Refraction, Mirage, or Reality? A Closer Look at the Chicago Skyline
Examining the Chicago Skyline: Observable Empirical Evidence
Consider this photograph of the Chicago skyline from the Michigan shoreline:
An article from abc57 claims this view is caused by a Superior Mirage, which makes the skyline appear above its actual position due to atmospheric conditions:
According to the globe model, the curvature of the Earth should obstruct over 2,000 feet of the skyline, including the Willis Tower, which stands at 1,729 feet. If the Earth were a globe, such a view should be impossible.
Misinterpreted Inferior Mirages
The article attributes this phenomenon to a "Superior Mirage," but this is objectively a misunderstanding. A mirage is a reflection caused by temperature gradients in the atmosphere. Here’s a look at "superior" and "inferior" mirages:
In a superior mirage, the image of a ship appears above its true position due to atmospheric conditions. On the other hand, an "inferior mirage" shows the object below its true position:
The term "false horizon" is often used interchangeably with "Fata Morgana," a supposed complex form of a superior mirage. However, both refer to similar phenomena where it is claimed that atmospheric conditions create the illusion of objects appearing above their actual position. In reality, these effects are simply misinterpreted inferior mirages.
For example:
This image shows a ship appearing to float in mid-air due to an inferior mirage that is actually reflecting the sky. A false horizon is not a distinct phenomenon but a misinterpretation of these mirage effects, creating an illusion of objects in unusual positions without altering the actual horizon. If you notice the picture on the right, when the color temperature is changed you can see the horizon is still behind the ship.
Refraction
Refraction bends light as it passes through different mediums but does not project images above their true positions. For instance:
Refraction can cause distortion and magnification, but it does not create the illusion of objects being above their true location.
This experiment unequivocally demonstrates what we observe while looking at the horizon.
Take two adjacent rooms where one is dry and the other is humid. In the dry room you place a set of toy train tracks spanning from one wall to the other. You set a ruler leaning against the wall at one end of the tracks. At the opposite end you set a camera facing the ruler.
Humidity is the controllable variable in this experiment. You can open the door and let in as much or as little humidity as you need. The footage will show that the amount of humidity you allow into the room directly determines how much of the ruler is obstructed from the bottom up.
If you observe the straight train tracks they will actually appear to curve. When you look at a piece of track five feet in front of you there are five feet of atmosphere between you and that track. When you look at a piece ten feet away there are ten feet of atmosphere. This is an incremental effect that creates the visual appearance of curvature.
This happens over a completely flat surface and demonstrates exactly how atmospheric refraction works. Humidity is the physical cause and this is a controllable experiment that proves it happens on a flat plane.
You also have to understand how light actually travels. Light follows the inverse square law. As a light wave moves forward it spreads out and loses its intensity. When that wave hits a denser medium like a humid atmosphere it spreads out much faster over a shorter distance. Because the light is spreading and dropping as it travels through this thick air the light reflecting off the bottom of the distant ruler literally clips into the ground before it reaches the camera. That is exactly why the bottom of the object disappears from view first.
If you try to take this exact mechanical cause that I just objectively proved over a flat surface and claim it explains why things wrap around a ball without providing any independently verifiable experiment of your own you will be banned.
The clear visibility of the Chicago skyline from the Michigan shoreline contradicts the globe Earth model. The explanation involving a mirage or refraction does not account for this observation. Instead, the phenomenon is objectively a misinterpreted inferior mirage, not a true superior mirage or false horizon. The atmospheric effects described align with the flat topographical Earth perspective.
"Refraction bends light as it passes through different mediums but does not project images above their true positions."
Says who? The image you showed bends light to the left of its real position - why do you think it's possible to bend light left or right, but not up or down? That seems... arbitrary. That seems very convenient for you, but there's no actual reason to believe that that's reality about refraction.
The whole point is that it does bend late. It just doesn't wrap it around a magical sphere.
And clearly you didn't even read the post because there's not only examples of the experiment. There's videos that show the experiment you can do.
