Astral City??

[Fresco]

Any chance this is an astral city that somehow became momentarily visible in our physical world??

Or is it just a regular mirage??

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsEdOSYf9x8&feature=player_embedded

[Xanth]

I think the first comment in the "Top Comments" section has it...

[Fresco]

Somebody wrote a book on the phenomenon called "Cities in the sky", it was first published in the Whig-Standard Magazine (January 19, 1991):

http://www.resologist.net/art06.htm

A mirage is usually defined in terms of an atmospheric distortion and an optical illusion. Light from an object may be bent (refracted) or reflected by air, and the mind of the beholder is liable to see something which is not what it appears to be. For example, a thirsty traveler in the desert may be looking at the sky reflected on a layer of hot air over the sand. The mind, however, sees instead a pool of water and may even add to the imagined scene the palm trees of a surrounding oasis.

Some Canadian scientists have used "mirages" to explain a lake monster as being nothing more than a piece of wood floating on a placid lake or a UFO as a bright planet seen through a turbulent sky. Although this may be true sometimes, I would rather see some explanation as to how a vast and detailed image of a city might be projected into the sky, if it is only a mirage.

In the Transactions of the British Association for the Advancement of Science of 1847, Dr. D.P. Thomson reported that "during the exhibition of a panoramic model of Edinburgh, in the Zoological Gardens at Liverpool, on Sept. 27, 1846, about 3 P.M., an erect image of Edinburgh, depicted on the clouds over Liverpool, was seen by two residents in the Great Park at Birkenhead, for a period of forty minutes." Edinburgh is about 325 kilometers north of Liverpool.

Another extraordinary mirage was reported in the London Times as having occurred on July 28, 1846, at 3:30 A.M., near Stralsund (then part of Pomerania and now Germany). During a short walk from the city on the Baltic shore, witnesses saw in a pale blue light the image of Stralsund looming over the Isle of Rugen on the opposite shore for a period of 15 minutes. The image was clear enough that details of the facade of the Gothic church of St. Mary could be "distinguished with ease."

An American prospector, Mr. Willoughby, claimed he heard an Indian legend of a city appearing in the sky each summer near Mount Fairweather, on the Alaska-Yukon border. Mr. Willoughby said he first saw the mirage in 1887 and offered a photograph as proof that the phenomenon was real. In 1889, the New York Times reported that the city in Willoughby's photograph had been identified as Bristol, England. This story and the photograph were included in a later edition of Miner Bruce's Alaska.

Two other cities were said to have been seen over the Muir Glacier in Alexander Badlam's Wonders of Alaska. Badlam reprinted Willoughby's photograph, which depicts a view of a city from a hillside with house fronts and church steeples clearly visible; and, if not claimed to be photographed in Alaska, it could readily be accepted as a photograph of Bristol. However, a second photograph is presented with an African or Asian city superimposed upon another of a glacier. Badlam writes that the photographer had captured the mirage's image by aiming his camera into a pan of quicksilver and that the city seen in the sky was believed to be sunken in the waters of the bay in front of the glacier. The third city was supposedly sketched from a photograph, but the fanciful spires and towers of the artist more closely resemble the looming mirages of Arctic icefields or the Fata Morgana of the Straits of Messina than anything else.

Badlam's stories are as hard to swallow as a plate of "snow worms" set before a tenderfoot in Alaska, yet the stories of cities in the sky were repeated by other witnesses. One of the members of the Duke d'Abruzzi's expedition to Mount St. Elias, C.W. Thornton, told Miner Bruce he saw what looked like a city in the summer of 1897; L.B. French was quoted by the New York Times in 1889 as seeing houses, streets, and large buildings, either mosques or cathedrals, near Mount Fairweather; and, a correspondent of London's Weekly Times and Echo returning from the "Yukon Goldfields," saw a city in the sky in June of 1897 and wrote: "...whether this city exists in some unknown world on the other side of the North Pole, or not, it is a fact that this wonderful mirage occurs from time to time yearly, and we were not the only ones who witnessed the spectacle."

Phantom cities may have loomed over Alaska, but the fact that no sizeable city could be found within a thousand kilometers of Mount Fairweather did not deter the scientists of the time from speculating that some extraordinary property of the atmosphere would show a scene from distant Bristol. What other evidence apart from the testimony of witnesses and Willoughby's photograph would offer any credence to cities being seen above the wilderness of Alaska?

The same phenomenon exists in Ireland. The "Duna Feadhreagh," or fairy castles, have long been reported. On the coasts of Antrim, Donegal, and Waterford, enchanted islands have been seen rising from the depths into the skies.

The Chronological Description of Connaught, written in 1684, says: "There is, westward of Arran in sight of the next continent Skerde, a wild island of huge rocks; there sometimes appear to be a great city far off, full of houses, castles, towers, and chimneys, sometimes full of blazing flames, smoke, and people running to and fro. Another day you would see nothing but a number of ships, with their sailes and riggingsa; then so many great stakes or reekes of corn and turf."

At Rathlin, in 1817, a green island was believed to arise out of the sea every seventh year upon which could be distinctly seen people "engaged in various other occupations common to a fair."

