Speaker 1: Hey, are you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 1: it's Saturday. Time for a vault episode, folks. This one
Speaker 1: is from March fourth, and this is the one we
Speaker 1: did on Fathom or Ghana. This is a type of
Speaker 1: optical phenomenon uh that has caused people to report all
Speaker 1: kinds of strange sites throughout the years, phantom islands, castles
Speaker 1: floating in the sky, and sea monsters and things. This
Speaker 1: one was a lot of fun. Yeah, that's probably one
Speaker 1: of my favorite episodes that we did. Okay, downloading into
Speaker 1: your Brain. Now welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind,
Speaker 1: production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick. And you know, we just came off of
Speaker 1: doing a couple of episodes about the artistic convention of
Speaker 1: the halo and how that comes through in in various
Speaker 1: different religious concepts, and how it might be related to
Speaker 1: optical phenomena that are sometimes observed in the sky, like
Speaker 1: like solar halos or sun dogs, and jumping off of that,
Speaker 1: we wanted to hop over to explore another theme today
Speaker 1: that the sort of in the same wheelhouse, not quite halos,
Speaker 1: but an optical phenomenon that has some connection to legendary
Speaker 1: accounts and myths. And so I thought a great place
Speaker 1: to start today to get us in the mood would
Speaker 1: be a reading from the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner
Speaker 1: by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Now, I think this is going
Speaker 1: to be probably what would you guess, Rob, like the
Speaker 1: seventh time we've quoted this poem on the show, always
Speaker 1: introducing a different type of subject matter. It seems to
Speaker 1: go off in a lot of great directions. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a long work, and it it has
Speaker 1: a lot of cool things happening in it has a
Speaker 1: great story and just an infectious cadence. You know, it's
Speaker 1: just gets gets into your brain. Right. Uh So in
Speaker 1: this poem, the narrator here, I guess this is a
Speaker 1: narration within a narration. So this guy gets accosted by
Speaker 1: an ancient graybeard. He says, like, unhand me, graybeard loon.
Speaker 1: But then the graybeard loon starts telling his story and
Speaker 1: and his story is of course one of of terror
Speaker 1: and tragedy in the high sea is he He tells
Speaker 1: that he was once out on a ship and I
Speaker 1: think they've been sailing around in the south seas, and uh,
Speaker 1: he somehow brings a curse upon his ship and its
Speaker 1: crew by shooting an albatross out of the sky with
Speaker 1: an arrow. And after this their ship falls into unnatural
Speaker 1: duldrums in the equatorial regions. There are no winds for
Speaker 1: it to sail, so it's just sitting there in the water,
Speaker 1: and and the mariner and the rest of the crew
Speaker 1: are dying of thirst without fresh water. Yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: one thing that I guess worth noting about this. You know,
Speaker 1: we were talking about the ships at sea in these
Speaker 1: days and superstition among the um among the crew is
Speaker 1: that on one hand, absolutely the best science and navigation
Speaker 1: of the day was utilized to get where you're going
Speaker 1: and to survive on the open seas. But the crew
Speaker 1: was often held together by by also this this tenuous
Speaker 1: web of superstitions, and you you read about some of them,
Speaker 1: and at times it seems like it would not take
Speaker 1: much to shift things into the realm of of of
Speaker 1: you know, dire omens well sailing vessels really are at
Speaker 1: the at the mercy of forces beyond your control. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there's a lot you can do to design
Speaker 1: a ship well and work hard to you know, do
Speaker 1: everything you can to get where you're going, but you're
Speaker 1: still at the mercy of the seas and the weather,
Speaker 1: and that can make it feel very much like you
Speaker 1: are a sinner in the hands of an angry god. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sailing beneath this uncertain sky and uh a top this
Speaker 1: just dark, unfathomable ocean. Right, So, in the context of
Speaker 1: the part of the poem we're about to read, so
Speaker 1: the curses already come upon them. They're out there diet
Speaker 1: you know. You get to the part about water, water everywhere,
Speaker 1: and not a drop to drink. They're all parched and thirsty,
Speaker 1: and the boat is just floating around in the oldrums.
Speaker 1: And then the mariners see something horrible. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: read this first bit here and then Rob I I
Speaker 1: don't think I can do a sailor voice, but I
Speaker 1: hope you can hear the sailor voice for your part. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the mariner says, there past a weary time. Each
Speaker 1: throat was parched and glazed, each eye a weary time,
Speaker 1: A weary time how glazed each weary eye. When looking westward,
Speaker 1: I beheld something in the sky. At first it seemed
Speaker 1: a little speck, and then it seemed a mist. It
Speaker 1: moved and moved, and took at last a certain shape.
Speaker 1: I whist, A spec a mist A shape, I whist,
Speaker 1: And still it neared and neared, as if it dodged
Speaker 1: a water sprite. It plunged and tacked, and veered, with
Speaker 1: throats unslaked, with black lips baked. We could not laugh
Speaker 1: nor whale through utter drought. All dumb we stood. I
Speaker 1: bit my arm, I sucked the blood, and cried A sail,
Speaker 1: a sail. The western wave was all aflame. The day
Speaker 1: was well nigh done. Almost upon the western wave rested
Speaker 1: the broad bright sun. When that strange shape s dove
Speaker 1: suddenly betwixt us and the sun, and straight the sun
Speaker 1: was flecked with bars. Heaven's mother send us grace, as
Speaker 1: if through a dungeon grade. He peered with broad and
Speaker 1: burning face. Alas thought I, and my heart beat loud.
Speaker 1: How fast she nears and nears? Are those her sails
Speaker 1: that glance in the sun like restless Gossimir's rob I
Speaker 1: give that four hours? Why why thank you? Uh so? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he sees something approaching. They see a weird, a
Speaker 1: spectral type of ship coming close. And when this phantom
Speaker 1: ship gets up close to them, they see the figures
Speaker 1: of death and life in death I think, represented as
Speaker 1: a skeleton and then like a pale naked body casting
Speaker 1: lots to claim the fate of the sailors. Creepy stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also a great couple's halloween cost him to keep in mind, right,
Speaker 1: death and life and death I call life and death.
Speaker 1: Uh So these passages from the rhyme of the ancient mariner.
Speaker 1: Uh It's not known for sure, but they may well
Speaker 1: have been influenced by the legend of the flying Dutchman,
Speaker 1: a set of related folk tales shared by the seafaring
Speaker 1: people of Europe at least as far back as the
Speaker 1: eighteenth century, probably earlier. And usually the way this legend
Speaker 1: goes is that there is some kind of spectral ship,
Speaker 1: a ghost vessel that's doomed to sail the globe in
Speaker 1: a terrible limbo, forever circling the seas and never allowed
Speaker 1: to come into port. Often it's regarded as an omen
Speaker 1: of disaster. If a sailor sees the flying Dutchman. He
Speaker 1: knows he's going to die in a shipwreck. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: this is one of the big ones, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: as opposed to you know, things like say killing I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly killing an albatross clearly can be a
Speaker 1: big deal, you know, not touching the horseshoe nailed to
Speaker 1: the mast, you know, things like that. But to see
Speaker 1: the flying Dutchman like all is lost. In some versions,
Speaker 1: even worse than seeing it is that sometimes the ship
Speaker 1: will come up next to you and the doomed crew
Speaker 1: will try to hand off letters for you to give
Speaker 1: to their loved ones, because you know, they can't call
Speaker 1: de port to send the letters themselves, and you are
Speaker 1: not supposed to accept these letters. You you say, sorry,
Speaker 1: I I can't, I can't do it. Oh man, that's
Speaker 1: so creepy that that totally holds up. Now. There are
Speaker 1: a number of popular stories explaining the origin of the
Speaker 1: Flying Dutchman. I think the belief itself goes back farther
Speaker 1: than any of these, like written versions of the stories.
