Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 70, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 March 1916 — SAW MIRAGE OF SELF ALOFT [ARTICLE]

SAW MIRAGE OF SELF ALOFT

Austrian Airman When Flying at Height of 4,800 Feet Thought He Met His Double. Vienna.— Lieutenant Panitza of the Austrian flying corps has reported here the curious phenomenon experienced in a recent flight on the Isonzo front of meeting his double at a height of 4,800 feet in the air. The incident occurred about four o’clock on a moderately clear, sunny afternoon. After emerging from a cloud bank at the height of almost a mile he observed another aeroplane coming toward him at great speed. He tilted his vertical planes sharply to go below the approaching machine, and it did the same. He then noticed that the machine was the counterpart of his own and that the pilot was a reflection of himself. As he apparently met it in collision he reports a distinct physical shock from a stratum of cold air. The explanation given by scientific men here Is merely that there was a vertical stratum of cold air behind the strata of warm, dense air inVhich he was flying and that this acted as a mirror. The phenomenon has been reported, it is said, occasionally among aviators.