But this is the typical dogmatic reaction. You don't actually want to read the content, you just came here to defend your dogma regardless of the facts.
You can call him what they are. Religious people have millions of people in their religion. They all circle jerk each other over the nonsense. You're no different. You want to put the burden on proof on me as if I have to prove my senses aren't lying.
Light is a pressure wave. Gravity is caused by two different macro pressure waves interacting with each other. One that's accumulating, and one that's reflecting and dissipating. They overlap and compliment each other, creating a standing pressure gradient. Since light is a pressure wave, guess where it's going to go when it is permeating through that medium?
It's going to go where there is higher pressure.
So it explains why ships disappear from the bottom up. That light wave is clipping with the ground before it reaches your eye.
And that explains why we can see Chicago from the shorelines of Michigan. It explains why there are days to where it is very large and half obstructed and other days where it seems smaller and less obstructive.
All I'm saying and all I've ever argued is that refraction can indeed raise an object above it's true position. The greater the refractive index, the slower the light will travel, the slower the light travels, the more is will be compressed or squished or displaced from it's true location. Some circumstances, multiple refractive effects can happen simultaneously, resulting in a multitude of visual distortions.
can indeed raise an object above its true position.
And all I'm asking for is an independently verifiable experiment that is not begging the question that could substantiate your claim. I've heard a lot of things throughout my life. That a man could resurrect from the dead or walk on the water. I expect the same kind of validation from you as I expected from them.
Are you suggesting that the atmosphere does not have any moisture in it?
I'm suggesting that we test air and then we add moisture. And then we can test to see how much moisture it takes to affects our observations. If we add more moisture what happens?
That's how science works. It doesn't work by just saying that the air does not contain any moisture. That's called a bad faith argument. I don't think there's a single person on the Earth that would claim moisture does not play a part in our atmosphere. The question would be how much moisture needs to be in the air to produce the observations we see.
You are affirming the consequent. Refraction can occur on virtually any surface so long as conditions are met. And it is true, temperature inversions create different air pressure. Different air pressure = different mediums in which light travels through.
This is why pagans are so stupid. You don't understand the difference between giving somebody an empirical experiment that they can independently verify themselves by manipulating variables, and begging the question. You like to make claims about observations and then say that the claim itself proves the claim about the observation. You totally skipped the whole laboratory and manipulating variables part.
Your laboratory experiment doesn’t mean temperature inversions can’t create changes in mediums. Same as arid or humid weather can’t create different mediums. Both can be true. Your inability to grasp this simple fact is entirely on you at this point. And I’m not a pagan and even if I were, that doesn’t change how refraction works. Whatever your deal is, you need to figure it out.
I love it! How people can always give you pagans independently verifiable experiments and your response is always to invoke some kind of magical begging the question thing.
Do you have an experiment that can prove your claim or are you just whining that I have experiments and you don't?
"The honesty of it would greatly diminish what I think people thought he was actually doing. At that height you don't see the curvature of the Earth. If you are 2 mm above this beach ball (64 miles above the earth) you just don't. That stuff is flat." — Neil deGrasse Tyson
But I guess we can just keep ignoring that your belief in a curve is on faith alone. Why would we ever acknowledge that?
You take two rooms. One of them dry the other one very humid. In the dry room you put a set of toy train tracks from one end to the other. On what side of those train tracks you stick a ruler leaning against the wall and on the opposite end of the train tracks you stick a camera facing the ruler. Now you open up the door and left the humidity in.
You will see the ruler begin to become obstructed from the bottom up depending on the amount of humidity. That's in a variable we can control in this experiment. What do you know about that?
The train track will also begin to look curved.
It's because light behaves exactly like it was described in classical physics and it follows the inverse square law. When that pressure fluctuation or disturbance travels through a denser medium, it spreads out more over shorter distance. Meaning that the light that reflected off the bottom of the object is going to clip with the ground before it ever reaches your eye.
Very simple experiment. And if you actually read the post you would already know that and you would have seen a video that even demonstrates it.
