that works by a different mechanism. Yeah. Now the next

710
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:37,440
Speaker 1: example I want to cover though, is almomst definitely an

711
00:40:37,440 --> 00:40:40,640
Speaker 1: example of the Fata Morgana. Uh. And this is actually

712
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:43,920
Speaker 1: the one that that led me uh to uh to

713
00:40:43,960 --> 00:40:46,960
Speaker 1: bring this up as a potential topic. Um, because I

714
00:40:46,960 --> 00:40:50,840
Speaker 1: was researching the shan Haijing for our recent episode on

715
00:40:50,880 --> 00:40:54,920
Speaker 1: the shan Haijing and h I ran across a Chinese

716
00:40:55,000 --> 00:40:57,840
Speaker 1: connection to the Fata Morgana in an article from n

717
00:40:58,560 --> 00:41:01,759
Speaker 1: nine by Edward H. Schaefer published in the Journal of

718
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:05,880
Speaker 1: the American Oriental Society titled Foos Sang and Beyond the

719
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:11,600
Speaker 1: Haunted Seas to Japan. Now. Edward H. Schaeffer lived nineteen

720
00:41:11,239 --> 00:41:15,759
Speaker 1: thirt through ninete. He was an American historians, sinologist, and

721
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:18,920
Speaker 1: writer noted for his experience on the Tang dynasty, and

722
00:41:19,000 --> 00:41:22,279
Speaker 1: he was a professor of Chinese at the University of California,

723
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:25,080
Speaker 1: Berkeley for thirty five years. He also did some key

724
00:41:25,160 --> 00:41:29,600
Speaker 1: English translations. In this article, however, Schaefer is looking at

725
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:33,120
Speaker 1: various examples of a class of Chinese poem about travel,

726
00:41:33,400 --> 00:41:38,440
Speaker 1: particularly about this very specific about saying goodbye to honored

727
00:41:38,480 --> 00:41:42,040
Speaker 1: guests as they depart on a journey. I'm trying to

728
00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:44,840
Speaker 1: think if there are any um like English poems that

729
00:41:44,920 --> 00:41:47,160
Speaker 1: come to mind that have a similar theme. I don't know,

730
00:41:48,440 --> 00:41:50,800
Speaker 1: not that I can think of at any rate. It

731
00:41:50,840 --> 00:41:54,040
Speaker 1: was a popular motif at the time in China and

732
00:41:54,120 --> 00:41:57,320
Speaker 1: a popular journey. Specific journey for these poems during the

733
00:41:57,560 --> 00:42:00,959
Speaker 1: Tang dynasty, which which was six eight through nine oh seven,

734
00:42:01,320 --> 00:42:04,640
Speaker 1: was a journey across the Sea of Japan, frequently taken

735
00:42:04,680 --> 00:42:08,400
Speaker 1: by monks, diplomats, and others. So this was and is

736
00:42:08,480 --> 00:42:11,920
Speaker 1: the puffing Sea, the bursting Sea, the domain of danger,

737
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:16,480
Speaker 1: for sure, but also of supernatural wonder. Now, as we've said,

738
00:42:16,520 --> 00:42:19,280
Speaker 1: this can be said of basically any large body of water.

739
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:23,480
Speaker 1: This can be said of any seafaring civilization. Right anywhere

740
00:42:23,719 --> 00:42:27,359
Speaker 1: people meet the ocean, you find these descriptions of the

741
00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:30,240
Speaker 1: ocean as a as a potentially deadly place, a mysterious place.

742
00:42:30,239 --> 00:42:33,719
Speaker 1: And we've developed rich myths and legends to account for it. Uh,

743
00:42:33,719 --> 00:42:37,799
Speaker 1: you know, any time, you know, just across cultures. But

744
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:40,560
Speaker 1: Schaefer points out that there was really a lot of

745
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:43,400
Speaker 1: this talk regarding the Eastern Sea, and you'll find it

746
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:46,239
Speaker 1: in poems and in accounts of all sorts, including from

747
00:42:46,400 --> 00:42:50,320
Speaker 1: very well traveled and well educated individuals, and he describes

748
00:42:50,360 --> 00:42:53,960
Speaker 1: these sightings as being marked with quote greater awareness than

749
00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:58,160
Speaker 1: ever before of the denizens of the oceanic world. So

750
00:42:58,200 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 1: what are these denizens? Particular? Note here are the shin

751
00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:05,920
Speaker 1: or clam monsters of the Eastern Sea. And uh, this

752
00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:09,839
Speaker 1: is where we get shin jing, which is or um

753
00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:13,760
Speaker 1: or high fish and low, which are terms for mirages

754
00:43:13,880 --> 00:43:17,200
Speaker 1: in Mandarin. Oh wow, So if you were talking in

755
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:21,280
Speaker 1: Mandarin about a mirage, you're saying something that literally could

