In this case, it was a mirage -- specifically, a " Fata Morgana ." FATA MORGANA: A WEIRD MIRAGE THAT MAKES DISTANT OBJECTS APPEAR WARPEDThe strange sights come from the cold 53-degree waters of the Strait, interacting with the unusually hot weather gripping the Pacific Northwest this week. The air near the surface is cooled by water, then becomes trapped beneath a layer of significantly warmer air aloft of lighter density, known as a temperature inversion. This causes light rays from distant objects to refract, or bend, downward toward an observer standing on the ground. "If you have a layer of significantly denser air near the surface, light will tend to bend downwards, meaning you see things as ‘higher up’ than they are in reality."