Walker 'stunned' to see ship hovering high above sea off Cornwall

[C C]

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021...l-illusion

INTRO: There are only so many polite words that come to mind when one spots a ship apparently hovering above the ocean during a stroll along the English coastline. David Morris, who captured the extraordinary sight on camera, declared himself “stunned” when he noticed a giant tanker floating above the water as he looked out to sea from a hamlet near Falmouth in Cornwall.

The effect is an example of an optical illusion known as a superior mirage. Such illusions are reasonably common in the Arctic but can also happen in UK winters when the atmospheric conditions are right, though they are very rare. The illusion is caused by a meteorological phenomenon called a temperature inversion. Normally, the air temperature drops with increasing altitude, making mountaintops colder than the foothills. But in a temperature inversion, warm air sits on top of a band of colder air, playing havoc with our visual perception. The inversion in Cornwall was caused by chilly air lying over the relatively cold sea with warmer air above... (MORE)

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Uy9adgmxQ_A

[Zinjanthropos]

Was this phenomenon how nauscopy originated?

https://www.faena.com/aleph/nauscopy-the...-distances

[C C]

Was this phenomenon how nauscopy originated?

https://www.faena.com/aleph/nauscopy-the...-distances

One thing is for sure: If no interested party back then wanted to invest any prolonged and direct perceptual effort in trying to discern the presence or absence of such reliable "atmospheric signs or patterns" foreshadowing the presence of distant ships, then certainly no one in this era will. It's wholly deciding whether something is possible or not from armchair reasoning and its existing staple of regulating tenets and premises.

ADDENDUM: While some shipping vessels doubtless tried to adhere to a schedule (making them subject to predictability in theory), it's difficult to conceive sailing freighters subject to various weather whims over weeks and months being as dependable in that regard as later, faster locomotives. But perhaps makeshift probabilities could be applied to when groups of vessels tended to arrive in synchrony, if not specific ships.