756
00:43:21,360 --> 00:43:25,200
Speaker 1: mean something like clam monster. Uh yeah, yeah, Like the

757
00:43:24,920 --> 00:43:28,360
Speaker 1: these terms are are all connected. Yeah. So while the

758
00:43:28,800 --> 00:43:31,840
Speaker 1: pre Han genesis of the term shafer rights would seem

759
00:43:31,880 --> 00:43:34,560
Speaker 1: to apply to real world clams, you know, the type

760
00:43:34,600 --> 00:43:38,279
Speaker 1: of clams you might catch and eat and some culinary traditions, uh,

761
00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:42,040
Speaker 1: it clearly evolved into a legend. And so this is

762
00:43:42,040 --> 00:43:46,480
Speaker 1: what he writes. Quote. Beginning as an unassuming marine invertebrate,

763
00:43:46,760 --> 00:43:50,440
Speaker 1: the shin was later imagined as a gaping, pearl producing clam,

764
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:54,680
Speaker 1: possibly to be identified with the giant clams of tropical seas,

765
00:43:55,000 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 1: for instance, Tridactna. That's the genus of these if you've

766
00:43:58,239 --> 00:44:00,800
Speaker 1: ever seen images of the giant real world giant clams,

767
00:44:00,840 --> 00:44:04,600
Speaker 1: that's uh, that's the genus, he continues. Quote Finally, by

768
00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:07,920
Speaker 1: early medieval times, it had become a monster lurking in

769
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:12,160
Speaker 1: submarine grottoes, and was sometimes endowed with the attributes of

770
00:44:12,200 --> 00:44:15,800
Speaker 1: a dragon, or, more likely, under Indian influence, a naga.

771
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:20,040
Speaker 1: So it gets this gets like just super super super weird,

772
00:44:20,080 --> 00:44:23,560
Speaker 1: and I love it. So these the shin were said.

773
00:44:23,640 --> 00:44:25,920
Speaker 1: These giant clams in the ocean deep were said to

774
00:44:25,960 --> 00:44:30,120
Speaker 1: exhale and belsh up bubbles and froth which that they could.

775
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:34,880
Speaker 1: They could then manifest into spectral castles and haunted palaces

776
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:38,000
Speaker 1: made of what Schaefer translates as a kind of plasma

777
00:44:38,200 --> 00:44:42,240
Speaker 1: and later describes as being something between flesh and energy,

778
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:47,600
Speaker 1: like a kind of ectoplasm. Quote, dreamlike correscant with strange

779
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:53,759
Speaker 1: lights and prismatic hazes. These seemingly insubstantial confections or counterparts

780
00:44:53,800 --> 00:44:56,719
Speaker 1: of the sea asle pin lay and also of the

781
00:44:56,760 --> 00:45:00,800
Speaker 1: astral places of the high gods of Dalis m wow.

782
00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:05,560
Speaker 1: All from clams. Huh, Well, giant clams, giant magical clams

783
00:45:05,600 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 1: that breathe ectoplasm and use it to craft massive illusions

784
00:45:10,480 --> 00:45:13,920
Speaker 1: in the sky. So he from here he goes on

785
00:45:14,000 --> 00:45:17,319
Speaker 1: to share what I believe his translation, one of two

786
00:45:17,320 --> 00:45:21,840
Speaker 1: translations he provides of a poem by Wang Chi uh

787
00:45:22,160 --> 00:45:26,000
Speaker 1: rhapsody on the high House of the clam Monsters, and

788
00:45:26,040 --> 00:45:28,640
Speaker 1: it's it's just glorious. Um. You can look up the

789
00:45:28,680 --> 00:45:31,399
Speaker 1: Shaffer article. You can find it. Uh. I think it's

790
00:45:31,400 --> 00:45:33,600
Speaker 1: on j store and you can access it for free,

791
00:45:33,600 --> 00:45:35,200
Speaker 1: and you can you can read the full version of

792
00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:38,480
Speaker 1: both poems. I just want to read the first part

793
00:45:38,840 --> 00:45:40,719
Speaker 1: of the initial I think was supposed to be a

794
00:45:40,800 --> 00:45:46,239
Speaker 1: more accurate translation. There in the peeing Bird's basin, shoreless

795
00:45:46,280 --> 00:45:50,920
Speaker 1: and boundless are the clam monsters high houses crag crested.

796
00:45:51,200 --> 00:45:54,280
Speaker 1: They do not rely on timber to knit their frames,

797
00:45:54,320 --> 00:45:57,480
Speaker 1: but use their own fnast to fly and float them

798
00:45:57,960 --> 00:46:02,240
Speaker 1: hidden away without present sign they blaze and splendor, hardly

799
00:46:02,320 --> 00:46:05,319
Speaker 1: to be matched. Then one of them emitst waves and

800
00:46:05,400 --> 00:46:09,000
Speaker 1: surges there as if it would stud the sky with them,

801
00:46:09,080 --> 00:46:14,520
Speaker 1: forming semilacra. Mutating, it creates porches and railings, preferring to

802
00:46:14,560 --> 00:46:18,200
Speaker 1: simulate the sun, which melts our cares so large that

803
00:46:18,280 --> 00:46:21,920
Speaker 1: it would cover giant turtle Mountain with yet another island

804
00:46:22,360 --> 00:46:26,279
Speaker 1: or dripped down on the shark men's houses and hanging streams.