Speaker 1: But in one version, there's a captain named Vanderdecken or
Speaker 1: sometimes just the Dutchman, who's on a sea voyage home
Speaker 1: from Batavia, which is in present day into Nisia around
Speaker 1: the area of Jakarta, but at the time would have
Speaker 1: been in the duchyst Indies. And he's traveling from Batavia
Speaker 1: trying to go back around the southern tip of Africa
Speaker 1: to a place called Table Bay. And so he's trying
Speaker 1: to round the Cape of Good Hope, but his ship
Speaker 1: falls under a terrible squall, and in defiance of God,
Speaker 1: he swears a brazen oath that he will round the
Speaker 1: Cape of Good Hope despite the storm, even if it
Speaker 1: takes him until Armageddon to do it. And as this
Speaker 1: oath leaves his lips, the ship sinks, but before it does,
Speaker 1: the devil hears Vanderdecken's promise and he holds him to it,
Speaker 1: and this turns the Dutchman and the ghost of his
Speaker 1: vessel into a kind of wraith of the seas, and
Speaker 1: they sail forever between life and death without rest until
Speaker 1: he can reach his destination. Uh This version is the
Speaker 1: subject of an opera by Wagner, and I think in
Speaker 1: that version he actually can go to land once every
Speaker 1: seven years so that he can try to find the
Speaker 1: true love that will break the curse. Presumably stop at
Speaker 1: White Castle or something that this sounds this sounds like
Speaker 1: a great setup for like a modern horror film, or
Speaker 1: maybe not a Morrow one modern one, but at least
Speaker 1: like a nineteen seventies film, you know, or like it
Speaker 1: could have been a hammer horror film. You could have
Speaker 1: have a Vanderdecken as your sort of Dracula s ghostly
Speaker 1: sailor chap that has come on shore to seduce a
Speaker 1: hapless woman that that has no idea that this attractive
Speaker 1: man is actually the captain of a damn ship. Oh.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a great sort of variation on Dracula, right,
Speaker 1: the more seductive versions of Dracula, where where you know
Speaker 1: he he falls in love with a woman and he's like,
Speaker 1: you can be with me, you can we can live forever,
Speaker 1: but she doesn't realize that that involves being damned along
Speaker 1: with him. Yeah, should have been Christopher Lee. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: would have. He would have. He would have made a
Speaker 1: good vanderdeck and for sure. But the story that this
Speaker 1: version of the story was I think very strong around
Speaker 1: the area of the South Seas and the southern tip
Speaker 1: of Africa. But there's another common version that takes place
Speaker 1: in the North Sea, and this is a captain named
Speaker 1: Heir von Falconberg who sails without rest around the North
Speaker 1: Sea while playing dice with Satan for the possession of
Speaker 1: his soul. And the part about playing dice with the
Speaker 1: devil for for his soul that recalls very much what
Speaker 1: happens in the rhyme of the ancient mariner right after
Speaker 1: the part we read, because remember death and life and
Speaker 1: death are gambling for the souls of the crew. But
Speaker 1: there are a lot of other variations on this story
Speaker 1: with a good deal of elasticity. It is not known
Speaker 1: for sure exactly where the legend comes from. Originally. I
Speaker 1: think I've read some speculation that it could have to
Speaker 1: do with the Norse legend about a sailor who encounters
Speaker 1: a kind of uh damned limbo fate, But records of
Speaker 1: this story go at least as far back as the
Speaker 1: late seventeen hundreds. I found one early reference to it
Speaker 1: from the memoirs of a Scottish man named John McDonald
Speaker 1: who lived seventeen forty one to seventeen ninety six, and
Speaker 1: in writing about one of his sea voyages, he writes, quote,
Speaker 1: the weather was so stormy that the sailors said they
Speaker 1: saw the flying Dutchman. The common story is that this
Speaker 1: Dutchman came to the cape in distress of weather and
Speaker 1: wanted to get into harbor, but could not get a
Speaker 1: pilot to conduct her and was lost, and that ever since,
Speaker 1: in very bad weather her vision appears. Now in some
Speaker 1: versions of the story, I think the ship is even
Speaker 1: more spectral, even more of just a clear apparition, something
Speaker 1: that is on the horizon and with a kind of
Speaker 1: like ghostly silhouette, or even appears over the horizon. I
Speaker 1: think it's not exactly clear in the version of the
Speaker 1: Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner whether the ship is said
Speaker 1: to be approaching on the water or when they first
Speaker 1: see it it's above the water. He he does say
Speaker 1: that he looked and he beheld something in the sky
Speaker 1: that it first looked like it looks like a speck,
Speaker 1: and then later he realizes it's a ship coming toward them. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I guess there are a couple of ways you
Speaker 1: could read that. I know I've always read that as
Speaker 1: he originally saw the ship flying in the sky. I
Speaker 1: guess you could also read it as they see the
Speaker 1: ship on the water and what he's seeing is the
Speaker 1: sails poking up over the horizon and the sky. But
Speaker 1: either way, I think there are some versions where there's
Speaker 1: a kind of ghost ship that isn't necessarily even confined
Speaker 1: to the water like it flies. Yeah, yeah, that a
Speaker 1: true flying flying Dutchman. Yeah. And of course this is
Speaker 1: gonna lead us into what we're really talking about here today,
Speaker 1: a very particular type of of optical phenomena, uh that
Speaker 1: may be responsible at least in part for legends like this,
Speaker 1: though of course is always worth remembering that you know,
Speaker 1: anything like this, like the flying Dutchman for example, in
Speaker 1: all likelihood, we're dealing with the story that has multiple
Speaker 1: converging origins. To what extent they are based on things
Speaker 1: that people really saw. They were likely different things, you know,
Speaker 1: like somebody staring into a dark night on a ship,
Speaker 1: somebody seeing an optical phenomena on the horizon, or somebody
Speaker 1: you know, looking into the chaos of a storm and
Speaker 1: momentarily making out some shape in the flash of lightning. Right,
Speaker 1: But there are some well known optical phenomenon that fit
Speaker 1: with some of these accounts so closely that you have
Speaker 1: to assume at least some of these accounts probably are
Speaker 1: based on the thing we're gonna be talking about today,
Speaker 1: which is known as the Superior Mirage, or a variation
Speaker 1: of Superior mirage known as the Fata Morgana. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: one thing that will tie into this before we explain
Speaker 1: the Superior Mirage and the fatim Organa. Something I noticed
Speaker 1: that was kind of interesting about the flying Dutchman accounts.
Speaker 1: A lot of these accounts seemed concentrated towards the polar
Speaker 1: regions rather than the equatorial ones. The ghost ship usually
Speaker 1: seems to be sailing either the North Seas or the
Speaker 1: South Seas more so than anywhere in between. Yeah, quite interesting,
Speaker 1: So I keep keep that in mind as we proceed here.
Speaker 1: So yeah, basically from here we're gonna talk about the
Speaker 1: mirage itself and mirages in general. But then we'll get
Speaker 1: back into some more examples of various folk tales and
Speaker 1: myths that seem to be or perhaps are inspired by
Speaker 1: fatam Organa sightings. So let's start by talking about the
Speaker 1: mirage itself. A mirage in general is an optical effect
Speaker 1: that is sometimes seen at sea, or in the desert
Speaker 1: or over hot pavement, and in some cases these may
Speaker 1: take on the appearance of, say a pool of water.
Speaker 1: Or a mirror surface, and this can cause distant objects
Speaker 1: to appear inverted. Uh. Now, to be clear on the
Speaker 1: language here, you do find the word mirage sometimes used
Speaker 1: interchangeably with the notion all an illusion, right, and it
Speaker 1: is something that you're seeing but is not there. So
Speaker 1: in common language it's sometimes conflated with even like the
Speaker 1: idea of a hallucination. You know, somebody is just seeing
Speaker 1: something like it's real in their perception, but there is
Speaker 1: not an external reality to it, And that's not the
Speaker 1: case with the technical meaning of a mirage, right. And
Speaker 1: I feel like this is also Uh. This is also
Speaker 1: complicated because a lot of us grew up watching, especially
Speaker 1: cartoons that would occasionally have a mirage scene, and those
Speaker 1: would be a bit confusing because a lot of times
Speaker 1: I feel like they would play it up like just
Speaker 1: something magical that you're you only saw because you were
Speaker 1: you were thirsty and dying and you were also a
Speaker 1: cartoon dog. Right. Well, in cartoons, I feel like the
Speaker 1: mirage is always shown in the desert rather than say,
Speaker 1: over an ice sheet or on the seas. Uh. And
Speaker 1: and that over the desert you were probably looking at
Speaker 1: a particular type of mirage. The inferior mirage. Will get
Speaker 1: into more of the distinctions there in just a minute.
