A Brocken spectre (British English; American spelling: Brocken specter; German: Brockengespenst), also called Brocken bow, mountain spectre, or spectre of the Brocken is the magnified (and apparently enormous) shadow of an observer cast in mid air upon any type of cloud opposite a strong light source. The figure's head can be surrounded by a bright area called Heiligenschein, or halo-like rings of rainbow-coloured light forming a glory, which appear opposite the Sun's direction when uniformly sized water droplets in clouds refract and backscattersunlight.
The phenomenon can appear on any misty mountainside, cloud bank, or be seen from an aircraft, but the frequent fogs and low-altitude accessibility of the Brocken, the highest peak of the Harz Mountains in Germany, have created a local legend from which the phenomenon draws its name. The Brocken spectre was observed and described by Johann Silberschlag in 1780, and has often been recorded in literature about the region.
Occurrence
A semi-artificial Brocken spectre created by standing in front of the headlight of a car, on a foggy night
The "spectre" appears when the sun shines from behind the observer, who is looking down from a ridge or peak into mist or fog.[1] The light projects the observer's shadow through the mist, often in a triangular shape due to perspective.[2] The apparent magnification of size of the shadow is an optical illusion that occurs when the observer judges their shadow on relatively nearby clouds to be at the same distance as faraway land objects seen through gaps in the clouds, or when there are no reference points by which to judge its size. The shadow also falls on water droplets of varying distances from the eye, confusing depth perception. The ghost can appear to move (sometimes suddenly) because of the movement of the cloud layer and variations in density within the cloud.
References in popular culture and the arts
Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Constancy to an Ideal Object" concludes with an image of the Brocken spectre:
And art thou nothing? Such thou art, as when The woodman winding westward up the glen At wintry dawn, where o'er the sheep-track's maze The viewless snow-mist weaves a glist'ning haze, Sees full before him, gliding without tread, An image with a glory round its head; The enamoured rustic worships its fair hues, Nor knows he makes the shadow he pursues!
Another night Brocken spectre created by headlights of a car
Lewis Carroll's "Phantasmagoria" includes a line about a Spectre who "...tried the Brocken business first/but caught a sort of chill/so came to England to be nursed/and here it took the form of thirst/which he complains of still."
Stanisław Lem's Fiasco (1986) has a reference to the "Brocken Specter": "He was alone. He had been chasing himself. Not a common phenomenon, but known even on Earth. The Brocken Specter in the Alps, for example." The situation, of pursuing one's self, via a natural illusion is a repeated theme in Lem. A scene of significance in his book The Investigation (1975) depicts a detective who, within the confines of a snowy, dead-end alley, confronts a man who turns out to be the detective's own reflection, "The stranger... was himself. He was standing in front of a huge mirrored wall marking the end of the arcade."
In The Radiant Warrior (1989), part of Leo Frankowski's Conrad Stargard series, the protagonist uses the Brocken Spectre to instill confidence in his recruits.
The Brocken spectre is a key trope in Paul Beatty's The White Boy Shuffle (1996), in which a character, Nicholas Scoby, declares that his dream (he specifically calls it a "Dream and a half, really") is to see his glory through a Brocken spectre (69).
Shadow of an aeroplane cast by the sun on nearby cloudsBrocken spectre observed from an aeroplaneA solar glory and brocken spectre from Crib Goch in 2008
... I had a dream which both frightened and encouraged me. It was night in some unknown place, and I was making slow and painful headway against a mighty wind. Dense fog was flying along everywhere. I had my hands cupped around a tiny light which threatened to go out at any moment... Suddenly I had the feeling that something was coming up behind me. I looked back, and saw a gigantic black figure following me... When I awoke I realized at once that the figure was a "specter of the Brocken," my own shadow on the swirling mists, brought into being by the little light I was carrying.[3]
In Gravity's Rainbow, Geli Tripping and Slothrop make "god-shadows" from a Harz precipice, as Walpurgisnacht wanes to dawn. Additionally, the French–Canadian quadruple agent Rémy Marathe muses episodically about the possibility of witnessing the fabled spectre on the mountains of Tucson in David Foster Wallace's novel Infinite Jest.
The explorer Eric Shipton saw a Brocken Spectre during his first ascent of Nelion on Mount Kenya with Percy Wyn-Harris and Gustav Sommerfelt in 1929. He wrote:
Then the towering buttresses of Batian and Nelion appeared; the rays of the setting sun broke through and, in the east, sharply defined, a great circle of rainbow colours framed our own silhouettes. It was the only perfect Brocken Spectre I have ever seen.[4]
The progressive metal band Fates Warning makes numerous references to the Brocken Spectre in both their debut album title Night on Bröcken and in lyrics on a subsequent song called "The Sorceress" from the album Awaken the Guardian that read "Through the Brocken Spectre rose a luring Angel."
The design of Kriemhild Gretchen, a Witch in the anime series Puella Magi Madoka Magica, may have been inspired by the Brocken spectre.[5]
In Charles Dickens's Little Dorrit, Book II Chapter 23, Flora Finching, in the course of one of her typically free-associative babbles to Mr Clennam, says " ... ere yet Mr F appeared a misty shadow on the horizon paying attentions like the well-known spectre of some place in Germany beginning with a B ... "
The Brocken Spectre occurring is proven by lawyers to explain circumstances in a case in episode 9 of "Innocence, Fight Against False Charges", a 2019 Japanese drama.