805
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:29,920
Speaker 1: Then it is as if the fogs have used up

806
00:46:29,960 --> 00:46:33,920
Speaker 1: their mistiness, the melting clouds have gone home, the moon

807
00:46:34,080 --> 00:46:38,880
Speaker 1: sheds brilliance over a thousand lee vision is terminated only

808
00:46:38,920 --> 00:46:43,400
Speaker 1: by the eight horizons. Wow, yeah, it's it's I love it.

809
00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:46,200
Speaker 1: It's just so full of weird wonder and and again

810
00:46:46,280 --> 00:46:49,920
Speaker 1: has has just start start? Comparisons can be made to

811
00:46:50,000 --> 00:46:52,400
Speaker 1: those to the accounts of the Fata Morgana that you

812
00:46:52,440 --> 00:46:55,040
Speaker 1: were reading earlier from you know, the other side of

813
00:46:55,040 --> 00:46:58,000
Speaker 1: the world. But I love all the unexplained elements, the

814
00:46:58,320 --> 00:47:02,040
Speaker 1: shark men's houses. Yeah, yeah, um, I may touch on

815
00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:03,600
Speaker 1: the shark man in a bit, but yeah, there's just

816
00:47:03,600 --> 00:47:05,480
Speaker 1: so much wonder. This feels like some sort of a

817
00:47:05,960 --> 00:47:09,560
Speaker 1: just a it's a weird hallucinatory vision out of uh,

818
00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:11,799
Speaker 1: you know that he might find something similar out of say,

819
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:15,200
Speaker 1: the weird fiction era in an American literature. Now I

820
00:47:15,239 --> 00:47:18,920
Speaker 1: am kind of wondering how exactly some of these uh

821
00:47:19,080 --> 00:47:23,719
Speaker 1: words are translated, because obviously, like so the words simulacras

822
00:47:23,840 --> 00:47:26,320
Speaker 1: in there, and I understand what that means in context.

823
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:30,080
Speaker 1: I wonder if there's actually like a term in the

824
00:47:30,120 --> 00:47:34,200
Speaker 1: original that is becoming exactly that word, or if there

825
00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:38,280
Speaker 1: is something that's somehow the gist of something. Yeah, you know, offhand,

826
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:40,440
Speaker 1: I can't recall of Schaefer got into that. He it's

827
00:47:40,480 --> 00:47:44,000
Speaker 1: a he. It's mostly related to these two translations that

828
00:47:44,040 --> 00:47:45,520
Speaker 1: he gives, but he does get into some of the

829
00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:49,800
Speaker 1: specific terminology. Um. But on top of that, Schaefer himself

830
00:47:49,880 --> 00:47:53,640
Speaker 1: seemed to be in a pretty poetic in his own right. Um,

831
00:47:53,680 --> 00:47:56,640
Speaker 1: you know, just as he's describing the text, there's some

832
00:47:56,680 --> 00:48:00,279
Speaker 1: wonderful sections, Like he writes, in this literary vision, the

833
00:48:00,320 --> 00:48:03,360
Speaker 1: clammy builders are not ordinary creatures at all, but alien

834
00:48:03,640 --> 00:48:07,840
Speaker 1: and anonymous natural forces. Their amorphous bodies are unstable and

835
00:48:07,880 --> 00:48:12,800
Speaker 1: perhaps illusory at least ectoplasmic or spectral. They have no gender.

836
00:48:12,840 --> 00:48:16,960
Speaker 1: They dwell in the murky bnthos of the Sea of Whales,

837
00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:21,000
Speaker 1: beyond the domains of the shark people. And uh and

838
00:48:21,120 --> 00:48:25,320
Speaker 1: he actually he he provides a second translation in which

839
00:48:25,360 --> 00:48:29,799
Speaker 1: he uses meter in English rhyme. Uh. And again I

840
00:48:29,880 --> 00:48:33,040
Speaker 1: just have the first section here. Uh, but but he

841
00:48:33,080 --> 00:48:34,480
Speaker 1: does the whole thing. I don't know, did Joe do

842
00:48:34,480 --> 00:48:36,200
Speaker 1: you want to read this one? Oh? Sure I could.