Speaker 1: But yeah, in the cartoons, it's always like, I don't
Speaker 1: know that you know, Daffy Duck is seeing a mirage
Speaker 1: in the desert and it's like an ice cream stand
Speaker 1: or something. It's some variation of the oasis in the
Speaker 1: desert yet, right, it's something very specific that gives the
Speaker 1: suggestion that you're seeing like a complicated, detailed hallucination, right,
Speaker 1: But in reality, the sort of mirage, the specific mirrage
Speaker 1: that we're talking about here, this is an optical effect
Speaker 1: that is visible to all. Like if there is a mirage,
Speaker 1: if you're in a party of say, you know, five
Speaker 1: people in the desert or on a ship wherever, if
Speaker 1: you see a mirage in the distance, everyone with you,
Speaker 1: you know, assuming they have the same site capacity that
Speaker 1: you have, they will be able to see the mirage
Speaker 1: as well, and assuming they're looking from the same place also, right, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: you gotta have the same vantage point for sure. Um,
Speaker 1: but you know, now that's not also not to say
Speaker 1: that you know, this could not be further distorted by
Speaker 1: the individual, either visually or in memory, but it is
Speaker 1: a thing that you could and be people can and
Speaker 1: do capture photographically or on you know, or with a
Speaker 1: like a video camera. So it is it is not
Speaker 1: something you're seeing that isn't there. It is an actual
Speaker 1: optical phenomena. Right. Uh. You you are seeing something that
Speaker 1: is really light coming into your eyes looking that way.
Speaker 1: It's not in your head though. What you're seeing is
Speaker 1: very distorted, so you're probably wanted. Okay, mirage. How does
Speaker 1: a mirage happen? It's you know, not caused by you know, um,
Speaker 1: you know, weird spirits and the you know, in the
Speaker 1: desert or on the seas well. Mirages in general occur
Speaker 1: when light passes through air of differing temperatures and the
Speaker 1: light is reflected or refracted a k A. Bent. And
Speaker 1: there are two types of mirages. We can divide them
Speaker 1: up generally into inferior mirages and superior mirages. This is
Speaker 1: not a about their quality. It's not like you know,
Speaker 1: discount mirages and bespoke mirrages. It has to do with
Speaker 1: where they fall in relation to the horizon. Right. So
Speaker 1: the inferior mirage is the kind that is being lampooned
Speaker 1: in the cartoons where a character isn't you know, daffy
Speaker 1: ducks in the desert and he thinks he sees an oasis.
Speaker 1: This is a very real thing that people often experience
Speaker 1: in desert climates. And this is the inferior mirage. Yes,
Speaker 1: so the inferior mirage again is your stereotypical oasis mirrage.
Speaker 1: It looks like a pool of blue water sometimes, you know,
Speaker 1: appears when you also look out across the desert or
Speaker 1: down the highway. You've probably seen one of these on
Speaker 1: your own drives or in movies, especially in movies that
Speaker 1: have a desert highway. This is this is like cat
Speaker 1: Neet two. Directors, they they got to have it, you know,
Speaker 1: so they'll they'll get a little bit of that mirrage
Speaker 1: in their in their shot. Right. And it's not only
Speaker 1: because the desert is hot and you're thirsty that it
Speaker 1: looks like there's water on the desert. There is a
Speaker 1: specific climate related reason that you're likely to see a
Speaker 1: mirage in the desert that looks like a pool of water. Yeah.
Speaker 1: These occur when a dense layer of cold air sits
Speaker 1: on or above line of sight with a layer of
Speaker 1: less dense, warmer air below line of sight. Now, um
Speaker 1: an example to pull from here is consider the desert highway. Okay,
Speaker 1: the sun beats down heats the asphalt, and the hot
Speaker 1: asphalt heats up the bottom portion of the air. Rays
Speaker 1: of light from above are refracted when they hit that
Speaker 1: refracted towards your eyes, resulting in the mirage. So the
Speaker 1: light of the blue sky above is bent back towards
Speaker 1: you from the low the horizon, and thus you have
Speaker 1: this you know, it's it's like a pool of water,
Speaker 1: but essentially like what seems like a pool of sky. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're essentially seeing the blue light of the sky that
Speaker 1: is refracted as it changes from the cooler air above
Speaker 1: to this pocket of warmer air below, and it bends
Speaker 1: down and makes it look like part of the sky
Speaker 1: is just sitting on the ground. And when you see that,
Speaker 1: that blue sky looks a lot like water. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: the superior mirage works the opposite way. Warm air sits
Speaker 1: above line of side, cool layer beneath it, light bends down. Uh.
Speaker 1: The light is not traveling straight at us, but our
Speaker 1: visual process assumes that it is, so it makes it
Speaker 1: appear as if it is. Uh, it is above its
Speaker 1: actual position, such as above the horizon, hanging in the
Speaker 1: sky and so of course, in some cases this can
Speaker 1: cause objects that are actually past where you can see
Speaker 1: on the horizon, so they're you know, beyond the curve
Speaker 1: of the Earth from your vision, to appear as if
Speaker 1: they are popping up over the horizon. Yeah, they can
Speaker 1: make something that's that's actually just beyond the optical horizons,
Speaker 1: such as mountain tops, appear ahead of schedule. You can
Speaker 1: imagine how this would play into some of your expectations
Speaker 1: whilst whilst out on the open seas. Uh. It can
Speaker 1: also make objects appear closer or further away, larger or
Speaker 1: smaller than they actually are. Um, it's quite interesting. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and and for another example of this. Apparently, the
Speaker 1: most common example of a superior mirage, according to Christine
Speaker 1: Polam in two thousand eight speaking to Robert Siegel of NPR,
Speaker 1: is a sunrise or a sunset. Quote. The same phenomenon
Speaker 1: occurs to the Sun every day and makes it appear
Speaker 1: to be above the horizon when it's actually slightly below it. Oh,
Speaker 1: I think I've read that this is even more common,
Speaker 1: like in polar regions. This might be related to what's
Speaker 1: known as the Novaya Zimileia effect. Oh yeah, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: of course, the thing with the sunrise and sunset is
Speaker 1: since it happens every day, and you know, generally it's
Speaker 1: the kind of thing you see every day, it doesn't
Speaker 1: seem out of place. But where we get into these,
Speaker 1: you know, remarkable stories and legends arising from from sightings
Speaker 1: of of superior mirrages, it's because they occur. They don't
Speaker 1: occur every day. It's something you would see maybe with
Speaker 1: some frequency, depending on what part of the world and
Speaker 1: what the exactive environmental settings happen to be. But they
Speaker 1: have more mystery to them. They're not part of just
Speaker 1: the everyday movements of the sun or everyday atmospheric behavior. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the conditions have to be right, So superior mirages they
Speaker 1: require there to be a certain kind of pocket of
Speaker 1: warmer air sitting above a pocket of cooler air, which
Speaker 1: is not normally how the atmosphere works. Right, Usually the
Speaker 1: air up higher is going to be cooler, even though
Speaker 1: heat rises. Usually it's just farther away from the earth
Speaker 1: and it's going to be cooler. Now, if you're completely
Speaker 1: lost at this point, which I will, I will forgive
Speaker 1: you for for being so um, I will say a
Speaker 1: couple of resources you can turn to. How Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot Com has an article about mirages, but also the
Speaker 1: University of British Columbia's Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences.
