What is Digg?107 Comments
- snowbooch, on 10/12/2007, -5/+52in the age of computer graphics, its hard to wrap your mind around images like these as actually being real
- CornStarch, on 10/12/2007, -8/+48yeah, photoshop has destroyed my trust lol.
- synthfx, on 10/12/2007, -4/+42I was pretty suspicious also, until i Googled for more pics:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-05/08/content_583951.htm
There are 5 pages in that link with the original pics plus more. With so many ppl watching, you'd think that there'd be more pics or maybe a vid. But considering China's firewall .... hmm ... dunno. =/ - Spanca, on 10/12/2007, -5/+27Ha, I can just see thousands of the tourists on the coast saying "no way man, I've seen this sort of s*** on Digg! It's clearly photoshopped!"
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+21The aurora borealis has been happening for centuries too, and is well documented
Doesn't stop it from being one of the most incredible natural phenomena out there - dagfooyo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+23Actually, the poor-quality photos suggest to me that it's more likely to be real. Any photoshopper worth half his salt could have done better. On the other hand, have you ever tried to take a photo of a rainbow or other atmospheric effect? Then you get the film back and are all like "Hey, where's the rainbow, this is just some dumbass picture of empty sky!" Then you look closer and go "Oh wait, I can just barely make out a bit of faint color there, that blotchy stripe in the middle. Dammit."
Take that and multiply by ten for a mirage. I'm amazed anyone managed to get even one shot that faintly resembles a city.
We're so used to seeing professional photos of stuff like this. With a four-hour window, it's doubtful any actual photographers made it to the scene. Which is a serious shame. - wtfunkymonkey, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16Wow. A symptom of quantum duality huh? That's kinda funny because where I come from we call it light refraction.
- Terc, on 10/12/2007, -8/+21It's a picture from the beach facing the reflection of that beach. Took me a while to figure it out too.
- Xiol, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13@AU542
You're on the Internet. Try Google or Wikipedia.
Here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirage - werddrew, on 10/12/2007, -5/+14Ok. If this thing is actually a "refracted" image or whatever of some other city, WHICH CITY IS IT?
I think we've established that it's not a "reflection" of the city in the article. It just seems to me that if this is such an amazing story, that someone would say, "Oh crap, that looks like my home city, _________" and then some goofy photographer would trek out into the desert to get a "long shot" of the city to compare side by side.
So...where is it? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -12/+21That is creepy
- masterfoo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Actually, we talked about this kind of thing in my classical mechanics class when we were going over light paths and various mediums. Light is reflected off of the city and into the atmosphere, and if the air has the correct density and temperature, the light's path will actually be bent brought back downward and project itself onto fog or whatever may be there. It's really neat when it happens and this is a good example of it.
As much as Photoshop has destroyed my trust, I think might actually be believable :) - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7smoke another doobie man.
- CarlisleCockney, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I don't care what all the pessimists say - I still think it looks cool.
Digg for that. :o) - masterfoo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7See the comment I posted above about the city being right across from the mirage. The city doesn't have to be a near by one. It could have been miles and miles away. The light would travel over any other cities towns trees etc in the path of a parabola. Thats why we hear stories about people in the middle of the ocean seeing mirages of the coast or cities. They might (and most likely) be no where close by. It's still a very rare thing to see, but a really cool effect :)
- ripter, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8It's real, and here is an explanation of how it works
http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/elements/supmrge.htm - ckedge, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11They didn't explain where the origin of the mirage image was or how far away it was. I mean what cityscape is further off in the distance that got reflected to this point?
- GiggleStick, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10China's just doing their own version of the Philadelphia Experiment off this town's coast.
- heyitsmedusty, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8Your "skepticism" of "science" is a little "bizarre." I'm pretty sure "this" "phenomenon" is one that scientists "have" figured out "and" explained.
- wtfunkymonkey, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7The bottom one is a different angle. The top image shows the mirage reflecting back the cityscape on the beach, so it looks like there's a city out in the water.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6I think this is just the Chinese Government's propoganda to get Dugg.........
- werddrew, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4dagfooyo, chill... From what I've read on this comment list and on this thread:
http://msgboard.snopes.com/message/ultimatebb.php?/ubb/get_topic/f/60/t/001274/p/1.html#000006
These images are NOT reflections, but REFRACTIONS. Which means the image being seen is a ghostly image of another city. The post I link to above even mentions which city it could possibly be, which was pretty much exactly what my question was in my first post.
So yea, thanks for nothing dagfooyo. - JoeWall, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-05/08/content_583951_5.htm
here we have a look at the beach with all the tourists watching, there are no modern buildings. - HarryBauzonia, on 10/12/2007, -4/+8You need to get outside more.
- Xinareiaz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4But it DID explain how it works.....
- redivider, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-05/08/content_583951_5.htm
here we have a look at the beach with all the tourists watching, there are no modern buildings."
But they are obviously looking at something. It's pretty unlikely that someone photoshopped some images and then got a bunch of random people to act like they were looking at something in the ocean and then got it picked up by news sources.
Not that you were suggesting it was fake, but some people were. For me, the people watching it is better proof than the images themselves. Not the best proof, but it does add a little credibility - marksy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3woah that is cool
- dagfooyo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4"No one addresses this issue"
RTFCT. Several people have explained this above. It's a reflection of a far-away city whose light got bent back in a parabola. True that they don't ever say which city it was. The reporting of this could have been SO much better. - WolfwoodX, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@ SoccerBoy
Dude, that's a hallucination. Everyone can see a mirage.. like a rainbow. - dmitry, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Awesome
- myFriendDerrik, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The Chinese government quickly scrambled to censor all Internet searches of the terms: mirage, 'city of freedom', and 'my friend Derrik on Digg is awesome'.