843
00:48:36,239 --> 00:48:39,160
Speaker 1: If you want juff, go for it. Where giant fish

844
00:48:39,200 --> 00:48:43,839
Speaker 1: foul range above the seas, and craggy houses clammy monsters,

845
00:48:43,840 --> 00:48:48,680
Speaker 1: weize they need no didar to build these halls. Extruded

846
00:48:48,800 --> 00:48:53,799
Speaker 1: e cores fuse as roofs and walls. Abistle gloom eclipses

847
00:48:53,880 --> 00:48:57,520
Speaker 1: them below, but spouted up at the shed a fiery glow.

848
00:48:58,160 --> 00:49:01,920
Speaker 1: When one explodes up through the tossing spume, we hope

849
00:49:01,920 --> 00:49:05,960
Speaker 1: a vault of spangled stars to bloom. Instead, it seems

850
00:49:05,960 --> 00:49:09,560
Speaker 1: a shining golden dome to match the Sun, the god's

851
00:49:09,560 --> 00:49:13,279
Speaker 1: immortal home. It makes the giant seamount seem a hill

852
00:49:13,719 --> 00:49:17,960
Speaker 1: as vast cascades into the vortex spill. Then, when the

853
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:22,239
Speaker 1: upcast spray and froth degrade, and clouds beyond the far

854
00:49:22,320 --> 00:49:26,719
Speaker 1: horizon fade, the lunar lantern sets the sky alight, and

855
00:49:26,760 --> 00:49:30,240
Speaker 1: all the seven seas show clear and bright. The fishy

856
00:49:30,280 --> 00:49:34,399
Speaker 1: people's shine. Their scales around the waves, now soothed, give

857
00:49:34,400 --> 00:49:38,560
Speaker 1: out no further sound. A palace heaves and spouting rare

858
00:49:38,640 --> 00:49:43,160
Speaker 1: perfumes and majesty above the ocean looms pierces the stubborn

859
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:47,160
Speaker 1: haze that round it lies and thrusts its mighty walls

860
00:49:47,200 --> 00:49:53,120
Speaker 1: into the skies. Yeah, I I absolutely love it. Excellent again,

861
00:49:53,480 --> 00:49:57,640
Speaker 1: giant clam spouting, uh, you know, bubbles and froth and

862
00:49:57,719 --> 00:50:01,840
Speaker 1: exoplasm up into the sky and forming an otherworldly castle

863
00:50:01,960 --> 00:50:04,320
Speaker 1: or city in the sky, and then you know it

864
00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:09,000
Speaker 1: vanishes and uh. And Schaffer himself points to the connection

865
00:50:09,040 --> 00:50:12,560
Speaker 1: here between these tales and the very real phenomenon of

866
00:50:12,600 --> 00:50:17,080
Speaker 1: fatimorgana mirages, which are still seen today on the Eastern Sea.

867
00:50:17,239 --> 00:50:21,160
Speaker 1: So you know these, uh, these strange castles are are

868
00:50:21,200 --> 00:50:23,680
Speaker 1: still glimpsed out there. You know that these are this

869
00:50:23,760 --> 00:50:27,799
Speaker 1: is an optical phenomenon that still occurs. What who are

870
00:50:27,840 --> 00:50:30,680
Speaker 1: the shark people? Do you know something about shark? Mean? Yes,

871
00:50:30,719 --> 00:50:32,920
Speaker 1: I look these up. These would be the jaw rin

872
00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:35,359
Speaker 1: or the people of the flood dragons. So they were

873
00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:38,279
Speaker 1: a kind of mir folk um or you know, or

874
00:50:38,280 --> 00:50:40,200
Speaker 1: a shark person. I like how he describes them as

875
00:50:40,200 --> 00:50:43,279
Speaker 1: the as as the shark people or fishy people if

876
00:50:43,320 --> 00:50:45,319
Speaker 1: you will. Well, that makes them sound more like the

877
00:50:45,320 --> 00:50:48,319
Speaker 1: subject of that Peter Benchley novel adapted to a made

878
00:50:48,360 --> 00:50:50,680
Speaker 1: for TV movie that we talked about not too long ago.

879
00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:52,920
Speaker 1: What was the one about like the shark human hybrid.

880
00:50:53,480 --> 00:50:55,600
Speaker 1: Oh what was it? It wasn't beast. It had a

881
00:50:55,640 --> 00:50:58,160
Speaker 1: similar one word name, because you know that you stick

882
00:50:58,200 --> 00:51:01,640
Speaker 1: with what what works. Kim cot all in its right, Yeah,

883
00:51:01,800 --> 00:51:04,160
Speaker 1: and Craig T. Nelson and a shark that I think

884
00:51:04,160 --> 00:51:07,360
Speaker 1: in the book at least wasn't was a Nazi created

885
00:51:07,680 --> 00:51:10,359
Speaker 1: mutant intelligent shark. I'm not sure if that translated into

886
00:51:10,400 --> 00:51:13,680
Speaker 1: the TV adaptation or not, or if it had like

887
00:51:13,719 --> 00:51:17,120
Speaker 1: big muscular arms or not. Oh, it's a mini series.