Speaker 1: They have a great page that I was looking at
Speaker 1: earlier with very helpful illustrations, included one of these for
Speaker 1: you to see here, Joe. But uh, just very well
Speaker 1: presented information about like light bending downward, that's your superior mirage,
Speaker 1: light bending upward, that's your inferior mirrage. Than now, the
Speaker 1: superior mirrage can actually get even more complicated than just
Speaker 1: making something appear above where it actually is, because of
Speaker 1: the bending of light through these pockets of air when
Speaker 1: there are very specific conditions. I think this is something
Speaker 1: that's usually called atmospheric ducting, Like when a certain kind
Speaker 1: of duct or column of atmospheric conditions and different temperature
Speaker 1: gradients in the atmospheric gases are created. This can lead
Speaker 1: to what's known as fata Morgana right. These occur when
Speaker 1: there are several layers of warm and cold air that
Speaker 1: cause what is actually a combination of superi area and
Speaker 1: inferior images. The uneven inversion causes the light to refract
Speaker 1: and ultimately bizarre ways, so you can wind up with
Speaker 1: multiple segmented reflections in there. So um, you know, it's
Speaker 1: here that we get into the you know, the confusing
Speaker 1: images that may be interpreted as floating walls or castles
Speaker 1: in the sky, or gigantic ships that are flying through
Speaker 1: the atmosphere above the horizon, that sort of thing. Now
Speaker 1: you might wonder where the name Fatim Morgana actually comes from,
Speaker 1: like why would an optical effect have a name like this?
Speaker 1: The name Fati Morgana actually comes from the character from
Speaker 1: our Thurian legend, usually known by her French name Morgan
Speaker 1: la Fay. In English, of course, Morgan la Fay is
Speaker 1: Morgan the Fairy. Though when I was writing about this,
Speaker 1: for some reason, I kept thinking back to our episodes
Speaker 1: of Invention where we were talking about Alice sky Blush
Speaker 1: and her first film, The Cabbage Fairy La Faye a shoe,
Speaker 1: So I kept thinking about Organ the cabbage Faery. But
Speaker 1: she she is not merely a cabbage fairy. She is
Speaker 1: a fairy, sometimes a fairy of of helpfulness and and medicine,
Speaker 1: and sometimes a fairy of lies and destruction. It always
Speaker 1: makes me think of the wonderful film ex caliber where
Speaker 1: Helen Mirren plays MORGANA do you remember seen it? Oh?
Speaker 1: It's pretty great, has a very shiny armor, a great
Speaker 1: cast John Boorman picture. He's got Nissan's in it. Oh really, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is John Boorman. Did he do it before or
Speaker 1: after Deliverance? That's a strange eighty one? So okay, I
Speaker 1: can't remember when Deliverance came out. It was seventies film, right,
Speaker 1: I think, so? Yeah, Well, maybe i'll check that one
Speaker 1: out soon. Yeah, Deliverance was seventy two. Okay, well, so
Speaker 1: Morgan suddenly I'm imagining Burt Reynolds is King Arthur, but
Speaker 1: Morgan la Faye is a character that exists in multiple
Speaker 1: stages throughout the evolution of the Arthurian legendary corpus uh As.
Speaker 1: You probably know that there are lots of different types
Speaker 1: of stories of Arthur and the character of Arthur and
Speaker 1: the stories about him and all the characters around him.
Speaker 1: They change a lot over the centuries as this story,
Speaker 1: uh As, the story is retold and retold, and so
Speaker 1: she is usually some kind of sorceress or witch or fairy.
Speaker 1: In earlier sources, it seems she's more often a sympathetic character,
Speaker 1: a kind of helper or a healer, sometimes a sister
Speaker 1: or half sister of King Arthur. In later stories, she's
Speaker 1: presented as more morally ambiguous, or even the vindictive and
Speaker 1: deceitful villainous of the plot, as in the fifteenth century
Speaker 1: Lamorte d'artour in by That one's by Thomas Mallory, Sir
Speaker 1: Thomas Mallory, uh, and that one is the source of
Speaker 1: a lot of the Arthurian stories that people know. But
Speaker 1: La fata Morgana is just the Italian for Morgan la
Speaker 1: Fay or Morgan the fairy. But you still might be wondering,
Speaker 1: Wait a minute, why is this type of complex superior
Speaker 1: mirage associated with a fairy or sorceress from Arthurian literature. Well,
Speaker 1: remember that fairies are tricksters first of all, and Morgan
Speaker 1: le Fay in these later tellings of the arthur saga,
Speaker 1: is known for her deceptions. But the connection appears to
Speaker 1: run even deeper than that. So I was reading about
Speaker 1: this in a article for Wired by Matt Simon, that is,
Speaker 1: in part, I think a review of a book by
Speaker 1: Marina Warner called Phantasmagoria, published in two thousand eight from
Speaker 1: Oxford University press, and Matt Simon is writing up a
Speaker 1: section from this book that is about the discovery of
Speaker 1: the Fatim Morgana, or at least an early documentation of
Speaker 1: the Fatim Morgana with a with a scientific point of view.
Speaker 1: So he tells the story of a Jesuit priest named
Speaker 1: Father Domenico Giardina, who lived in the seventeenth century on
Speaker 1: the island of Sicily. And so I'm about to describe
Speaker 1: some visions. I think there's some confusion about whether Giardina
Speaker 1: saw the visions himself or whether he was describing the
Speaker 1: visions of another person. But either way, one day in
Speaker 1: the sixteen forties, somebody, maybe Jardina, was gazing out across
Speaker 1: the Strait of Messina, which is the stretch of ocean
Speaker 1: between Sicily and mainland Italy. And according to Jardina's writings, uh,
Speaker 1: what was seen here was quote a city all floating
Speaker 1: in the air, and so measureless and so splendid, so
Speaker 1: adorned with magnificent buildings, all of which was found on
Speaker 1: a base of a luminous crystal. So, okay, that's impressive,
Speaker 1: but it didn't just remain that way. Jardina claims that
Speaker 1: the city transformed itself into a garden and then into
Speaker 1: a forest. And I can't help but notice the dangerous
Speaker 1: inversion that might imply the city, of course is the
Speaker 1: place of order and humanity, and it transforms into the woods,
Speaker 1: which is the place where the power of nature rules
Speaker 1: and travelers become lost. And in some of the classic
Speaker 1: Arthurian stories, I think that's a place you you really
Speaker 1: see this like civilization versus the woods distinction where the
Speaker 1: woods are just full of unaccountable magic that has power
Speaker 1: over you rather than you over it. Yeah. Absolutely, And uh.
Speaker 1: One thing I love about this is this is already
Speaker 1: hit on several different themes that we will find not
Speaker 1: only in you know, um, you know, tales from you know,
Speaker 1: elsewhere in Europe, but but tales from the other side
Speaker 1: of the world. Uh, and you know other you know,
Speaker 1: other other cultures seem to have possibly or in some
Speaker 1: cases possibly seen um optical phenomena of this nature and
Speaker 1: had some of the same interpretations. Uh So, anyway, Jardina's
Speaker 1: description goes on after that, even after it becomes a
Speaker 1: bunch of woods, there are more transformations and more chaos.
Speaker 1: He saw what looked like armies attacking towns and then
Speaker 1: eventually the entire scene just vanishes. And Jardina tried to
Speaker 1: explain this vision in terms of science other than magic.
Speaker 1: He he blamed salts in the region, which he wrote,
Speaker 1: quote rise up in hot weather in vapors from the
Speaker 1: sea to form clouds which then condensed in the cooler
Speaker 1: upper air to become a mobile specchio, which means a
Speaker 1: moving polyhedracal mirror. Now this is not correct, but as
Speaker 1: we've seen, this actually isn't very far off. It doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily have to do with salts, but the effect probably
Speaker 1: was something like a superior mirage of the opposing shore
Speaker 1: and things on it, or a fata morgana even more complex,
Speaker 1: uh sort of shifting, quickly transforming mirage that was caused
Speaker 1: by the vertical arrangement of of gases of different temperatures
Speaker 1: and atmospheric ducting. Yeah, and you know, one of the
Speaker 1: interesting things about this I was reading from a source
Speaker 1: that i'll side later in the episode, and they were
Speaker 1: talking about how indeed we we didn't really um begin
Speaker 1: to understand what was going on with mirages like this,
Speaker 1: and the eighteenth and nineteenth century and even even a
Speaker 1: say Arab scientists who during the medieval period. Like that was,
Speaker 1: they knew more about optics than anyone else in the world.
