China Have Its Personal Floating City, Or Maybe Not?

A mixture of panic, fear and awe gripped the residents of the Chinese cities of Jiangxi and Foshan earlier this month, when an ethereal floating city appeared to be hovering amongst the clouds.

It’s the sort of thing you’d usually expect to find in video games, fantasy literature and the deranged ranting of conspiracy nuts (more on them later) â€" and that’s probably where the rest of the world would have consigned it if the beguiling phenomena hadn’t been captured on video and disseminated to the world via YouTube.



The footage is certainly eerie and doesn’t appear to have been tampered with in any way. In fact, it appears to depict an actual floating city hovering in thin air. Now, there is a perfectly scientific explanation for this unusual sight, but before we get to that, I just had to see what the David Icke crowd were saying about it.

So, after getting my (virtual) jabs, I headed off to YouTube in search of comedy. Here are a few of the best explanations for this event (spelling mistakes and grammatical catastrophes left in deliberately). Enjoy!

First, here’s an observation from a guy who took off his tin foil hat just long enough to share this little nugget with us.

“This is more than just clouds that assume shapes, these are holigraphic pictures, wonder what else they have in store for us, they probably have differant countries developing things in differant areas of technology to make all the tech, miricles start appearing around the world to make us think they are gods, when infact only saten needs technology, The real God allmighty dosnt, he created all and everything!”

...Including Saten and his evil tech? Or am I just being pedantic?

Next up, here’s someone who just went out there one day and never came back:

“I’ve explored about E.T’s and their history on planet Earth , this is true , this is what ancient people called home of the god’s , there are cities in the sky and under the ocean , many of truth is hidden from humans becouse humans like to panic. We are not alone , there are about 100 different alien species on planet Earth , co-existing with us , shapeshifters as well , with more advanced technology than ours”.

...If I were him, I would have explored about the rules of grammar before posting my comment.

Now, here’s an exercise is complete logical disconnect.

“A scientist named AL Bielek, who worked on the Montak Project and the Philadelphia Experiment and other Top Secret Fringe science programs, said that he was taken into the future by ET’s to live in floating cities in the sky around earth, for 2 years. I believed him because I have a close friend who knew him very well and she said that AL was an honest man, before his death in 2011. Or did he die? He maybe there right now in the year 2315”.

Uh huh. I believe in aliens, time travel and floating cities because my mate has a mate who swears it’s true! Your Doctorate is in the mail.

Oh here’s another prize winning pudding brain. Possibly the best of the bunch!

“The point is to make everyone believe there is no God and that aliens exist they’re trying to manipulate you into believe something just like they did with earth it’s flat not round there is Proof about it search it up find it yourselves cause who would believe someone that just says things without showing so please do your research”.

Yes, please do your research before you say crazy, unscientific nonsense such as “the earth is flat!” with a straight face.

Last one now, I promise!!

“It’s actually a breif invasion of parallel universes intervening with our own reality this was proven by scientists and is scientifically possible”

1) No it wasn’t.

2) No it isn’t.

The reality, of course, is far less exciting. The mysterious cloud city is actually an example of a naturally occurring phenomenon known as a Fata Morgana, which is a rarely seen (but very cool) mirage that occurs when a hot atmospheric layer converges with a cool one, creating a temperature gradient that reacts to light. This light then bends, creating the optical illusion that a distant object being witnessed at ground level is higher up than it actually is. This means that the floating city seen in the video clip is actually a projection of the Foshan city skyline itself and was, in reality, nowhere near the clouds.

A quick trip to Google images reveal’s Foshan’s skyline to be very much in keeping with the architectural style of the floating city...

A Fata Morgana is also mooted to be the origin of sailor’s tales about the famous ghost ship The Flying Dutchman. A similar phenomenon, known as a Brocken spectre is thought to be the cause of Scotland’s Big Grey Man of Ben MacDhui as well.

It should be noted that a couple of YouTubers actually pointed this out â€" and were met with a shower of abuse for their troubles, including one user who typed, without a trace of irony “LOOKS LIKE A F*CKING CLOUD TO ME” and another who responded with “Ya, what you say is bullsh*t. The reflection has to look like what it was reflected from dumbass”. Which it does, so, in the immortal words of Captain Kirk, “double dumbass on you!”

Another user, rather more patiently, explained that “the media want you to believe its some bullsh*t scientific thing”. Damn media, wanting me to believe in science...

Well, I guess that settles it then. It’s obviously aliens. Or magic. Or magic aliens. FFS.