888
00:51:17,200 --> 00:51:21,160
Speaker 1: It's called Creature Creature, Yes, but I I really want

889
00:51:21,200 --> 00:51:24,480
Speaker 1: to see a film about um, about this giant clam

890
00:51:25,000 --> 00:51:27,200
Speaker 1: um about the shin and uh, you know, I'm not

891
00:51:27,200 --> 00:51:29,799
Speaker 1: sure that that it doesn't exist. Clearly, there's a lot

892
00:51:29,840 --> 00:51:34,840
Speaker 1: of a wonderful and fantastic Chinese cinema out there, and um,

893
00:51:34,880 --> 00:51:36,799
Speaker 1: I didn't really dive in enough. So anyone out there,

894
00:51:36,800 --> 00:51:39,120
Speaker 1: if you're aware of a film that features even a

895
00:51:39,160 --> 00:51:44,879
Speaker 1: cameo by a giant of fairy city spouting clam, let

896
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:47,799
Speaker 1: me know, all right, I have another example I want

897
00:51:47,800 --> 00:51:50,320
Speaker 1: to turn to, and this one takes this to another

898
00:51:50,400 --> 00:51:55,719
Speaker 1: continent entirely. This takes us to Africa, specifically, Southern Africa, okay,

899
00:51:55,960 --> 00:51:59,400
Speaker 1: and this concerns the San people. So these are indigenous

900
00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:06,120
Speaker 1: people's own, chiefly in Botswana, uh Namibia and southeastern Angola.

901
00:52:06,520 --> 00:52:09,239
Speaker 1: Historically they would have been a hunter gatherer people and

902
00:52:09,239 --> 00:52:11,560
Speaker 1: they've been referred to by several different names over time,

903
00:52:11,640 --> 00:52:15,920
Speaker 1: and today are apparently not instantly identifiable by any physical features,

904
00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:19,479
Speaker 1: language or culture. Um. But I was reading an article

905
00:52:19,520 --> 00:52:21,720
Speaker 1: about this. This is a from the year two thousand

906
00:52:21,719 --> 00:52:27,120
Speaker 1: by Helmett tributsch Uh title does mirage derived mythology give

907
00:52:27,760 --> 00:52:30,319
Speaker 1: access to Sun rock Art? And this was published in

908
00:52:30,360 --> 00:52:35,160
Speaker 1: the Southern African Archaeological Bulletin. In it, the author contemplates

909
00:52:35,160 --> 00:52:37,600
Speaker 1: a link between the traditional rock art of the sun,

910
00:52:38,080 --> 00:52:41,759
Speaker 1: their myths, and the superior mirages they would have observed

911
00:52:41,840 --> 00:52:44,439
Speaker 1: in their environment that again, like all these can still

912
00:52:44,440 --> 00:52:48,040
Speaker 1: be observed in those environments today. And the author points

913
00:52:48,040 --> 00:52:50,239
Speaker 1: out that you know that that naturally the sort of

914
00:52:50,280 --> 00:52:53,040
Speaker 1: mirage was seen throughout the world for thousands of years.

915
00:52:53,080 --> 00:52:55,560
Speaker 1: He's the author who brings up, uh, you know, the

916
00:52:55,560 --> 00:52:59,120
Speaker 1: the idea that even Arab Sciencests, who we're pretty much

917
00:52:59,160 --> 00:53:02,520
Speaker 1: masters of six uh, during the medieval period, they weren't

918
00:53:02,520 --> 00:53:04,360
Speaker 1: able to understand this so it wasn't until the eighteenth

919
00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:07,120
Speaker 1: and nineteenth centuries that we we really were able to

920
00:53:07,160 --> 00:53:09,960
Speaker 1: fully crack what's going on when we behold a superior mirage.

921
00:53:10,640 --> 00:53:13,799
Speaker 1: But you know, everyone who had access to to these

922
00:53:13,840 --> 00:53:16,840
Speaker 1: mirages would have probably had some thoughts about them, and

923
00:53:16,880 --> 00:53:20,560
Speaker 1: you can imagine how they might have influenced one's worldview

924
00:53:20,560 --> 00:53:25,000
Speaker 1: and magical thinking. So sun Rock art in particular depicts

925
00:53:25,080 --> 00:53:29,440
Speaker 1: in some cases huge flying creatures, upside down creatures and

926
00:53:29,600 --> 00:53:34,320
Speaker 1: double creatures, finned land creatures, as well as floating waters.