Speaker 1: Even they were not able to to make sense of
Speaker 1: what they were experiencing when they too experienced uh you know,
Speaker 1: superior inferior mirages on the horizon. Yeah, exactly so. So
Speaker 1: this explanation is not correct, but I think it's surprising
Speaker 1: how close he got yea. So here here's the question,
Speaker 1: where does Morgan la fay come in? Right? Well, here
Speaker 1: I'm going to read from from Simon's article. According to Warner,
Speaker 1: the Norman's brought stories of Morgan's magic to Italy, particularly
Speaker 1: her penchant for luring sailors to an undersea palace with
Speaker 1: visions of castles in the air. Fata Morgana is particularly
Speaker 1: prevalent in southern Italy straight of Messina, where Father Giardina
Speaker 1: experienced his own vision, and then later Simon writes, and
Speaker 1: long before arthury legend it could have been the sightings
Speaker 1: of these phenomena gave rise to any number of woe
Speaker 1: something is appearing in the sky scenes in antiquity. Warner argues, So,
Speaker 1: I think the the idea of the fatim organa is
Speaker 1: that there is some equation of this optical phenomena of
Speaker 1: seeing things far away or over the horizon, appearing up
Speaker 1: in the air above the horizon, and in some cases
Speaker 1: even uh distorted, inverted and stacked upon themselves, forming bizarre
Speaker 1: visions that could look like castles in the sky, cities
Speaker 1: in the sky, uh, weird floating objects, ships sailing in
Speaker 1: the air, or among the clouds. And you might be tempted,
Speaker 1: reading accounts of things like this to think, well, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, it's either just creative the creative mind at work,
Speaker 1: or it is uh it is you know that these
Speaker 1: people's mythology or or legends that are then described. But
Speaker 1: the fatim organa gives us the opportunity to look to
Speaker 1: actual optical nomina as a is it possible or in
Speaker 1: some cases like it seems almost definite? Cause yes, though
Speaker 1: I guess somebody would not be could not be blamed
Speaker 1: too too much for thinking of it as a kind
Speaker 1: of deceptive fairy magic. Yeah, no, I think so, because ultimately,
Speaker 1: like we've said before, when you when you witness something
Speaker 1: that you cannot explain, a lot of times you have
Speaker 1: to go to the pre existing h narratives, the pre
Speaker 1: existing scripts uh to figure out what it might be,
Speaker 1: and that might be aliens, it might be um you know,
Speaker 1: fit that the fairy folk, it might be the gods
Speaker 1: or sea monsters, etcetera. It seems like the sea in
Speaker 1: particular is full of a lot of characters who want
Speaker 1: to lead you astray and get you into trouble with
Speaker 1: deceptive visions or invitations. You know, the sirens, the all
Speaker 1: those things. So I guess the woods too. I don't know,
Speaker 1: the woods in the sea have some things in common. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're both wild realms and there you know, there's a
Speaker 1: plethora of of mythical creatures and beings and strange lights
Speaker 1: that will lead you astray. Now I came across what
Speaker 1: I thought was a pretty interesting hypothesis. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how well supported it is, but at least in this
Speaker 1: one case, the fotom Organo mirage has been said to
Speaker 1: not just influence supernatural legends, it may possibly explain specific
Speaker 1: catastrophic navigational blunders in maritime history. And the main possibility
Speaker 1: that has been proposed here is the iceberg collision that
Speaker 1: sank the Titanic. Okay, so this hypothesis is covered in
Speaker 1: an April article for the New York Times by William J. Broad.
Speaker 1: In short, there's British historian named Tim Malton who was
Speaker 1: working with the help of somebody named Andrew T. Young,
Speaker 1: who's an astronomer and mirage specialist at San Diego State
Speaker 1: University and uh. With Young's help, Malton refined and put
Speaker 1: forward a hypothesis that could explain why the Titanics lookouts
Speaker 1: failed to spot the iceberg in time to avoid the collision,
Speaker 1: and end why a nearby ship failed to respond to
Speaker 1: a distress signal. Uh So, Malton claims that the conditions
Speaker 1: of the icy water in the North Atlantic on the
Speaker 1: night of the sinking of the Titanic were responsible for
Speaker 1: creating a kind of wall of water illusion that could
Speaker 1: have obscured the approaching iceberg from view. And Broad describes
Speaker 1: the fatim organa effect as follows quote. Most people know
Speaker 1: mirages as natural phenomena caused when hot air near the
Speaker 1: earth surface bends light rays upward. In a desert, the
Speaker 1: effect prompts lost travelers to mistake patches of blue sky
Speaker 1: for pools of water. But another kind of mirage occurs
Speaker 1: when cold air bends light rays downward. In that case,
Speaker 1: observers can see objects and settings far over the horizon.
Speaker 1: The images often undergo quick distortions, not unlike the wavy
Speaker 1: reflections in a fun house mirror. Okay, so this is
Speaker 1: in line with what we've been talking about, but broad
Speaker 1: on to say. In an interview, Mr Malton said he
Speaker 1: first learned the possibility of cold mirages when reading a
Speaker 1: nine British inquiry on the Titanic sinking. It suggested that
Speaker 1: the icy waters could have cooled the adjacent air and
Speaker 1: warped images that confused the Californian, a nearby ship that
Speaker 1: could have rushed to the Titanic's aid but instead did nothing.
Speaker 1: Fascinated Mr Malton, who sailed boats in his youth, dug
Speaker 1: into navigational records and found that both the Californian and
Speaker 1: the Titanic had moved into the icy Labrador current that
Speaker 1: night and had encountered conditions ideal for cold mirages. He
Speaker 1: then hunted through reams of official and unofficial testimony to
Speaker 1: see what people saw, or what they thought they saw.
Speaker 1: A drama of misperceptions ensues. Mr Malton's book shows how
Speaker 1: mirages could have created false horizons that hid the iceberg
Speaker 1: from the Titanic's lookouts by this theory, the intersection of
Speaker 1: dark sea and starry sky would have looked blurry, reducing
Speaker 1: the contrast with the looming iceberg. And then he goes
Speaker 1: on to site some of the testimony of the lookouts
Speaker 1: who were who were watching the horizon that night, and
Speaker 1: and so they put together this idea that superior mirages
Speaker 1: could have hidden the iceberg from site as they were
Speaker 1: approaching it by creating a kind of blur or haze
Speaker 1: along the horizon. And then also that that a type
Speaker 1: of superior mirage caused by the the icy currents in
Speaker 1: the cold water could have interfered with the Californians ability.
Speaker 1: I remember that was the other ship that was nearby
Speaker 1: that did not intervene, could have interfered with its ability
Speaker 1: to correctly assess what was going on with the Titanic.
