Hovering ships – finally! Flying cars can’t be far off now.
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here is what it can look like:
or this:
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It’s just refraction. There are illusions, like the moon looking bigger near the horizon, and there’s also refraction. If you want a good example of refraction’s impact, you can google for “king rate astronomy.” Also the wobbling of stars or blinking of them is from refraction. As is the particular illusion the article references.
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You have a phone with an air quality sensor?
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An excellent observation, but on a technicality…
Hovercraft!
Craft is only plural when makery stuff is involved, not maritimey stuff. Hovercraft is already plural.
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Hovercraft are already plural?
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So it’s just the hot asphalt water mirage, on the water?
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Nice try. 
But on a technicality…
Hovercraft is plural (only one word ‘hovercraft’ there). Hovercraft hovercraft hovercraft are plural.
(I feel a buffalo buffalo coming on, now.)
This weather phenomenon has other fun tricks up it’s sleeve beyond a suppior mirage; a tragic example is Salt Lake City which is adjacent mountains. They get persistent temperature inversions that collect smog and won’t let it go. When you check your phone to see what the local air quality is the numbers can be shocking, very very toxic air for weeks sometimes. The giant aluminum plant just west of town makes it much much worse.
Also related, some people have speculated such a mirage caused the crash that sank the Titanic and further inhibited rescue efforts. Check out Futility Closet for details.
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Just part of the weather app so I assume it scrapes it from Met Eireann (state weather service).
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Got it. So, for example, if I wrote “The British Hovercraft Company are a company in Britain that manufactures hovercraft” that would be wrong because it is only one company.
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No. It would be wrong because any company is a singular entity. A company is a singular legal structure for commercial operations. But you are correct - it is only one company.
Simply put - a company is an it, not a they. Whereas, depending on context, hovercraft might be an it or it might be a they.
A hovercraft is an it. Several hovercraft are a they.
Hope I’ve cleared all that up for y’all.
(Although, there are sometimes singular/plural-fluid companies, and we need a new pronoun for these modern constructions. I propose ‘thit’.)
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No, a ship and the surface of the water have very different optical properties. So it doesn’t surprise me in the least that the mirage might include one and not the other.
They are, as are the eels.
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You’re all wrong.
Nick Fury clearly forgot to press the cloaking button.
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I’ll take your word for it.
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Somewhere, a flat-earther is concocting an explanation involving mis-aligned projectors used to falsify the earth’s curvature and obscure the view of cities across the ocean.
The ship doesn’t look like it’s hovering to me 
I can see the faintly visible horizon. It’s no even a curving of the light, it’s just clouds reflecting on the water.
Sadly this illusion is valid for both flat Earth and round Earth models.
There are temperature inversions over the great lakes… there are times we can canada hovering over the lake erie.
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What? No jewish space lasers involved? 
