Used to work in Alaska on boats and saw this many nights coming into Seward harbor. It made the entire town (all small buildings) look like mid sized sky scrapers of the same height, even across the horizon, and then it would fade away.

Sounds a bit like a scene from the Hitchhiker's Guide: https://www.shmoop.com/hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy/chapt...

Nice that he could get a picture of it. I saw something similar (vertical stretching) as a child, the family car was driving along a fjord when I noticed a boat with two giant men standing in it. Then as we drove further the image shifted and there was a tiny rowing boat out on the water, with two men sitting.

My great-grandfather once saw a semi-mythical island settlement on the horizon in the area where he used to fish (he was a fisherman). There are many stories about that place. My great-grandfather understood what he saw though -- it was a mirage of a real settlement, on an island much farther out. Too far out to see normally, but conditions can sometimes show a mirage of it. And that's where the mythical place and the stories came from.

Some people have postulated Fata Morgana might have led to the sinking of the Titanic.[1] Obviously speculative, but apparently weather conditions, again, it's speculated, at the time could have been favorable for such atmospheric phenomenon.

[1]https://turcanin.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/fata-morgana-the-m...

I had to follow a bunch of the links before I understood what this was. Very interesting stuff!

This link was the most helpful: https://www.atoptics.co.uk/fz139.htm

See also,

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_diffraction

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_refraction

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_duct

Fascinating. Love the reference to Morgana from Arthurian legend.