Speaker 1: And this led to a series of misunderstandings that caused
Speaker 1: them not to help. That is interesting. Yeah, Now I
Speaker 1: don't know how much you know, the most relevant experts
Speaker 1: would put into this hypothesis. Today, I was trying to
Speaker 1: see if I could find criticisms of it, and I
Speaker 1: did find a series of papers in the journe An
Speaker 1: Old Weather from twenty nineteen by Mila's in Cova. The
Speaker 1: first one of the four part series is called Titanic's
Speaker 1: Mirage Part one, The Enigma of the Arctic High and
Speaker 1: a Cold Water Tongue of the Labrador Current. I didn't
Speaker 1: have time to get into this whole series in depth,
Speaker 1: but it looks from what I can tell like the
Speaker 1: author argues that maybe the mirage explanation is possible, but
Speaker 1: probably not the explanation that they think is most consistent
Speaker 1: with the facts, and other explanations for the haze over
Speaker 1: the water that night that would reduce visibility would include
Speaker 1: something that is more commonly known as sea smoke, which
Speaker 1: is just a kind of natural fog that forms when
Speaker 1: very cold air moves over warmer water. Yeah, and that,
Speaker 1: coupled with the fact that Billy Zane is chasing Leonardo
Speaker 1: DiCaprio around ship, that's probably distracting everybody. I mean, that's
Speaker 1: going to create a steamy fog of its own, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank thank um. Yeah. I have an interesting historic tidbit
Speaker 1: here that I think you know that flows nicely out
Speaker 1: of the Titanic example. Uh, this one takes place uh
Speaker 1: well techno, technically it takes place on water as well,
Speaker 1: but on frozen water. Uh. And it concerns uh something
Speaker 1: that pops up as well, the idea of like phantom islands,
Speaker 1: phantom mountains. Uh, something in the distance that you know,
Speaker 1: looks like some sort of large geographical um occurrence, but
Speaker 1: then as you get closer it does not. And this
Speaker 1: particular tidbit concerns crocker Land. Have you ever been to
Speaker 1: crocker Land, Joe, I don't think so. Now for some reason,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking Betty crocker Land. Well, as it turns out,
Speaker 1: nobody has been to crocker Land, and uh. And here's
Speaker 1: the story. So it's nineteen six and Robert E. Perry
Speaker 1: Arctic explorers exploring the polar regions, and he makes an
Speaker 1: alarming sighting a range of mountain peaks rising above the
Speaker 1: ice cap some what looks like four hundred miles uh,
Speaker 1: you know, west of Greenland's northern tip. So he names
Speaker 1: this crocker Land, and it apparently goes from there. It
Speaker 1: ends up appearing on at least one published map, and
Speaker 1: then seven years later, Arctic explorer Donald B. McMillan he
Speaker 1: ventures into the same region in search of crocker Land. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, thinking that he's going to, you know, arrive
Speaker 1: there and further study it. And he initially sees these mountains,
Speaker 1: but then they slowly vanish as he draws closer, and
Speaker 1: as it turns out, there was nothing there at all
Speaker 1: but flat, featureless ice. And this is how he describes it.
Speaker 1: This is from his beliefs. Is from his autobiography quote.
Speaker 1: The day was exceptionally clear, not a cloud or trace
Speaker 1: of mist. If land could be seen now is our time. Yes,
Speaker 1: there it was. It could even be seen without a glass.
Speaker 1: Extending from southwest true to north northeast. Are powerful glasses, however,
Speaker 1: brought out more clearly the dark background in contrast with
Speaker 1: the white, the whole resembling hills, valleys and snow capped
Speaker 1: peaks to such a degree that, had we not been
Speaker 1: out on the frozen sea for a hundred and fifty miles,
Speaker 1: we would have staked our lives upon its reality. Our
Speaker 1: judgment then, as now is that this was a mirage
Speaker 1: or loom of the sea ice. Oh. I guess the
Speaker 1: thing that we haven't discussed yet but is related, is
Speaker 1: that there is another phenomenon called looming that can also
Speaker 1: cause illusions of this kind. Seeing different things like with
Speaker 1: relationship to the horizons, sort of appearing out of place
Speaker 1: that works by a different mechanism. Yeah. Now the next
Speaker 1: example I want to cover though, is almomst definitely an
Speaker 1: example of the Fata Morgana. Uh. And this is actually
Speaker 1: the one that that led me uh to uh to
Speaker 1: bring this up as a potential topic. Um, because I
Speaker 1: was researching the shan Haijing for our recent episode on
Speaker 1: the shan Haijing and h I ran across a Chinese
Speaker 1: connection to the Fata Morgana in an article from n
Speaker 1: nine by Edward H. Schaefer published in the Journal of
Speaker 1: the American Oriental Society titled Foos Sang and Beyond the
Speaker 1: Haunted Seas to Japan. Now. Edward H. Schaeffer lived nineteen
Speaker 1: thirt through ninete. He was an American historians, sinologist, and
Speaker 1: writer noted for his experience on the Tang dynasty, and
Speaker 1: he was a professor of Chinese at the University of California,
Speaker 1: Berkeley for thirty five years. He also did some key
Speaker 1: English translations. In this article, however, Schaefer is looking at
Speaker 1: various examples of a class of Chinese poem about travel,
Speaker 1: particularly about this very specific about saying goodbye to honored
Speaker 1: guests as they depart on a journey. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: think if there are any um like English poems that
Speaker 1: come to mind that have a similar theme. I don't know,
Speaker 1: not that I can think of at any rate. It
Speaker 1: was a popular motif at the time in China and
Speaker 1: a popular journey. Specific journey for these poems during the
Speaker 1: Tang dynasty, which which was six eight through nine oh seven,
Speaker 1: was a journey across the Sea of Japan, frequently taken
Speaker 1: by monks, diplomats, and others. So this was and is
Speaker 1: the puffing Sea, the bursting Sea, the domain of danger,
Speaker 1: for sure, but also of supernatural wonder. Now, as we've said,
Speaker 1: this can be said of basically any large body of water.
Speaker 1: This can be said of any seafaring civilization. Right anywhere
Speaker 1: people meet the ocean, you find these descriptions of the
Speaker 1: ocean as a as a potentially deadly place, a mysterious place.
Speaker 1: And we've developed rich myths and legends to account for it. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, any time, you know, just across cultures. But
Speaker 1: Schaefer points out that there was really a lot of
Speaker 1: this talk regarding the Eastern Sea, and you'll find it
Speaker 1: in poems and in accounts of all sorts, including from
Speaker 1: very well traveled and well educated individuals, and he describes
Speaker 1: these sightings as being marked with quote greater awareness than
Speaker 1: ever before of the denizens of the oceanic world. So
Speaker 1: what are these denizens? Particular? Note here are the shin
Speaker 1: or clam monsters of the Eastern Sea. And uh, this
Speaker 1: is where we get shin jing, which is or um
Speaker 1: or high fish and low, which are terms for mirages
Speaker 1: in Mandarin. Oh wow, So if you were talking in
Speaker 1: Mandarin about a mirage, you're saying something that literally could
Speaker 1: mean something like clam monster. Uh yeah, yeah, Like the
Speaker 1: these terms are are all connected. Yeah. So while the
Speaker 1: pre Han genesis of the term shafer rights would seem
Speaker 1: to apply to real world clams, you know, the type
Speaker 1: of clams you might catch and eat and some culinary traditions, uh,
Speaker 1: it clearly evolved into a legend. And so this is
Speaker 1: what he writes. Quote. Beginning as an unassuming marine invertebrate,
Speaker 1: the shin was later imagined as a gaping, pearl producing clam,
Speaker 1: possibly to be identified with the giant clams of tropical seas,
Speaker 1: for instance, Tridactna. That's the genus of these if you've
Speaker 1: ever seen images of the giant real world giant clams,
Speaker 1: that's uh, that's the genus, he continues. Quote Finally, by
Speaker 1: early medieval times, it had become a monster lurking in
Speaker 1: submarine grottoes, and was sometimes endowed with the attributes of
Speaker 1: a dragon, or, more likely, under Indian influence, a naga.
Speaker 1: So it gets this gets like just super super super weird,
Speaker 1: and I love it. So these the shin were said.
Speaker 1: These giant clams in the ocean deep were said to
Speaker 1: exhale and belsh up bubbles and froth which that they could.
Speaker 1: They could then manifest into spectral castles and haunted palaces
Speaker 1: made of what Schaefer translates as a kind of plasma
Speaker 1: and later describes as being something between flesh and energy,
Speaker 1: like a kind of ectoplasm. Quote, dreamlike correscant with strange
Speaker 1: lights and prismatic hazes. These seemingly insubstantial confections or counterparts
Speaker 1: of the sea asle pin lay and also of the
Speaker 1: astral places of the high gods of Dalis m wow.
