Unusual Maine moon sparks alien conspiracy theories

[jpak]

https://bangordailynews.com/2017/07/13/news/state/unusual-maine-moon-sparks-alien-conspiracy-theories/

A photo of the moonrise over Casco Bay captured Sunday isn’t stirring up talk of Maine’s natural beauty. For some, it’s proof that aliens do exist.

The photo, snapped by John Stetson during an outing with the Southern Maine Community College at Dyer Point in Cape Elizabeth shows a bizarre, rectangular moon.

“The rising moon looked like an iceberg, faint and shaped like a giant block of ice,” Stetson told SpaceWeather.com.

In reality, the effect was the result of warm and cold air meeting off of Maine’s coast.

“John says ‘…the Moon looked like an iceberg.’ That’s appropriate because this mirage is a result of cold water,” Atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley told SpaceWeather.com. “The cold sea offshore of Maine cooled the air above it. Above that was warmer air – a temperature inversion and the stuff of mock-mirages. The Moon’s rays passing through it bend and twist into several moon images, some upright some inverted. They combine together into the rectangular ‘iceberg.'”

<more>

[TeapotInATempest]

1. That's pretty cool!

But I must be reading too much today, because I initially read your headline as "Unusual Maine Coon" and was hoping for a picture of a weird cat.

[Sanity Claws]

4. Me too

Of course we thought that. Cats are supposed to rule the internet.

[area51]

5. Me too,

I have a cat that's part Maine Coon. And then there's this mystery series about a librarian with a Maine Coon.

[Rhiannon12866]

6. Oh! I didn't know about this one!

I used to read all "The Cat Who..." books by Lilian Jackson Braun and the Mrs. Murphy series by Rita Mae Brown.

[marylandblue]

2. So what's the conspiract theory?

Aliens stole our moon and replaced it with the giant iceberg from Antarctica?

[defacto7]

3. Not just in Maine

I saw that over our Costco the other day.

[Rhiannon12866]

7. The ocean is subject to all manner of visual tricks

I've seen countless documentaries on the Titanic...