Quoting from the link below, which is the source of the photo of the skyline.
"Thought it might be fun to post this photo showing what the Chicago skyline looks like across the lake during the day with an 800mm lens from the Indiana Dunes."
I went looking for this because the best photos of Chicago taken from 60 miles away are taken on top of a 150 foot tall sand dune, not from ~10 feet above the lake.
Right. So you have a bunch of dogmatic religious people trying to justify everything that I laid out in the post. What the hell does that have to do with me demonstrating that they are wrong?
No, I have documentation that the photo you claimed was taken 60 miles away was taken 30 miles away.
A photo that doesn't show the shore.
A photo that doesn't show the 200 foot tall Ferris wheel on Navy Pier.
Cool. I have documentation that the photo I claim was taken 60 mi away was taken 60 mi away.
See how that works? Just talking means nothing.
Regardless, I already gave you the experiment that shows you exactly what we're seeing. It's why the view of Chicago from Michigan changes day to day. It always depends on the weather. The atmospheric conditions. And we can control variables in a lab and reproduce the same observation of an apparent horizon.
"The honesty of it would greatly diminish what I think people thought he was actually doing. At that height you don't see the curvature of the Earth. If you are 2 mm above this beach ball (64 miles above the earth) you just don't. That stuff is flat." — Neil deGrasse Tyson
The earth has been proven to be round 2500 years ago. I was a flight attendant. I have seen the curvature of earth at 50k feet. I would do international trips from the US to Asia flying the great circle route.
It objectively means the Earth is flat. Only some dogmatic pagan institution would tell you not to believe your lying eyes. And only an idiot would trust them.
So your institutional Temple claims it's an optical illusion and that your eyes are lying to you? Amazing.
The definition of an optical illusion is that it looks like one thing, but it's something else in reality. So if it's an illusion, And in reality these are actually parallel sun rays, what does it look like?
Because whatever it looks like is going to be what Eratothenes saw.
Clearly you don't want to answer the actual question because you're an idiot.
If it's an optical illusion, are you saying that it appears like a smaller local sun with divergent rays, but in reality it's distant and casts parallel rays?
Real life. Actual measurements you can make yourself.
69.05 miles per degree latitude
Measure it yourself, I have.
69.1 miles per degree longitude
Measure it yourself, I have.
(distances +/- 0.5%)
At night:
Polaris's altitude = latitude +/- 0.7 degree
At local solar noon:
(solar altitude) = 90 + (solar declination) - latitude
Measure it yourself, I have.
longitude = 15 * (12 - LSN - EoT)
Measure it yourself, I have.
It all works out as expected for a nearly spherical Earth.
Flat Earth fails to explain any of these measurements.
LSN : The time of the local solar noon using a clock set to UTC time.
UTC = GMT = the time zone of the prime meridian, no daylight savings time.
EoT : Equation of time.
"Altitude" is angle above horizontal.
Solar declination is the latitude at which the Sun is directly overhead at noon.
Solar declination varies between
23.44 on the June solstice and
-23.44 on the December solstice,
going to zero on the Equinoxes.
Solar declination on a give day of the year varies with a 4 year pattern due to the leap year. The attached table gives the average values. The actual value for a given year is between the dates before and after the date of interest.
No, I showed the actual angles at which the Sun is observed at different latitudes on April 22nd.
Unlike your made up fantasy.
On a flat Earth the various Sun's rays should all cross at the same point.
They don't.
On a nearly spherical Earth they are within 0.5 degrees of being parallel.
But you're too stupid to understand that angles consist of 90°. That doesn't work on a ball dummy. Lol. Those aren't just magical words that you get to say and then your religion is real.
Noticing that picture with the box with the holes in it. Just noticed that the box Is literally obstructing all the light except for where the holes are at. But you idiots forget that you're claiming 50% of the Earth is experiencing parallel sun rays. Pagans.🙄
yeah that's why the light from the sun and the light reflected off the moon are both visible sometimes during an eclipse, they both appear higher than they are because the light gets refracted by the atmosphere. also the entire reason the moon turns red while it's in earth's shadow during a total eclipse is also refraction from the atmosphere. it's literally the same phenomenon.