Speaker 1: All from clams. Huh, Well, giant clams, giant magical clams
Speaker 1: that breathe ectoplasm and use it to craft massive illusions
Speaker 1: in the sky. So he from here he goes on
Speaker 1: to share what I believe his translation, one of two
Speaker 1: translations he provides of a poem by Wang Chi uh
Speaker 1: rhapsody on the high House of the clam Monsters, and
Speaker 1: it's it's just glorious. Um. You can look up the
Speaker 1: Shaffer article. You can find it. Uh. I think it's
Speaker 1: on j store and you can access it for free,
Speaker 1: and you can you can read the full version of
Speaker 1: both poems. I just want to read the first part
Speaker 1: of the initial I think was supposed to be a
Speaker 1: more accurate translation. There in the peeing Bird's basin, shoreless
Speaker 1: and boundless are the clam monsters high houses crag crested.
Speaker 1: They do not rely on timber to knit their frames,
Speaker 1: but use their own fnast to fly and float them
Speaker 1: hidden away without present sign they blaze and splendor, hardly
Speaker 1: to be matched. Then one of them emitst waves and
Speaker 1: surges there as if it would stud the sky with them,
Speaker 1: forming semilacra. Mutating, it creates porches and railings, preferring to
Speaker 1: simulate the sun, which melts our cares so large that
Speaker 1: it would cover giant turtle Mountain with yet another island
Speaker 1: or dripped down on the shark men's houses and hanging streams.
Speaker 1: Then it is as if the fogs have used up
Speaker 1: their mistiness, the melting clouds have gone home, the moon
Speaker 1: sheds brilliance over a thousand lee vision is terminated only
Speaker 1: by the eight horizons. Wow, yeah, it's it's I love it.
Speaker 1: It's just so full of weird wonder and and again
Speaker 1: has has just start start? Comparisons can be made to
Speaker 1: those to the accounts of the Fata Morgana that you
Speaker 1: were reading earlier from you know, the other side of
Speaker 1: the world. But I love all the unexplained elements, the
Speaker 1: shark men's houses. Yeah, yeah, um, I may touch on
Speaker 1: the shark man in a bit, but yeah, there's just
Speaker 1: so much wonder. This feels like some sort of a
Speaker 1: just a it's a weird hallucinatory vision out of uh,
Speaker 1: you know that he might find something similar out of say,
Speaker 1: the weird fiction era in an American literature. Now I
Speaker 1: am kind of wondering how exactly some of these uh
Speaker 1: words are translated, because obviously, like so the words simulacras
Speaker 1: in there, and I understand what that means in context.
Speaker 1: I wonder if there's actually like a term in the
Speaker 1: original that is becoming exactly that word, or if there
Speaker 1: is something that's somehow the gist of something. Yeah, you know, offhand,
Speaker 1: I can't recall of Schaefer got into that. He it's
Speaker 1: a he. It's mostly related to these two translations that
Speaker 1: he gives, but he does get into some of the
Speaker 1: specific terminology. Um. But on top of that, Schaefer himself
Speaker 1: seemed to be in a pretty poetic in his own right. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, just as he's describing the text, there's some
Speaker 1: wonderful sections, Like he writes, in this literary vision, the
Speaker 1: clammy builders are not ordinary creatures at all, but alien
Speaker 1: and anonymous natural forces. Their amorphous bodies are unstable and
Speaker 1: perhaps illusory at least ectoplasmic or spectral. They have no gender.
Speaker 1: They dwell in the murky bnthos of the Sea of Whales,
Speaker 1: beyond the domains of the shark people. And uh and
Speaker 1: he actually he he provides a second translation in which
Speaker 1: he uses meter in English rhyme. Uh. And again I
Speaker 1: just have the first section here. Uh, but but he
Speaker 1: does the whole thing. I don't know, did Joe do
Speaker 1: you want to read this one? Oh? Sure I could.
Speaker 1: If you want juff, go for it. Where giant fish
Speaker 1: foul range above the seas, and craggy houses clammy monsters,
Speaker 1: weize they need no didar to build these halls. Extruded
Speaker 1: e cores fuse as roofs and walls. Abistle gloom eclipses
Speaker 1: them below, but spouted up at the shed a fiery glow.
Speaker 1: When one explodes up through the tossing spume, we hope
Speaker 1: a vault of spangled stars to bloom. Instead, it seems
Speaker 1: a shining golden dome to match the Sun, the god's
Speaker 1: immortal home. It makes the giant seamount seem a hill
Speaker 1: as vast cascades into the vortex spill. Then, when the
Speaker 1: upcast spray and froth degrade, and clouds beyond the far
Speaker 1: horizon fade, the lunar lantern sets the sky alight, and
Speaker 1: all the seven seas show clear and bright. The fishy
Speaker 1: people's shine. Their scales around the waves, now soothed, give
Speaker 1: out no further sound. A palace heaves and spouting rare
Speaker 1: perfumes and majesty above the ocean looms pierces the stubborn
Speaker 1: haze that round it lies and thrusts its mighty walls
Speaker 1: into the skies. Yeah, I I absolutely love it. Excellent again,
Speaker 1: giant clam spouting, uh, you know, bubbles and froth and
Speaker 1: exoplasm up into the sky and forming an otherworldly castle
Speaker 1: or city in the sky, and then you know it
Speaker 1: vanishes and uh. And Schaffer himself points to the connection
Speaker 1: here between these tales and the very real phenomenon of
Speaker 1: fatimorgana mirages, which are still seen today on the Eastern Sea.
Speaker 1: So you know these, uh, these strange castles are are
Speaker 1: still glimpsed out there. You know that these are this
Speaker 1: is an optical phenomenon that still occurs. What who are
Speaker 1: the shark people? Do you know something about shark? Mean? Yes,
Speaker 1: I look these up. These would be the jaw rin
Speaker 1: or the people of the flood dragons. So they were
Speaker 1: a kind of mir folk um or you know, or
Speaker 1: a shark person. I like how he describes them as
Speaker 1: the as as the shark people or fishy people if
Speaker 1: you will. Well, that makes them sound more like the
Speaker 1: subject of that Peter Benchley novel adapted to a made
Speaker 1: for TV movie that we talked about not too long ago.
Speaker 1: What was the one about like the shark human hybrid.
Speaker 1: Oh what was it? It wasn't beast. It had a
Speaker 1: similar one word name, because you know that you stick
Speaker 1: with what what works. Kim cot all in its right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Craig T. Nelson and a shark that I think
Speaker 1: in the book at least wasn't was a Nazi created
Speaker 1: mutant intelligent shark. I'm not sure if that translated into
Speaker 1: the TV adaptation or not, or if it had like
Speaker 1: big muscular arms or not. Oh, it's a mini series.
Speaker 1: It's called Creature Creature, Yes, but I I really want
Speaker 1: to see a film about um, about this giant clam
Speaker 1: um about the shin and uh, you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that that it doesn't exist. Clearly, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of a wonderful and fantastic Chinese cinema out there, and um,
Speaker 1: I didn't really dive in enough. So anyone out there,
Speaker 1: if you're aware of a film that features even a
Speaker 1: cameo by a giant of fairy city spouting clam, let
Speaker 1: me know, all right, I have another example I want
Speaker 1: to turn to, and this one takes this to another
Speaker 1: continent entirely. This takes us to Africa, specifically, Southern Africa, okay,
Speaker 1: and this concerns the San people. So these are indigenous
Speaker 1: people's own, chiefly in Botswana, uh Namibia and southeastern Angola.
Speaker 1: Historically they would have been a hunter gatherer people and
Speaker 1: they've been referred to by several different names over time,
Speaker 1: and today are apparently not instantly identifiable by any physical features,
Speaker 1: language or culture. Um. But I was reading an article
Speaker 1: about this. This is a from the year two thousand
Speaker 1: by Helmett tributsch Uh title does mirage derived mythology give
Speaker 1: access to Sun rock Art? And this was published in
Speaker 1: the Southern African Archaeological Bulletin. In it, the author contemplates
Speaker 1: a link between the traditional rock art of the sun,
Speaker 1: their myths, and the superior mirages they would have observed
Speaker 1: in their environment that again, like all these can still
Speaker 1: be observed in those environments today. And the author points
Speaker 1: out that you know that that naturally the sort of
Speaker 1: mirage was seen throughout the world for thousands of years.
