The Brocken Spectre



brocken

A Brocken spectre is an apparently gigantic shadow cast in fog or mist, often surrounded by an aura. According to Wikipedia:

The "spectre" appears when the sun shines from behind a climber who is looking down from a ridge or peak into mist. The light projects the climber’s shadow forward through the mist, often in an odd triangular shape due to perspective. The apparent magnification of size of the shadow is an optical illusion that occurs when the observer judges his shadow on relatively nearby clouds to be at the same distance as faraway land objects seen through gaps in the clouds, or when there are no reference points at all by which to judge its size. The shadow also falls on water droplets of varying distances from the eye, confusing depth perception. The ghost can appear to move (sometimes quite suddenly) because of the movement of the cloud layer.

This one, which has a decidedly Blair-Witch-Project feel, was taken in Japan somewhere in the Tanzawa region. It’s from Wikipedia, and the photographer is unidentified. The Nonist has an article on Brocken spectres today, with a good collection of photos.


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Posted on July 21, 2008 at 7:55 am by gail
Category: Science & Tech

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10 comments to "The Brocken Spectre"

  • red
    July 21st, 2008 at 9:17 am

    Inspiring stories about ghost and/or alien sightings throughout time, I’m sure.

  • gail
    July 21st, 2008 at 11:07 am

    Indeed! Nonist comments about these in his post.

  • SoLo
    July 21st, 2008 at 12:02 pm

    The projected shadow can be pretty startling especially when the fog bank is stratified and moving. For me though, the “glory” seen around the head of the observer’s shadow is the most fascinating.

    Related phenomena (without the projected shadow) include sylvanshine, heiligenschein (’holy light’), and to a lesser degree, aureoles, coronae, and irisation (the iridescent hues sometimes seen around the edges of clouds).

    When ice crystals are involved, atmospheric halos of many kinds are possible. These include “parhelia” (aka, ’sundogs’)and parahelic arcs, paranthelia and parenthelic arcs, circumzenithal and circumhorizontal arcs, the “anthelion” and anthelic arcs, Parry arcs, heliac arcs, and pillars (to name a few- there are 30+ different types!). BTW, all of these fall under the category of “meteorological optics”, if you want to do some research.

  • JC
    July 21st, 2008 at 1:33 pm

    Wow, thanks for sharing this info.

  • Ali S.
    July 21st, 2008 at 1:52 pm

    I used to live near a large wooded area when I was a kid in Oakville, Ontario. When it used to get foggy in the morning and I was biking about the things you THINK you saw through the fog scared the pants off of me.

  • Namowal
    July 21st, 2008 at 2:22 pm

    I found a video of the Brocken spectre here.

  • Elan Soltes
    July 21st, 2008 at 4:30 pm

    There’s a great website full of examples and explanations of various atmospheric optical phenomena.
    Brocken spectre is there.

    I discovered the site after a cross-country flight where I saw a shadow of our plane with a halo around it cast on the clouds below us -called a “glory.”

    The web site’s at

  • Elan Soltes
    July 21st, 2008 at 4:32 pm

    No idea how Utah Busines made it into my last comment. Hopefully this will pass the atmospheric optics site along.

  • Elan Soltes
    July 21st, 2008 at 4:33 pm

    One last try. http://www.atoptics.co.uk

  • Daz
    July 21st, 2008 at 9:21 pm

    Anthelion! (ann-thell-e-on) from my Collins dictionary means: a faint halo sometimes seen in high altitude regions around a shadow cast onto fog.
    Related to rainbows, I think. If you are up high, say in a tower or on a hill looking out into a valley with the sun behind you, rainbows are circular.
    You also get them if you look at your own shadow in dewy grass, especially in moonlight.
    A most beautiful word for a beautiful phenomenon

    Thanks SoLo! I love this stuff!

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