There are claims that people in two Chinese provinces claim to have spotted floating cities in the sky in recent days.
The reports claim the cloud formation appears to show a cityscape above the city of Foshan in Guangdong Province, and the footage appeared Chinese state-run TV last week. Several days later, a second alleged cloud city was spotted in Jiangxi Province. Apparently, a few hundred people saw both events.
A number of websites, including The Telegraph and IFL Science, reported on the alleged phenomenon as if it actually happened, without questioning the authenticity of the only video about it. They didn’t provide basic details, including when the mirage actually took place or explaining the hundreds, and later “thousands,” of people who saw the city. None of the reports explain how, in 2015, hundreds of people could have spotted the anomaly without there being dozens of different photos and videos. The reports appear to just cite one another and link back to the same YouTube clip.
The reports didn’t provide evidence or eyewitness accounts that people actually saw it. Most of the photos being circulated were sourced from a YouTube video published on Oct. 13, 2015, on the “Paranormal Crucible” channel. There is a Chinese TV newscast of one of the supposed incidents, purportedly showing the mirage, but there is only one piece of video:
However, if the footage wasn’t just simply digitally altered, it has been theorized that the “city” is most likely the result of Fata Morgana, an optical illusion that occurs when rays of light are bent after passing through air layers. It most often occurs when light reflecting off cold water is bent by an unusual layer of warm air above, and it arrives at the observer at different angles. Fata Morgana images typically appear immediately above the horizon.
So, the only problem with that explanation is that Fata Morgana appears right over the horizon, and the video and photos show the cloud city much further up, making the phenomenon that much stranger.
There’s also another photo of the so-called city that has been circulating on Twitter:
@massimopolidoro @DoubtfulNews ...and another supposed mirage (or hoax) from Jiangxi https://t.co/It1YXO2lxk pic.twitter.com/YWV0Kj8wPs
— ufoofinterest.org (@ufoofinterest) October 20, 2015
Fata Morgana takes its name from the enchantress Morgan le Fay mentioned in Arthurian legends.
Some conspiracy theorists say the phenomenon is a manifestation of “Project Blue Beam,” a plan that involves NASA to implement a new religion to control mankind.
And others have claimed it shows existence of a “parallel universe.”