Speaker 1: He's the author who brings up, uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: the idea that even Arab Sciencests, who we're pretty much
Speaker 1: masters of six uh, during the medieval period, they weren't
Speaker 1: able to understand this so it wasn't until the eighteenth
Speaker 1: and nineteenth centuries that we we really were able to
Speaker 1: fully crack what's going on when we behold a superior mirage.
Speaker 1: But you know, everyone who had access to to these
Speaker 1: mirages would have probably had some thoughts about them, and
Speaker 1: you can imagine how they might have influenced one's worldview
Speaker 1: and magical thinking. So sun Rock art in particular depicts
Speaker 1: in some cases huge flying creatures, upside down creatures and
Speaker 1: double creatures, finned land creatures, as well as floating waters.
Speaker 1: Now there there have been a different ways of interpreting these, Uh,
Speaker 1: the author points out, so representations of mythic ideas art
Speaker 1: for art's sake, or and this is always interesting, altered
Speaker 1: states of consciousness or shamatic visions. But the Tributes presents
Speaker 1: a what he prefers to with a naturalistic interpretation in
Speaker 1: which the observation of superior mirages are a key factor. Um,
Speaker 1: of course, and we should drive home. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it seems like all of these could be in
Speaker 1: play at the same time, because certainly you could have
Speaker 1: hallucinations occurring whilst looking at or remembering or or contemplating
Speaker 1: the nature of things seen on the horizon, combine that
Speaker 1: with your own myth making, uh, and just creative thinking
Speaker 1: in general. Now, as for the specific things he's referring to,
Speaker 1: first of all, giant sky water snakes or rain animals
Speaker 1: above the horizon would have been linked to superior mirages
Speaker 1: that that were often observed in the lull before rainstorms.
Speaker 1: So these would have been interpreted as powerful entities responsible
Speaker 1: for rain that could then be called out to spiritually,
Speaker 1: like these were the masters of rain, the gods and
Speaker 1: monsters of rain and uh, and they're the ones who
Speaker 1: who you need favor from in order to you know,
Speaker 1: to have a wet and rich environment. And then there's
Speaker 1: this really fascinating concept of the underwater where souls and
Speaker 1: the sorcerer 's went to become stretched. Uh. And this
Speaker 1: may be linked to glimmering inferior mirages and stretched or
Speaker 1: elongated forms. Uh. These may derive from superior mirages. And yeah,
Speaker 1: you look at examples of this and it's like, you know, um,
Speaker 1: you know, clearly humanoid representations and some will be of
Speaker 1: what you might take to be normal size and others
Speaker 1: are greatly elongated. And uh, yeah, I'm particularly interested by
Speaker 1: this idea. Of the inverted world, and sorcerers who try
Speaker 1: to make contact with the inverted world by he points out,
Speaker 1: adopting an inverted arm position. Here's a quote from the
Speaker 1: paper quote, what would be more realistic than depicting inverted
Speaker 1: lions in a mirrage in such an environment the underwater
Speaker 1: of sun belief. It could even be that trance has
Speaker 1: developed as a way to imitate the inverted world, the
Speaker 1: world where everything is the other way around. The body
Speaker 1: does not preserve the upright position anymore. Food or liquid
Speaker 1: does not into the mouth but leaves It has depicted
Speaker 1: in many scenes where liquid, sometimes interpreted as blood, is
Speaker 1: streaming from the nose of animals and shamans. Maybe the
Speaker 1: crossed legs of painted antelopes and trans dancers and sound
Speaker 1: rock art may simply mean that they do not walk normally,
Speaker 1: but walk in an inverted way, that is backwards, as
Speaker 1: they should in the other world. That's really interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and again this this connects with with some of what
Speaker 1: you were sharing earlier on again from the other side
Speaker 1: of the world, uh, you know, dealing with contemplations of
Speaker 1: fata morgana and superior and inferior mirages. So from from
Speaker 1: here really I mean, we don't even have to spend
Speaker 1: much time at all talking about the nature of unidentified
Speaker 1: flying objects in the sky um because you can see,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's all written on the wall here. I mean.
Speaker 1: The fotomorgana is sometimes used to explain UFO sightings, which
Speaker 1: which is just a natural direction to go into, especially
Speaker 1: when you consider modern sailing vessels, um and and modern
Speaker 1: vehicles and objects in generals often glinting with metallic details.
Speaker 1: You can imagine them seeing above the horizon as superior mirrages.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you consume enough UFO material, which
Speaker 1: I think everybody has at this point, that might be
Speaker 1: one of the first places, if not the first places
Speaker 1: that your mind goes well, yeah, I mean, I'd imagine
Speaker 1: that superior mirrages could explain all kinds of especially anomalous lights. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've in particular, I've seen it linked to discussions of
Speaker 1: UFO sightings in Texas and also the so called men
Speaker 1: Men light in the Australian outback, and and I think,
Speaker 1: and I think you can you can find plenty of
Speaker 1: other examples of this as well. There are similar lights
Speaker 1: that can be found in the Middle East that have
Speaker 1: been linked to U two superior mirrages. So again we're
Speaker 1: dealing with something you can find around the world, and
Speaker 1: then we find all these interesting stories that are either
Speaker 1: directly linked to superior mirrages or could easily linked to them,
Speaker 1: at least at least in part. So it basically explains
Speaker 1: everything some bigfoot I don't know, I could an elongated humanoid. Um,
Speaker 1: you know that that could work. Oh, slender Man is
Speaker 1: a superior mirrage. Oh you know. I was just thinking
Speaker 1: about the San Rock illustrations and traditions about people walking backwards.
Speaker 1: That makes me think of the lesh she again? Oh
Speaker 1: did the less she walk backwards? Was that? I think
Speaker 1: you could confuse the leshy by walking backwards. I don't
Speaker 1: know that's right. Or you could put your clothes on backwards, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the upside down, the the inverted world moving backwards. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier on the superior mirages uh and
Speaker 1: the Fata Morgana, these are things that can and our photograph.
Speaker 1: They can be photographed. They are photographs. So if you
Speaker 1: do some image searches you can find some some really
Speaker 1: excellent examples of these. I remember seeing one in particular
Speaker 1: that instantly made me think of the gigantic spaceship from
Speaker 1: Independence Um. Now, Independence Day wasn't an actual movie, it
Speaker 1: was not a mirrage. But but the mirages that that
Speaker 1: that occur can be of that nature. You know. It's
Speaker 1: like there's something huge in the sky or on the horizon,
Speaker 1: and it does not confirm, confirm, conform to, uh to,
Speaker 1: to anything that would occur in the natural world that
Speaker 1: you you know of. You know, like you have to
Speaker 1: leap to the the unexplained if you're not aware of
Speaker 1: the sort of you know, the again, the optical phenomena
Speaker 1: that can take place, just some shimmering hulk. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: on that note, we would obviously love to hear from
Speaker 1: anyone out there who has witnessed one of these, you know,
Speaker 1: because I don't think I have. I don't remember ever
Speaker 1: seeing a superior mirage, much much less Auto morgana um,
Speaker 1: unless I was just you know, barely noticing it, certainly.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing. A lot of these examples that
Speaker 1: you hear about, they're they're hard to ignore. Uh So,
Speaker 1: if you have experience with them, please right in and
Speaker 1: let us know, tell us all about it. Tell us
Speaker 1: about your experience with it, what was going through your mind?
Speaker 1: When you looked at it. Also, if you're familiar with
Speaker 1: any other of the you know, the many global traditions
Speaker 1: that either are directly linked to these optical phenomena or
Speaker 1: could easily be linked to them. We'd love to hear
Speaker 1: about it, and you know, we'll try and discuss it
Speaker 1: on an upcoming episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 1: Listener mail that's what publishes Monday's in the Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind podcast feed. On Wednesdays we have the Artifact.
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays we have Core episodes, and on Fridays
Speaker 1: we have Weird House Cinema where we don't so much
Speaker 1: get into the science, but we talk about a weird
Speaker 1: movie of note. Huge thanks as always to our excellent
Speaker 1: audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode
Speaker 1: or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
Speaker 1: just to say hello, you can email us at contact
Speaker 1: at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to
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