927
00:53:35,000 --> 00:53:39,480
Speaker 1: Now there there have been a different ways of interpreting these, Uh,

928
00:53:39,520 --> 00:53:43,399
Speaker 1: the author points out, so representations of mythic ideas art

929
00:53:43,440 --> 00:53:46,800
Speaker 1: for art's sake, or and this is always interesting, altered

930
00:53:46,840 --> 00:53:51,400
Speaker 1: states of consciousness or shamatic visions. But the Tributes presents

931
00:53:51,440 --> 00:53:54,600
Speaker 1: a what he prefers to with a naturalistic interpretation in

932
00:53:54,920 --> 00:53:59,440
Speaker 1: which the observation of superior mirages are a key factor. Um,

933
00:54:00,239 --> 00:54:02,279
Speaker 1: of course, and we should drive home. Uh. You know,

934
00:54:02,320 --> 00:54:03,960
Speaker 1: it's it seems like all of these could be in

935
00:54:04,040 --> 00:54:06,120
Speaker 1: play at the same time, because certainly you could have

936
00:54:06,320 --> 00:54:12,359
Speaker 1: hallucinations occurring whilst looking at or remembering or or contemplating

937
00:54:12,400 --> 00:54:15,799
Speaker 1: the nature of things seen on the horizon, combine that

938
00:54:15,840 --> 00:54:18,960
Speaker 1: with your own myth making, uh, and just creative thinking

939
00:54:19,000 --> 00:54:22,440
Speaker 1: in general. Now, as for the specific things he's referring to,

940
00:54:22,640 --> 00:54:25,920
Speaker 1: first of all, giant sky water snakes or rain animals

941
00:54:25,960 --> 00:54:29,839
Speaker 1: above the horizon would have been linked to superior mirages

942
00:54:30,120 --> 00:54:34,600
Speaker 1: that that were often observed in the lull before rainstorms.

943
00:54:34,640 --> 00:54:37,919
Speaker 1: So these would have been interpreted as powerful entities responsible

944
00:54:37,960 --> 00:54:41,040
Speaker 1: for rain that could then be called out to spiritually,

945
00:54:41,360 --> 00:54:44,360
Speaker 1: like these were the masters of rain, the gods and

946
00:54:44,440 --> 00:54:47,959
Speaker 1: monsters of rain and uh, and they're the ones who

947
00:54:48,320 --> 00:54:50,359
Speaker 1: who you need favor from in order to you know,

948
00:54:50,440 --> 00:54:55,040
Speaker 1: to have a wet and rich environment. And then there's

949
00:54:55,080 --> 00:54:59,319
Speaker 1: this really fascinating concept of the underwater where souls and

950
00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:03,080
Speaker 1: the sorcerer 's went to become stretched. Uh. And this

951
00:55:03,120 --> 00:55:07,759
Speaker 1: may be linked to glimmering inferior mirages and stretched or

952
00:55:07,760 --> 00:55:13,799
Speaker 1: elongated forms. Uh. These may derive from superior mirages. And yeah,

953
00:55:13,800 --> 00:55:16,080
Speaker 1: you look at examples of this and it's like, you know, um,

954
00:55:16,120 --> 00:55:19,880
Speaker 1: you know, clearly humanoid representations and some will be of

955
00:55:19,880 --> 00:55:22,200
Speaker 1: what you might take to be normal size and others

956
00:55:22,200 --> 00:55:26,480
Speaker 1: are greatly elongated. And uh, yeah, I'm particularly interested by

957
00:55:26,480 --> 00:55:29,879
Speaker 1: this idea. Of the inverted world, and sorcerers who try

958
00:55:29,920 --> 00:55:34,040
Speaker 1: to make contact with the inverted world by he points out,

959
00:55:34,160 --> 00:55:37,719
Speaker 1: adopting an inverted arm position. Here's a quote from the

960
00:55:37,719 --> 00:55:41,719
Speaker 1: paper quote, what would be more realistic than depicting inverted

961
00:55:41,760 --> 00:55:45,160
Speaker 1: lions in a mirrage in such an environment the underwater

962
00:55:45,400 --> 00:55:49,319
Speaker 1: of sun belief. It could even be that trance has

963
00:55:49,360 --> 00:55:52,480
Speaker 1: developed as a way to imitate the inverted world, the

964
00:55:52,560 --> 00:55:55,960
Speaker 1: world where everything is the other way around. The body

965
00:55:56,000 --> 00:55:59,560
Speaker 1: does not preserve the upright position anymore. Food or liquid

966
00:55:59,600 --> 00:56:02,000
Speaker 1: does not into the mouth but leaves It has depicted

967
00:56:02,000 --> 00:56:05,799
Speaker 1: in many scenes where liquid, sometimes interpreted as blood, is

968
00:56:05,840 --> 00:56:09,480
Speaker 1: streaming from the nose of animals and shamans. Maybe the

969
00:56:09,560 --> 00:56:13,400
Speaker 1: crossed legs of painted antelopes and trans dancers and sound

970
00:56:13,680 --> 00:56:16,760
Speaker 1: rock art may simply mean that they do not walk normally,

971
00:56:16,800 --> 00:56:20,279
Speaker 1: but walk in an inverted way, that is backwards, as