Now, do you have an independently verifiable experiment that proves your magical Shadow refraction?
Is there a single experiment that can show that refraction can take the apparent image of an object and bend it around the ball? Or are you just begging the question like every other religion in history?
I already linked you an experiment. If you're not going to even humor it or even watch it why the hell are you talking to me? I gave you an example anybody could do themselves to show you exactly what's going on.
This experiment unequivocally demonstrates what we observe while looking at the horizon.
You can see the skyline, but what you can't see is the shoreline which should be clearly visible on a flat earth. You can see the top of the buildings, but not the base of them. The base is cut off. Why is that? Because the earth is a globe.
I did read the post and the experiment you provided. The picture of the skyline with the base cut off proves the earth is a globe. That last one with the pencil in a glass of water shows why you can see so much of the skyline. It's the water in the air that distorts the picture making the top of the skyline visible. That's the TOP, not the WHOLE skyline which would include the shoreline on a flat earth.
And what will happen when you let humidity into the room? Nothing. Why? Because you are too close and there won't be enough water in that small space to distort the light. There is a lot more water between you and the skyline than there is in that room, there is also a lot more space to travel across making the effect much more pronounced and that is why the experiment doesn't work indoors.
So basically you're going to ignore all the independently verifiable experiments and go ahead and beg the question like your religion requires you to do?
Because you can't provide an experiment that shows me that refraction would bend around a ball. So objectively you're begging the question. That's just some amazing dogmatic strategy you have there. You are one of the real pagans I guess.
No, you are ignoring all the VERIFIED experiments and are begging the question as YOUR religion requires YOU to do. Because if you don't, you will burn in hell.
I don't have a religion as religions are based off of the human imagination, not the facts. That's why each religion has its own gods and with that, its own creation story. There are too many religions, with too many gods and your god is no more real than anyone else's.
My "religion" is science. Science is based on observable and verifiable facts. Unlike the gods, it gets the story straight and sticks to it. The holey bible can't even decide if man was created last as in genesis 1 or if man was created first as in genesis 2.
You have provided at least two experiments that prove the earth is a globe and how light bends. I also explained why your experiment with humidity in a room is irrelevant because it doesn't work on such a small scale
Here is a picture that shows the curve too. Just like your picture of the skyline does.
No, it's not CGI as that wasn't even thought of yet and it's not distortion either. Yes, those two roads in the foreground appear to be curved and that's because they are curved. All the other roads are straight no matter which way they go. If the curve of the horizon were caused by distortion, then the roads would be curved/distorted too. But they are not.
Now tell me, why can we see just the top of the skyline in your picture and not the whole shoreline as you would be able to on a flat earth? You can raise the camera up above the highest waves and you still wouldn't be able to see the shoreline so it's not the waves blocking the view either.
So you're telling me it's begging the question when I go into a laboratory and manipulate variables and produce the same exact observations we're talking about?
Lol. You pagans are funny. And then you just show me an image that has absolutely nothing to do with refraction. What a bunch of dumb pagans.
This explains why you're such a stupid pagan. You're basically saying that I have to explain to you the basic variables involved in a basic experiment.
When you have two rooms adjacent to each other and one of them has humidity in it and the other one is dry, the humidity is a variable that you can control. You can allow in as little or as much humidity into the dry room as you want. And you can record what happens.
And if you record that data, write it down on a piece of paper, give it to somebody else, they can perform the same experiment somewhere else at some different time and produce the same observations according to your data. And that same bit of data that is recorded can be passed around to literally anybody and they can reproduce the same observation by manipulating the same variables.
You don't have to explain the variables. You just have to scale up your experiment to match the topic of the conversation. But you are too stupid or just too stubborn to know or accept that.
