Ship appears to float through sky in photo taken off England's Cornish coast
The phenomenon is known as a "superior mirage" a BBC meteorologist said
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}A man in England taking pictures of Cornwall’s coastline, snapped a photo recenelty of what at first appeared to be a ship floating through the clouds.
Photographer David Morris said he was "amazed and very baffled" by the optical illusion but admitted he had seen something similar before, according to the U.K.’s ITV.
The ship looked like it was floating because of the similar coloring of the distant sky and sea, according to ITV.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Superior mirages occur because of the weather condition known as a temperature inversion, where cold air lies close to the sea with warmer air above it," BBC meteorologist David Braine said.
He said the mirage appears because of "special atmospheric conditions that bend light," adding the phenomenon is common in the Arctic but occasionally occurs in the U.K.
MIND-BENDING OPTICAL ILLUSIONS
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Since cold air is denser than warm air, it bends light towards the eyes of someone standing on the ground or on the coast, changing how a distant object appears," he said.
Last week, another man in Scotland got a photo of a ship that looked like it was sailing through the sky.
"Saw a real life optical illusion in Banff today," Colin McCallum wrote in a viral Facebook post of his picture off the coast of Aberdeen in northern Scotland.