972
00:56:20,320 --> 00:56:25,480
Speaker 1: they should in the other world. That's really interesting. Yeah,

973
00:56:25,560 --> 00:56:28,360
Speaker 1: and again this this connects with with some of what

974
00:56:28,440 --> 00:56:30,919
Speaker 1: you were sharing earlier on again from the other side

975
00:56:30,920 --> 00:56:34,520
Speaker 1: of the world, uh, you know, dealing with contemplations of

976
00:56:34,520 --> 00:56:39,480
Speaker 1: fata morgana and superior and inferior mirages. So from from

977
00:56:39,520 --> 00:56:41,520
Speaker 1: here really I mean, we don't even have to spend

978
00:56:41,600 --> 00:56:45,080
Speaker 1: much time at all talking about the nature of unidentified

979
00:56:45,080 --> 00:56:48,279
Speaker 1: flying objects in the sky um because you can see,

980
00:56:48,560 --> 00:56:50,319
Speaker 1: I mean, it's all written on the wall here. I mean.

981
00:56:50,320 --> 00:56:54,120
Speaker 1: The fotomorgana is sometimes used to explain UFO sightings, which

982
00:56:55,040 --> 00:56:57,600
Speaker 1: which is just a natural direction to go into, especially

983
00:56:57,640 --> 00:57:01,440
Speaker 1: when you consider modern sailing vessels, um and and modern

984
00:57:01,840 --> 00:57:05,920
Speaker 1: vehicles and objects in generals often glinting with metallic details.

985
00:57:06,160 --> 00:57:10,480
Speaker 1: You can imagine them seeing above the horizon as superior mirrages.

986
00:57:10,560 --> 00:57:14,919
Speaker 1: And you know, if you consume enough UFO material, which

987
00:57:14,960 --> 00:57:18,000
Speaker 1: I think everybody has at this point, that might be

988
00:57:18,080 --> 00:57:20,240
Speaker 1: one of the first places, if not the first places

989
00:57:20,240 --> 00:57:22,920
Speaker 1: that your mind goes well, yeah, I mean, I'd imagine

990
00:57:22,960 --> 00:57:28,440
Speaker 1: that superior mirrages could explain all kinds of especially anomalous lights. Yeah,

991
00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:32,400
Speaker 1: I've in particular, I've seen it linked to discussions of

992
00:57:32,680 --> 00:57:35,880
Speaker 1: UFO sightings in Texas and also the so called men

993
00:57:35,920 --> 00:57:39,720
Speaker 1: Men light in the Australian outback, and and I think,

994
00:57:39,760 --> 00:57:41,600
Speaker 1: and I think you can you can find plenty of

995
00:57:41,600 --> 00:57:44,000
Speaker 1: other examples of this as well. There are similar lights

996
00:57:44,040 --> 00:57:46,400
Speaker 1: that can be found in the Middle East that have

997
00:57:46,440 --> 00:57:50,720
Speaker 1: been linked to U two superior mirrages. So again we're

998
00:57:50,760 --> 00:57:52,680
Speaker 1: dealing with something you can find around the world, and

999
00:57:52,720 --> 00:57:55,640
Speaker 1: then we find all these interesting stories that are either

1000
00:57:55,840 --> 00:58:00,800
Speaker 1: directly linked to superior mirrages or could easily linked to them,

1001
00:58:00,880 --> 00:58:03,600
Speaker 1: at least at least in part. So it basically explains

1002
00:58:03,640 --> 00:58:09,480
Speaker 1: everything some bigfoot I don't know, I could an elongated humanoid. Um,

1003
00:58:09,520 --> 00:58:11,640
Speaker 1: you know that that could work. Oh, slender Man is

1004
00:58:11,680 --> 00:58:14,360
Speaker 1: a superior mirrage. Oh you know. I was just thinking

1005
00:58:14,400 --> 00:58:19,040
Speaker 1: about the San Rock illustrations and traditions about people walking backwards.

1006
00:58:19,040 --> 00:58:21,919
Speaker 1: That makes me think of the lesh she again? Oh

1007
00:58:22,200 --> 00:58:24,440
Speaker 1: did the less she walk backwards? Was that? I think

1008
00:58:24,640 --> 00:58:27,320
Speaker 1: you could confuse the leshy by walking backwards. I don't

1009
00:58:27,320 --> 00:58:33,040
Speaker 1: know that's right. Or you could put your clothes on backwards, right, yeah, yeah,

1010
00:58:33,480 --> 00:58:39,200
Speaker 1: the upside down, the the inverted world moving backwards. Um. Now,

1011
00:58:39,440 --> 00:58:43,480
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier on the superior mirages uh and

1012
00:58:43,560 --> 00:58:47,280
Speaker 1: the Fata Morgana, these are things that can and our photograph.

