The shape on the horizon that Maricarmen Khalaf could see from a ferry travelling from Nanaimo to Horseshoe Bay looked like a ghost ship in the Strait of Georgia.
Unsure what it was, she took a video and posted it on social media, asking people to help her solve the mystery.
What she was witnessing on June 30 wasn’t a ship, however, but an atmospheric phenomenon.
Colin Goldblatt, a professor in atmospheric sciences at the University of Victoria, confirmed the sighting was a mirage or optical illusion.
“What you’re looking at in this image is called a Fata Morgana, which is a kind of atmospheric phenomenon that we quite often see over the Salish Sea,” said Goldblatt.
The term Fata Morgana comes from Arthurian legend Morgan le Fay, who would project images of castles into the sky.
In this case, the illusion is a result of light being bent when it travels through the air.
“If the air is denser, light travels slower, and that means that the rays of light get bent as they travel through the atmosphere,” Goldblatt said.
A “superior mirage” can cause “mountains” to loom above the horizon.
“We think the object we’re seeing is higher up than it is,” he said.
The Fata Morgana that Khalaf captured on video contains a “quite complicated” refraction of lights, according to Goldblatt.
“We see multiple images — some are inverted, and some are the right way up, but the cause of that is all the same atmospheric inversion.”
Goldblatt noted the Salish Sea is famous for mirages.
“Looking out from Nanaimo towards Vancouver, there’s a long path lens looking through the atmosphere,” Goldblatt said. “There’s a lot of space for things to happen.”
Mirages are quite ephemeral, meaning people need to be in the right place at the right time to see them.
Goldblatt added Dallas Road in Victoria is considered a good place to try and catch a glimpse of a mirage, looking toward the Olympic Peninsula.
