Strait of Messina — the Fata Morgana

OVERVIEW

A Fata Morgana is a complex mirage seen in a narrow band just above the horizon: stacked inverted and upright images, alternately compressed and stretched, that can make boats, islands or a coastline unrecognisable and change rapidly. These mirages are often seen in the Strait of Messina, where they were described as fairy castles in the air or false land conjured by Morgan le Fay, whose Italian name, Fata Morgana, they carry.

HISTORY

Medieval tradition put Avalon in Sicily and tied Morgan to Mount Etna and to the sirens of the Sicilian waters; a 13th-century French romance calls her 'mistress of the fairies of the salt sea', and a local legend links her mirages to Roger I and the Norman conquest of the island. Walter Charleton described 'the Morgana of Rhegium' in 1654, noting a similar phenomenon reported in Africa by Diodorus Siculus.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

EXPLAINED. Rays of light bend as they pass through air layers of different temperatures; in calm weather a layer of warm air over cold dense air forms an atmospheric duct that acts like a lens. A duct is required: thermal inversion alone is not enough.

VISITING

Reported in the Strait of Messina; the pin is the Reggio seafront, the 'Rhegium' of Charleton's description.