On Sunday, November 30, 2025, I flew in a Twin Otter plane to a remote camp on Constellation Inlet in Antarctica. As we were unpacking, I noticed some really weird looking hills in the distance. They had this unphysical looking "cliff face" type of feature that I though must have been an illusion (like the "floating islands" you can see on the ocean sometime). I learned from one of our guides that this is indeed an optical illusion called fata morgana.

Here's the view I had looking north from our camp at Constellation Inlet toward the hills, which I've figured out are the Barrett Nunataks:

An hour later, the illusion was gone and the nunatak looked much more normal.

The illusion is caused by pockets of air at different temperatures that bend light over long distances and create these interesting reflections. In this case, there was probably a pocket of cold air between our camp and the nunatak.

Here's a video that loops between the two pictures. It's pretty high-res - check it out at full screen!

The SCAR Composite Gazetteer of Antarctica contains this note about the Barrett Nunataks: "A group of nunataks located on the E side of the Dott Ice Rise overlooking Constellation Inlet, in the Heritage Range, Ellsworth Mountains. Named by the University of Minnesota Ellsworth Mountains Party, 1962-63, for Peter J. Barrett, geologist with the party."