'Hovering' ship in Cornwall illusion behind Titanic sinking

The optical illusion was taken by David Morris, from The Herra at Gillan Cove, not far from St Keverne.

He looked out to sea and saw the oil tanker Maribel apparently hovering in the air, at around 11.15am last Friday.

The Norwegian tanker had been situated in the stretch of water between Gillan and Falmouth.

READ NEXT:

• Optical illusion photo of 'hovering' ship captured off Lizard Peninsula

There are differing opinions on what has caused the effect, with scientists explaining it as a mirage but Mr Morris believing it to be an optical illusion caused by the still water.

Now it's been described as the same effect that prevented the captain of the Titanic from seeing the fatal iceberg in time – and then a nearby ship from offering help.

David Morris took the photo of an apparent 'floating' ship from Gillan on the Lizard Peninsula Picture: David Morris/APEX

British author, historian and TV presenter Tim Maltin, described as a leading Titanic expert, said: "This eerie photograph is an echo of the Titanic tragedy, which occurred on April 15, 1912. On that occasion the very cold air near the sea caused the distant horizon to appear higher than normal.

"This is known as a miraging strip at the horizon, which appears like a haze and caused the fatal iceberg to be seen too late.

"Even more tragically, the abnormally raised horizon behind the Titanic caused her to appear to the nearby Californian to be a 400ft ship only five miles away, when in fact she was the 800ft Titanic, sinking about ten miles away.

"That optical illusion caused the Californian’s captain to believe that what they thought was a relatively small nearby ship had no radio, as they knew the only ship in the area with radio that night was the Titanic.

"So Californian instead signalled Titanic by Morse lamp, but the stratified air in the thermal inversion, combined with the much greater than apparent distance to Titanic, caused the Morse lamp signals between the two vessels to appear like randomly flickering masthead lamps.

British author, historian and TV presenter Tim Maltin, described as a leading Titanic expert

"In the final nail in Titanic’s coffin that night, her distress rockets were exploding in the normally refracting air high up, but Titanic’s hull was seen distorted through the very cold air nearer the sea surface, which optical effects combined to make Titanic’s rockets appear very low.

"These unusual optical phenomena caused comprehension errors on Californian which meant that the nearest vessel to Titanic took no action to rescue her 2,200 passengers from the freezing waters of the North Atlantic.”

He said the 'superior mirage' that appears to show the ship floating in the air is the opposite of the hot road mirage motorists sometimes observe in summer, where light bending upwards causes a slice of sky to appear on the ground.

The brain typically interprets this as water – a phenomenon which has caused thirsty people in the desert to believe that a lake is on the horizon.

Mr Morris’s photograph shows the opposite effect, where objects appear higher than normal, caused when cold air near the sea surface sits below warmer air higher up. Light bends downwards, towards the colder and more dense air near the sea, which has the effect of making distant objects appear higher than normal.