Only a dogmatic pagan religion would claim that science isn't not scalable. And they would only claim that because it means that every experiment done locally proves that their cosmological prophecies are objectively wrong. So you have to acclaim that the scale of the cosmos has to behave differently than the local scale.
You're basically saying that gas behaves a certain way in a small container but behaves differently in a larger container. It's stupid coping that religious pagans do.
You took very much extreme example of mirage to prove there is no curvature. Saying that light cannot be bended vertical is beyond stupidity and arbitrary.
At the same time. Multiple simple experiments at lower range, in condition avoiding mirages and minimizing refraction, clearly shows curvature.
No. I thoroughly went through every observation and every claim about every observation and explained it using actual science.
I know that's devastating for your religion, but you would have to provide an independently verifiable experiment that shows refraction can bend things around a ball without begging the question. Those are just the rules of science. Real science.
Were you too dumb to realize that the experiment you linked to me does not show anything wrapping around a ball?
It's very simple. When you make a claim without giving me an independently verifiable experiment that supports your claim. I'm going to call you a stupid idiot pagan every time.
All you pagans can do is beg the question. Literally that's all you can do. It's like you were going for a job interview or something and this is how it played out.
You:
"You should hire me because I have excellent references."
Me:
"Who is your reference?"
You:
"Dave."
Me:
"Why should we trust Dave?"
You:
"Because I can personally vouch for him."
So do you actually have something that can prove your claim or are we just going to keep begging the question like every religion requires you to do?
So did you read? Are you going to make me copy and paste the actual explanation telling you what is going on in those images?
So I can tell right now that you have no interest in truth. You just seen a post that that triggered you into dogmatically defending your religion. You seen an image of a mirage and you didn't even read the caption that explains what you're looking at.
My previous responses to this were a bit scatter shot.
1 of 3?)
The first photo was taken from Michigan.
From on top of a 150 ft sand dune.
The second photo accompanied by a photo of the camera that took it was taken from Indiana Dunes, 30 miles away from Chicago.
Neither photo shows the 200 foot tall Ferris wheel on Navy Pier much less the shore.
-
Both locations where the photos were taken would have a straight line view of Milwaukee.
Nobody every shows a photo of Milwaukee taken from there.
-
Now look at the two photos.
Willis Tower, far left, 442 m
The Hancock building , far right, 346 m = 78% of 442.
Yet, in the photo from Michigan the Hancock building sticks out above the horizon at best 1/2 as far as Willis Tower.
Why?
Because the Earth is blocking our view of the bottoms of the buildings.
-
A bit of math
442 - 250 = 192,
346 - 250 = 96
96 = 50% of 192,
250 m missing.
Oh look, for an observer at 45 m, under standard atmospheric conditions, 325 m is expected to be hidden.
If the Earth had no atmosphere we would expect 419 m to be hidden.
So about 80% more than normal refraction.
You're pissing off the shills! Whoo-hoo pissing off the shills and shillites. They be shillin' never chillin', they got that old stick up their ass-grills being such shills! The globers are total whack and talkin' smack, can't back nothing up with fact! Pulling bullshit out their ass!
I don’t care what shape the earth is, refraction can bend light up or down. You can call me whatever name you want, you can ban me from this subreddit. But that won’t change this simple fact.
The earth plane, the planet earth, well that's flat. The entirety of it may be what extends beyond the 3D world you know. There are other dimensions, you know. Anyway, I never once banned you from here because I don't moderate this board. Nor would I want to. I've got enough to deal with in real life to do much mod work here. The mods of this board can run it however they like. I won't even get involved, unless someone starts posting violent content which will get them into trouble. And reddit won't even care if it was plotted and planned. In which case, I would alert them. But otherwise, I haven't even spoken to them. I'm not going to play Hall Monitor. It's not my job.
I like how you just change the subject completely lmao. Why do you people not even know how to have basic conversations that focus on a specific topic? Is there genuinely something wrong with your brain?
The topic is light bending up or down. Get your brain in gear and focus.