At Youghal, a walled town was seen distinctly in October of 1797. By June of 1801, the mirage had grown into an unknown city with mansions and forests behind.

Such marvels were recounted by Dr. Thomson in his Introduction to Meteorology and before the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1852 by Mr. M'Farland (who had witnessed a fairy island arise from the ocean off Portbalintrea in June of 1833). Sir Charles Lyell, the distinguished geologist, wrote of seeing a mirage of Toronto in the sky over Lake Ontario during his second visit to North America.

What I find intriguing is that such accounts of extraordinary mirages take on forms which are recognizable, they are seen on repeated occasions, and sometimes a panorama of images and events are observed. Not only have phantom cities been seen in the skies, but also armies and ships, described in detail. Such phenomena may have less to do with atmospheric conditions than with displays of a ghostly nature on a vaster scale.

In the British science journal Nature, accounts of mirages in Scandinavia, such as the one here in May of 1882, may have helped prompt an earlier acceptance of tales from a sourdough in Alaska and the legends of the Irish:

      The frequent observations of the mirage in the south of Sweden is [sic] very remarkable. From time to time we are told that whole landscapes, cities, and castles, with moving objects, have been observed reflected on the sky for hours, and we again learn that a similar display of the forces of Nature was seen one afternoon last month over the lake of Orsa, in a remote part of Dalcarlia, lat. 61 degrees, which is stated to have reflected a number of large and small steamers, as if plying on the lake, and from whose funnels even the smoke could be observed to rise. Later on the scene changed to a landscape, the vessels now taking the form of islands in the lake, covered with more or less vegetation, and at last the mirage dissolved itself in a haze. The phenomenon, which lasted from 4 to 7 o'clock, is said to have furnished a most magnificent spectacle.

When I read of the latest sensational sightings of Ogopogo, the Loch Ness monster, or another flying saucer in the newspapers, I am as inclined to wonder as do modern scientists if the object viewed was nothing more than a "mirage."

However, would the scientists of today be as willing to swallow reports of cities seen in the skies as mirages of distant places? Such a phenomena requires closer examination

[Boom]

Wow thanks for the link, very interesting. But with not knowing that city or area at all. The video just looks like a regular video film.  Are the architecture of those buildings substantially different to the rest of that city?  What happened to those mirages when you physically went to where they were appearing to be? What should have been there in the first place?

One of those, you'd have to be there to believe it. It would be amazing if something like that happened here!

If it is real, and those buildings just came out of nowhere, then that is very exciting.  It really is like some kind of disturbance which has made alternate realities which are in our same physical location, bleed over to our reality! I wonder if they were also looking out at a strange mirage of a city thinking where the hell has that come from? And also thinking, "What the hell is that chinese woman wearing!!!?"

Also, can anyone identify the city skyline that they are looking at there? is it completely an unknown design, or is it the same city skyline as another known city somewhere else in the world? for example, someone saw edinburgh projected into the sky 200 miles away in the post above.  Sadly, like anything like this we dont get a lot of detailed information or analysis.  The news is too busy reporting on what Justin Bieber is doing.

[Boom]

An explanation could be based on this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fata_Morgana_(mirage)

If that city was "astral" or from another world, it wouldnt be identifyable (sp).  Someone needs to look at the video and go "yes that is such n such city, i recognise it."

[Xanth]

Ok, have any of you actually *WATCHED* and *LISTENED* to the video?
There's no mention of a "mysteriously appearing" city at all.

They're referring to the FOG/MIST below.  If this story was about a "mysteriously floating city"... you'd think they'd mention that.
Please stop making something of nothing, and this story, while beautiful looking... is NOTHING.

It was no "astral" city... it's no mirage... the city is fully, 100% there.  The "fantastic" part is the fog/mist making it look like the city/mountains are floating on air.

As I mentioned to someone on IRC earlier.  The story doesn't mention the city at all... the story's focus is the fog/mist.

[Astral316]

Ground fog... it's a miraculous thing.

[wow]

I like your questions and observations Boom 

[Greytraveller]

Greetings
Is this the ghost city filmed from a bridge in a Chinese city? I have seen a short 1 minute excerpt of the video but without sound. So I'm REALLY confused. The news article with the video clip made it appear that the video was of a ghost city. Yet a quick scan of the bridge showed people crossing the bridge and going about their normal business as if normal out of the normal was taking place. And Xanth comments that there is no mention of the ghost city in the video. So's where and what is the big story???  I am completely befuddled here. Anyone have any ideas??

Confused 
Grey

[AstralMike]

Regardless that was a pretty cool video.  Thank you for the post.

[c0sm0nautt]

That's crazy. 

[Summerlander]

That city looks pretty physical to me! LOL!

The bloody media...

[Loki999]

Its a miss translation they are talking about the fog not the city the city is there is checked google earth nothing here folks just BUllsh*& so not even a mirage just the fog makes the city look like its floating and even that not much of anything impressive. 

[AstralMike]

yeah I looked on google earth and you can see a photo taken from the bridge, and the skyline is exactly the same its not even reversed. You can't see the Ferris Wheel in the youTube video, but that building with what looks like a radio tower next to it, is really there.

[Fresco]

The bloody media...

Yeah, looks like I've been tricked by that lousy media again