1013
00:58:47,360 --> 00:58:49,280
Speaker 1: They can be photographed. They are photographs. So if you

1014
00:58:49,320 --> 00:58:51,840
Speaker 1: do some image searches you can find some some really

1015
00:58:52,080 --> 00:58:55,400
Speaker 1: excellent examples of these. I remember seeing one in particular

1016
00:58:55,520 --> 00:58:59,280
Speaker 1: that instantly made me think of the gigantic spaceship from

1017
00:58:59,320 --> 00:59:04,920
Speaker 1: Independence Um. Now, Independence Day wasn't an actual movie, it

1018
00:59:05,000 --> 00:59:09,160
Speaker 1: was not a mirrage. But but the mirages that that

1019
00:59:09,160 --> 00:59:11,520
Speaker 1: that occur can be of that nature. You know. It's

1020
00:59:11,560 --> 00:59:14,440
Speaker 1: like there's something huge in the sky or on the horizon,

1021
00:59:14,840 --> 00:59:18,680
Speaker 1: and it does not confirm, confirm, conform to, uh to,

1022
00:59:18,920 --> 00:59:21,280
Speaker 1: to anything that would occur in the natural world that

1023
00:59:21,320 --> 00:59:23,440
Speaker 1: you you know of. You know, like you have to

1024
00:59:23,520 --> 00:59:26,400
Speaker 1: leap to the the unexplained if you're not aware of

1025
00:59:26,440 --> 00:59:28,520
Speaker 1: the sort of you know, the again, the optical phenomena

1026
00:59:28,560 --> 00:59:32,200
Speaker 1: that can take place, just some shimmering hulk. Yeah. So,

1027
00:59:32,240 --> 00:59:34,480
Speaker 1: on that note, we would obviously love to hear from

1028
00:59:34,480 --> 00:59:36,640
Speaker 1: anyone out there who has witnessed one of these, you know,

1029
00:59:36,720 --> 00:59:40,120
Speaker 1: because I don't think I have. I don't remember ever

1030
00:59:40,200 --> 00:59:45,440
Speaker 1: seeing a superior mirage, much much less Auto morgana um,

1031
00:59:45,520 --> 00:59:48,360
Speaker 1: unless I was just you know, barely noticing it, certainly.

1032
00:59:48,800 --> 00:59:50,560
Speaker 1: And that's the thing. A lot of these examples that

1033
00:59:50,760 --> 00:59:54,200
Speaker 1: you hear about, they're they're hard to ignore. Uh So,

1034
00:59:54,360 --> 00:59:56,640
Speaker 1: if you have experience with them, please right in and

1035
00:59:56,720 --> 00:59:58,240
Speaker 1: let us know, tell us all about it. Tell us

1036
00:59:58,280 --> 01:00:00,200
Speaker 1: about your experience with it, what was going through your mind?

1037
01:00:00,240 --> 01:00:02,920
Speaker 1: When you looked at it. Also, if you're familiar with

1038
01:00:03,560 --> 01:00:06,400
Speaker 1: any other of the you know, the many global traditions

1039
01:00:06,840 --> 01:00:10,960
Speaker 1: that either are directly linked to these optical phenomena or

1040
01:00:11,040 --> 01:00:13,720
Speaker 1: could easily be linked to them. We'd love to hear

1041
01:00:13,720 --> 01:00:15,520
Speaker 1: about it, and you know, we'll try and discuss it

1042
01:00:16,040 --> 01:00:18,600
Speaker 1: on an upcoming episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

1043
01:00:18,600 --> 01:00:22,120
Speaker 1: Listener mail that's what publishes Monday's in the Stuff to

1044
01:00:22,120 --> 01:00:25,760
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind podcast feed. On Wednesdays we have the Artifact.

1045
01:00:25,840 --> 01:00:28,800
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays we have Core episodes, and on Fridays

1046
01:00:28,840 --> 01:00:31,480
Speaker 1: we have Weird House Cinema where we don't so much

1047
01:00:31,520 --> 01:00:34,040
Speaker 1: get into the science, but we talk about a weird

1048
01:00:34,200 --> 01:00:37,240
Speaker 1: movie of note. Huge thanks as always to our excellent

1049
01:00:37,280 --> 01:00:39,960
Speaker 1: audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to

1050
01:00:39,960 --> 01:00:42,240
Speaker 1: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode

1051
01:00:42,280 --> 01:00:44,280
Speaker 1: or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,

1052
01:00:44,480 --> 01:00:47,440
Speaker 1: just to say hello, you can email us at contact

1053
01:00:47,480 --> 01:00:57,360
Speaker 1: at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to

1054
01:00:57,360 --> 01:01:00,160
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind It's production of My Heart Radio. More

1055
01:01:00,200 --> 01:01:02,200
Speaker 1: podcasts for my Heart Radio. This is the i Heart

1056
01:01:02,240 --> 01:01:05,000
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening to your

1057
01:01:05,000 --> 01:01:17,600
Speaker 1: favorite shows