- millixaw, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5Holy crap, it's Silent Hill
- keek4jc, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I've never even heard of a mirage over water.
But then again, I've never heard of a lot of things. - mz00m, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I thought so too... but here's a good snopes thread on this and other mirage occurances:
http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=60;t=001274;p=1
and a good explanation of mirages here w/ some photos:
http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/elements/supmrge.htm
That is just ker-azy. - masterfoo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3It doesn't have to be right across from the mirage. The light is actually bent (not quite refracted but same effect) by the atmosphere depending on its density and temperature as I said in another comment below. So you could have a city miles away out of view, but the path of the light being reflected off of the city goes into the atmosphere, is bent back downward, and hits the fog to project the city's image. Think of the path of light looking like a parabola, traveling from the city over any nearby towns trees etc, and back down to where they saw it. Its really rare to have happen but its wicked cool when it does :) I'm actually surprised it lasted for 4 hours.
A similar effect is when you see "puddles" in pavement on a hot summer day while driving. The heat from the road bends the light's path to create a similar effect such as the reflections you can see in water, which is why it looks like a puddle. Pretty neat eh? Physics is fun :) - guchdog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2A mirage is basically a dense patch of air. Because of this in rare occasions it can act like a lens or maybe even better a fiber optic cable. While you are looking at this straight on you see a city that you couldn't see 100km away (There is some land about that far away from Penglai) because of the curvature of the earth normally prevents this. This mirage causes light to bend and even magnify it so you can see around the curvature of the earth. As another digger posted that link already but it explains how these things happen with pictures:
http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/elements/supmrge.htm - 4ooFdvr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Brigadoon!"
- rolypolyman, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Being a geophysicist I can say that a mirage like this is possible, but if this is being touted as a REFLECTING mirage, that sets off all the alarms on my ***** detector. I question the credibility of this news source and its 450 pixel pictures, and the sidelong picture of the crowd doesn't really mean anything. And yeah, where's the tourist pics?
- Technopundit, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Well, as we all know, Asian people rarely have cameras, so it was impossible to get better photos or to identify the source of the image.
- drdcuddy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1its fricen china guys, these pictures are amazing for coming out of a country were us westerners rarely catch anything uncensored. by the way, thats amazing,
- dakelv, on 07/06/2008, -0/+1To anyone who suspected the credibility of the news and the picture, I can assure you that they are NOT fake. I am saying this because I was born in that city mentioned in the news article and the city is known for the mirage which generally happens in early spring. The mirage discussed in that news article was actually video taped and I watched that video.
- Dysanovic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I just did a search on flickr for mirage pictures and there is another great example there:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ekarjala/107870340/
I want to see one "in the flesh"!!! - Xinareiaz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3You're the 10th or so....
- jigger4892, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Perfect explanation on the aforementioned snopes board...
[Richard W]"That type of mirage is called a Fata Morgana - there's a fairly detailed explanation and a picture of one in Greenland on that page, and some more photos of them here and here (click Mirages in the frame and then look at the "Superior mirage" links).
None of the other examples I've looked at are that clear, or that far removed from the source of the image.
This does raise the question of which city it's a mirage of. It would have to be the image of a city below the horizon. Penglai is on a peninsula in the north east of China, facing northwards. Comparing that with a larger map, it's across a relatively narrow strait from the city of Dalian on an opposite peninsula, which would meet the criteria and suggest that Dalian is a candidate for the city in the mirage image.
It would seem the channel is about 100km wide, which must make this a pretty exceptional occurence - then again, they say it's exceptional...
(edit) Here's a page (Google cache) that talks about the mirage as one of the rare but spectacular sights of Penglai. It also mentions that similar mirages can be seen in Dalian, but it doesn't clarify whether the cliffs and city in the mirage are Dalian or not." - noodhoog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1*sigh* another "What the bleep do we know" casualty.
I'll tell you one thing we do bleeping know.. just because quantum mechanics is kinda weird, and kinda hard to understand, doesn't mean it justifies every bit of new age psuedoscientific ***** every crystal-festooned woo-woo cares to dream up.
As it happens, this has nothing to do with "quantum duality" and everything to do with refraction of light, as wtfunkymonkey pointed out above. - knotty, on 10/12/2007, -5/+6Is it though ? from what I've read mirages are objects beyond the horizon, aren't they ?
- chosenone-, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's the Holographic Universe.
That's simply marvelous :) - mydiggname, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This reminds me of the scene in "The Mummy" where Hamanhoptra(?) appears in the desert during the sunrise. :-)
Seems to me if they do it in the movies they could do it here......but a mirage seems plausible to me. - hudef, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Spanca: "Where's Meekathara?"
In central Western Australia. (Could be spelled with a double r) - Hoogie7Dowser, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2http://app1.chinadaily.com.cn/star/2002/0530/tr16-1.html
"The ancient coastal castle of Penglai, about 65 kilometres northwest of Yantai, is the abode of the gods, according to mythology. The legend of the Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea originated here.
And the famous vision or mirage, which locals claim appears every few decades, has given a fascinating and mysterious atmosphere to the place. "
While visiting Penglai, I met a family from Hangzhou. When I asked them why they had come, the mother said: "For the mirage, of course." Because Penglai sits on the southern tip of the Bohai Straits, the low temperature of the sea water and the high temperature along the coast result in the appearance of spectacular optical illusions. Usually they occur during summer and autumn, especially after it rains and when it is overcast and misty. " -
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