China’s Floating City

Recently in the news there’s been reports of people in 2 different Chinese provinces spotting a city floating in the clouds. This has sparked some to comment that it may have been a window to an alternate universe. I as a fan of a certain TV show that has since gone off the air *cough* Fringe *cough* can not express to you how enticed I was by such a theory. Imagine, if you will, the ramifications of a flying city from a parallel universe slipping, even momentarily, into our reality! So I decided to see what the more scientific portion of the internet had to say about what these people had seen.

And their verdict?! A mirage. Kind of disappointing I’ll admit but still quite intriguing a concept. What on earth could make it that we would see a city in the clouds? Well it’s a specific type of mirage called a “fata morgana”. It’s a very specific type of atmospheric mirage that is responsible for the same effect when it seems like a road drives right up into the sky. The difference between the two is based on the direction that the mirage extends. The city anomaly being called a “superior mirage” because the effect extends upwards and the sky reflecting down onto the road is inversely called an “inferior mirage”.

I’m not an atmospheric scientist so rather than explain in my own words allow me to quote how a “fata morgana” is formed.
“To get a fata morgana, you need cold dense air near the ground with a layer of warmer air above it, Coleman says. This is called a temperature inversion, since it’s the reverse of what usually happens in the atmosphere. They usually occur over large bodies of water since the air tends to be relatively cooler close to an ocean or lake surface, but can form over land too.” Jane J. Lee, National Geographic

So, unfortunately, we’ll all have to wait at least one more day to meet an alternate version of ourselves, or see a world where Back to the Future 2 was right and the Cubs won the World Series (more great alternate universe media!). That doesn’t mean we can’t all dream of such an exciting prospect, but let’s let this strange occurrence over China reminds us that we should question even what our own eyes see.

By: William Cleveland – Investigator