An intriguing video showing a massive towering image on Lake Superior alongside a second linear one has taken the internet by storm, going viral and garnering speculation as to what the image might actually be, with guesses ranging from Jesus Christ walking on water to a ghost ship to a UFO rising out of the lake. While YouTube users have taken to posting all manner of guesswork, it is far more likely that the massive cloudy-gray object has a more natural explanation for its existence.
The Sunday Express reported earlier in the week that Jason Asselin, while scouting out locations along Lake Superior (on the Michigan shore) from which to film a video for country singer Kevin B. Klein, spotted the image that some are saying resembles Jesus walking on water . When posting the video to YouTube, Asselin himself suggested that the strange image was a “mysterious ship,” perhaps “a ghost ship.”
“Saturday evening far off coast from Marquette, Michigan appeared this mysterious ship that had to be gigantic! Almost as if a ghost ship was showing itself to the world..” he wrote. “Even if it was a ship, what could be that tall in these choppy waves?”
Asselin then listed several guesses as to what he might have captured to video:
“Was it a UFO “Unidentified Floating Object”? Maybe it was the “Fata Morgana”? It was the Flying Dutchman!!! Jesus walking on water was suggested too.. Crazy!”
Commenters were quick to take up conjecturing about the phenomenon, some rather facetiously, others quite seriously.
One commenter could not help taking a shot at the 2016 presidential election candidate Donald Trump. XxCurlyManxX posted, “That’s just the beginning of the wall Canada is building along the border.”
Some considered the image the apparition of death.
TruXter Jones wrote: “Reaper standing next to the sickle…,” while another viewer noted that the image resembled death in a “Family Guy” cartoon.
User Daniel Collins posted, “It’s the ghost of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
For those not in the know, the SS Edmund Fitgerald was a Great Lakes freighter that sank in the stormy waters of Lake Superior in 1975, ending the lives of its 29 crewmen. The ship has lived on, though, in the lyrics of the 1976 hit song, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” by Canadian singing legend Gordon Lightfoot.
Several other users make mention of the long-lost ship and the song as well, cleverly posting lyrics about Lake Superior never giving up her dead. Some hint that perhaps the lake finally has.
In the serious (and quasi-serious) comment section are those that see signs of Jesus Christ, the messiah of the Christian religion, in the video.
Viewer Don Atello wrote, “Looks more like Jesus walking on water.”
Another viewer, tron3entertainment offered, “Looks like Jesus and Peter out for a stroll, to me.”
The reference, of course, is to the passage in the Christian bible (per Bible Gateway ) in the book of Matthew, where Jesus Christ walks on the water of the Sea of Galilee to prove he was indeed the son of god and to show his disciples that even his strongest supporters would have doubts.
UFO speculation is kept to a minimum. However, on his blog, UFO Sightings Daily , Scott C. Waring posits that not only is the image that of a rising UFO but that it is evidence of an alien base below the waters of Lake Superior.
“This UFO was caught on Saturday rising up out of the water,” Waring wrote. “The metallic gray of the metal is easy to make out. The long object to its side is part of it. The two objects are actually one… below the water. Lake Superior is one of the deepest, coldest lakes in the world, which has many secrets of sunken war ships, freighters, planes and even a few unexploded life atomic bombs. So…an alien craft about 300-500 meters rising from the water…where else could aliens hide such large craft and go unnoticed?”
Waring has a long history of researching UFO-related phenomena and often speculates, as has been reported by the Inquisitr , as to hidden underground or underwater alien bases .
Jesus Christ, ghost ships, and apparitions of the Grim Reaper aside, quite a few thought Jason Asselin had caught a fata morgana on video. A Fata Morgana is a mirage, a reflected image, caused by light refraction. As explained by Wired , “… a fata morgana mirage , light reflecting from a distant object such as a ship is bent downward as it passes through the colder, denser air near the surface of the ocean (or sometimes cold land, particularly ice). But your brain places the object where it would be if the light came to you in a straight path—higher than it actually is. This bending effect can even work with the curvature of the Earth if conditions are just right, which is why some fata morgana images can actually be refracted cities and ships from beyond the horizon.”
This phenomenon was used to explain the strange floating city that was filmed over China last October. A version of that viral image, a video by Paranormal Crucible , has pulled in nearly 8.7 million views to date.
So if it is a reflection of an actual object somewhere on the Great Lakes, what is it? Many think it is the fata morgana of the Granite Island lighthouse. In answering viewer Tim Shufflebottom’s comment on the Asselin video that the towering object was a “ghost ship,” viewer Mike Panchula attempted to set the record straight.
“Wrong,” Panchula wrote. “I have been visiting Marquette every summer for nearly 50 years. I have witnessed mirages exactly like this one many times.This is OBVIOUSLY the Granite Island Light. Anybody with 1/2 a brain can see that. Google “Granite Island Lighthouse” and you will see the above image. While you’re at it, Google “fata morgana” and you will see how the image of Granite Island was refracted to you.”
Jason Asselin’s video, “A Ghost Ship Appears on Lake Superior,” was uploaded on October 10 and has amassed over 2.7 million views to date. It has also accumulated over 1,600 comments. One user, matt skovly, lamented for Asselin’s loss of potential monetary gain: “2M views and no adds. would have been a nice paycheck. ;)”.
It is rather obvious that perception is individualistic, some guided by science, some guided by imagination, and others led by devotion to religious faith. While some will see common objects, like ships and lighthouses, others will see Jesus walking on water.
[Featured Image by Ross Gordon Henry/Shutterstock]