A shadow moves eerily through the fog – the strange apparition looks like a ghost. This shot was taken by hiker Chris Randall on a tour of the Lake District in northern England. The 45-year-old was walking the hills when he spotted the shadow.
What is behind the appearance? Reports of human-like shadows frequently appearing in the mountains on foggy days are common around the world. In the US state of California they are called “Dark Watchers”. In Scotland they fueled the myth of the Scottish Bigfoot and are called “The Gray Man”.
There is an explanation in psychology: Experts call the phenomenon pareidolia. It describes our tendency to recognize faces or human forms in objects. They are the result of misinterpretations by our brain, which tends to rediscover familiar patterns in the world. A well-known example of this is this photograph of Mars, in which many people think they can see a face in the rock formation.
But is that alone really enough to understand the strange shadows?
A trip to the Brocken in the Harz Mountains provides another explanation. Here, too, the fog figures have been known as “Brocken Ghosts” for centuries. They occur on foggy days when hikers are out in the mountains. The phenomenon was first observed and explained here.
It appears when a hiker stands on a peak above the clouds – the sun is on one side, the clouds on the other. The shadow of the hiker is then reflected on the smokescreen. The phenomenon around the shadow occurs because light is refracted by small water droplets in the cloud, creating a prism.
The ghost that Chris Randall encounters on his walk is nothing more than a light phenomenon. The ultramarathon runner comments on his video:
“My first Brocken ghost. It was scary seeing him out of the corner of my eye and I thought someone else was moving there.”
But in the end the apparition was only – his own shadow.
Source: LiveScience, BBC