Heiligenschein, an optical phenomenon which creates a bright spot around the shadow of the viewer's head
Opposition surge, the brightening of a rough surface, or an object with many particles, when illuminated from directly behind the observer
Related Research Articles
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The Brocken, also sometimes referred to as the Blocksberg, is the highest peak in the Harz mountain range and also the highest peak in Northern Germany; it is near Schierke in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt between the rivers Weser and Elbe. Although its elevation of 1,141 metres (3,743 ft) is below alpine dimensions, its microclimate resembles that of mountains of about 2,000 m (6,600 ft). The peak above the tree line tends to have a snow cover from September to May, and mists and fogs shroud it up to 300 days of the year. The mean annual temperature is only 2.9 °C (37.2 °F). It is the easternmost mountain in northern Germany; travelling east in a straight line, the next prominent elevation would be in the Ural Mountains in Russia.
The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from outer space.
Mist is a phenomenon caused by small droplets of water suspended in the cold air, usually by condensation. Physically, it is an example of a dispersion. It is most commonly seen where water vapor in warm, moist air meets sudden cooling, such as in exhaled air in the winter, or when throwing water onto the hot stove of a sauna. It can be created artificially with aerosol canisters if the humidity and temperature conditions are right. It can also occur as part of natural weather, when humid air cools rapidly, notably when the air comes into contact with surfaces that are much cooler than the air.
A moonbow is a rainbow produced by moonlight rather than direct sunlight. Other than the difference in the light source, its formation is the same as for a solar rainbow: It is caused by the refraction of light in many water droplets, such as a rain shower or a waterfall, and is always positioned in the opposite part of the sky from the Moon relative to the observer.
A glory is an optical phenomenon, resembling an iconic saint's halo around the shadow of the observer's head, caused by sunlight or moonlight interacting with the tiny water droplets that comprise mist or clouds. The glory consists of one or more concentric, successively dimmer rings, each of which is red on the outside and bluish towards the centre. Due to its appearance, the phenomenon is sometimes mistaken for a circular rainbow, but the latter has a much larger diameter and is caused by different physical processes.
A halo is an optical phenomenon produced by light interacting with ice crystals suspended in the atmosphere. Halos can have many forms, ranging from colored or white rings to arcs and spots in the sky. Many of these appear near the Sun or Moon, but others occur elsewhere or even in the opposite part of the sky. Among the best known halo types are the circular halo, light pillars, and sun dogs, but many others occur; some are fairly common while others are extremely rare.
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Heiligenschein is an optical phenomenon in which a bright spot appears around the shadow of the viewer's head in the presence of dew. In photogrammetry and remote sensing, it is more commonly known as the hotspot. It is also occasionally known as Cellini's halo after the Italian artist and writer Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1571), who described the phenomenon in his memoirs in 1562.
The antisolar point is the abstract point on the celestial sphere directly opposite the Sun from an observer's perspective. This means that the antisolar point lies above the horizon when the Sun is below it, and vice versa. On a sunny day, the antisolar point can be easily found; it is located within the shadow of the observer's head. Like the zenith and nadir, the antisolar point is not fixed in three-dimensional space, but is defined relative to the observer. Each observer has an antisolar point that moves as the observer changes position.
A rainbow is an optical phenomenon caused by refraction, internal reflection and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a continuous spectrum of light appearing in the sky. The rainbow takes the form of a multicoloured circular arc. Rainbows caused by sunlight always appear in the section of sky directly opposite the Sun. Rainbows can be caused by many forms of airborne water. These include not only rain, but also mist, spray, and airborne dew.
The opposition surge is the brightening of a rough surface, or an object with many particles, when illuminated from directly behind the observer. The term is most widely used in astronomy, where generally it refers to the sudden noticeable increase in the brightness of a celestial body such as a planet, moon, or comet as its phase angle of observation approaches zero. It is so named because the reflected light from the Moon and Mars appear significantly brighter than predicted by simple Lambertian reflectance when at astronomical opposition. Two physical mechanisms have been proposed for this observational phenomenon: shadow hiding and coherent backscatter.
The aureole effect or water aureole is an optical phenomenon similar to Heiligenschein, creating sparkling light and dark rays radiating from the shadow of the viewer's head. This effect is seen only over a rippling water surface. The waves act as lenses to focus and defocus sunlight: focused sunlight produces the lighter rays, while defocused sunlight produces the darker rays. Suspended particles in the water help make the aureole effect more pronounced. The effect extends a greater angular distance from the viewer's shadow when the viewer is higher above the water, and can sometimes be seen from a plane.
Atmospheric optics is "the study of the optical characteristics of the atmosphere or products of atmospheric processes .... [including] temporal and spatial resolutions beyond those discernible with the naked eye". Meteorological optics is "that part of atmospheric optics concerned with the study of patterns observable with the naked eye". Nevertheless, the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably.
Earth's shadow is the shadow that Earth itself casts through its atmosphere and into outer space, toward the antisolar point. During the twilight period, the shadow's visible fringe – sometimes called the dark segment or twilight wedge – appears as a dark and diffuse band just above the horizon, most distinct when the sky is clear.
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Optical phenomena are any observable events that result from the interaction of light and matter.
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