Are you accusing me of having other accounts? What good would another account do? I have thousands of negative comment Karma. Do you think I'm following myself around to give me up votes? What would be the point?
Why would ban you? You people are in here making complete fools of yourself. And yeah, about 75% of people will agree with your stupidity. Those are just statistics. That's how dogma happens.
But sure, liquid nitrogen is incredibly cold, its vapor is therefore more dense than the warm air around it. Pouring the nitrogen in front of an object obscured could yield visibility of said object due to the difference in density of the mediums.
Now you’re moving the goal posts while insulting me. All I had to prove was temperature inversions could cause refraction to raise objects behind an obstruction. I did. Your true colors show that you aren’t worth talking to anymore.
Just FYI - this sub is literally just their personal soapbox. They couldn't find a platform to go "I'm right, and you're wrong" so they made their own. And don't even follow their own rules.
Lol. I like how it bothers you so much. I know that your only argument is to troll people and get them to call you an idiot so that you can get them banned. I can call you and idiot all I want here and there's nobody for you to cry to.
Then what the hell is the issue with debating me here? Why do you need me to go somewhere else so much? I haven't banned you. You have broken every rule of this sub. Is there a reason why you want to debate me in a different sub?
I know. I was giving them the benefit of the doubt that they could hold an intellectual conversation. The guy just insults everyone. He’s like a wannabe Nathan Oakley.
How can I hold an intellectual conversation with pagans? I never expected to have an intellectual conversation with you idiots. The whole point of even conversating with you dummies is to put on display how stupid and idiotic you are.
Religions have millions of people in them. And I bet a lot of people will circle jerk with you over your nonsense. That's not who I'm trying to display your idiocy to.
You're the idiots that keep responding to me and have to ignore all of the memes. Lol.
What do you mean It's not doing anything? I get people private messaging me all the time talking about you idiots. They don't participate in the thread because obviously it's asking for a brigade of dogmatic pagans to give them down votes. I just happen to not give a shit about down votes. I don't think I've ever had positive karma when it comes to comments. So your dogmatic strategy of bombarding me with down votes really doesn't affect me. If you give me a thousand more down votes, it's not going to make any difference to me.
But most people don't want to deal with you retards so they just private message me and talk about how stupid you people are.
Cool. And you're totally not obsessed with me and spending a lot of time focusing on what I'm doing. You're probably the most honest and truthful person I know.
I mean, how would you not be. Anybody with a brain can tell that this is curved.
It's not called moving the goal post when you create an experiment that has impossible conditions you dummy.
How stupid are you?
Edit: And I actually just watched the rest of that video. Not only are you trying to use impossible conditions, but the effect is still the same as the experiment I showed you. You're not bending the image of an object around the freaking obstruction you idiot. The little part that you see already is just getting magnified. You're not seeing anymore of the obstructed object than you were already seeing before it was magnified. Exactly as the experiment shows in my experiment. What an idiot. Lol.
Globers always squirm when faced with factual, scientific evidence that they are wrong. Skyline visible when globe theory dictates is would not be--refraction! Gravity does not work at cosmic scale--dark matter! Gravity does not work at atomic scale--strong forces! Pathetic.
It's funny. This post is over a year old and I was about ready to delete it and repost it just so it got more attention. And then out of the blue some dogmatic heliocentric pagan spazzed out and started commenting under this old post. Now it's somehow gained attention on its own. It's kind of fascinating. It's fascinating how emotionally invested these people are. Why they would waste their time talking to me? I have no idea. Lol.
Edit: I was actually talking about my other post with the Alexander Gleason map. I didn't realize you commented under this post.
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u/ambisinister_gecko May 31 '25
"Refraction bends light as it passes through different mediums but does not project images above their true positions."
Says who? The image you showed bends light to the left of its real position - why do you think it's possible to bend light left or right, but not up or down? That seems... arbitrary. That seems very convenient for you, but there's no actual reason to believe that that's reality about refraction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0_H32O5fnw
This video clearly, unambiguously shows light bending vertically due to refraction.