Have you ever heard of Fata Morgana?

It's an optical illusion similar to a desert mirage. The most common form of it is seen on the surface of the ocean - making it appear as if boats are hovering a few yards above the water, seen from a distance during the proper conditions.

But there's another version of Fata Morgana which is much more rare. If you do a quick internet search for "Fata Morgana cities" you'll find some very surreal images.

Cities which seem to float high above us, perched precariously on the clouds, like a modern Mount Olympus. The pictures look fake, but they are verified to be real. There’s even video footage of these events.

When people saw this illusion in China and in other places they gasped and whispered fearfully amongst themselves. Some even fainted or fell to their knees and prayed, thinking the end of the world was upon them - that these were the angels of heaven, and the cities of God, coming to announce the end of days.

But as always those pesky scientists were there to scoff and say, "No, that isn't real - it's just an optical illusion."

Fata Morgana, they called it. That was the official explanation for the cities in the sky which disappeared just as quickly as they arrived.

But those scientists didn't see it up close like we did.

There's a whole plane full of people who will tell you - the cities in the sky are real. They're no illusion.

I was on a trip to Asia when this all happened. We were flying over Jiangxi when suddenly something appeared in the clouds before our eyes.

If not for the fact that I was looking out the window at that exact moment, I wouldn’t have seen it. But as it happens I was wide awake and admiring the view when the city appeared.

The buildings resting on the clouds were dark and shimmering - almost exact replicas of the city far down below.

Except we shouldn’t have been able to see them from where we were. The optical illusion of Fata Morgana can’t be viewed from within the image itself - it should have been impossible for us to see what we were seeing.

But I wasn’t alone. We all saw it.

When I looked around the cabin of the airplane I saw dozens of other passengers staring and pointing at the city in the sky as we flew through its mysterious borders, entering the surreal space that shouldn't exist. And then people began to scream.

The airplane suddenly tilted half-sideways as the pilot steered quickly to avoid something - I imagined a building shimmering and materializing in front of the airplane at the last second, like a mountain coming into focus during a snowstorm. Everyone on the packed airplane began to scream after that, as overhead luggage broke free from the compartments and began to rain down, injuring several passengers.

A woman who had been sitting across the aisle from me fell down onto the floor and I tried to help her up, but then the plane’s axis tilted again and I was thrown hard into the window. I turned around and was startled to see a hairline crack forming across it.

But something even more terrifying caught my eye as I stared at the glass.

Outside, there were creatures flying in the air. They looked like pterodactyls soaring between the massive black buildings.

One of them landed on the wing, causing the craft to tilt and veer off course again. People screamed and shouted as they were thrown from their seats and luggage came crashing out of the overhead compartments once again, emptying them out of whatever was left inside.

The creature on the wing of the plane began to skitter-crawl towards my window and I saw its eyes were hollow black sockets. Its maw was like a giant beak made of shadow, full of liquid black teeth. It scrambled rapidly across the wing, heading in my direction, and I could have sworn it was looking straight at me with its dead, empty eyes.

That broke me out of my silent terror and I started screaming, pointing at the window as other passengers turned to look. Soon there was a small crowd forming around my seat, staring out at the horrible thing on the wing as it approached the window and began to scratch and claw and bash its face against the glass. I had never seen anything so desperate and insane, as if it had no purpose except to attack and to maim.

A few seconds later there were more of them, fighting with each other as they tried to get in.

I saw they had long tails with triangle-shaped points at the end, like demons sent from hell.

Or, I realized, maybe that's where we were.

Had we died in a fiery explosion without any of us realizing it? Was this just a grim, horrible afterlife which we were now destined to reside within for eternity?

No, I refused to believe it. I refused to give myself to this place.

I shook off that horrible idea and glanced back out the window, hoping it had changed and we were back on Earth again, in the real world.

But no.

The shimmering black buildings outside were so close now that I felt like I could see inside of them, if not for the fact that they were opaque. Whatever was inside was not meant to be seen by us, and I realized that was probably for the best. If these creatures were the birds of this hellish mirror-world, I was scared to see what their people might look like.

I began to suspect we had crossed over into an alternate dimension somehow, and I wasn’t sure if we would ever be able to escape.

Was this what happened to mysterious planes that went missing in the skies - over the Bermuda Triangle and in a handful of other places? I had heard of those events, but like everyone else I just assumed they were planes with mechanical failures, or drunk and irresponsible pilots, sleeping at the wheel. Turbulence and stormy weather, birds sucked into the engines or hurricanes with hail the size of golfballs - there were a thousand potential reasons for a plane to go down. Who would have thought that alternate dimensions could be responsible?

I was snapped from my thoughts as suddenly the glass shattered and the plane lost cabin pressure.

Alarms were suddenly blaring and the lights were flickering in the cabin as oxygen masks fell from the ceiling. People grabbed for them desperately as the creature began to squeeze its way into the plane through the window. Like a cat going through a chainlink fence it sucked in its gut and its wings flattened down as it began to claw and scratch its way inside.

Meanwhile I was still desperately trying to snag one of the available oxygen masks. Since most people had been thrown from their seats, myself included, that was no easy task. The wind was rushing and whipping throughout the cabin, making it difficult to do much of anything.

I scrambled over a nearby seat and reached for one available mask, just as an older man was about to take it for herself. I left it for him without a second thought. The other ones nearby were also being used, I saw, and began to panic.

Looking around desperately, the air becoming too thin to breathe, I finally spotted a handful of unused oxygen masks near the front of the economy section. I was halfway towards the back of the plane and there were people in the aisles blocking my path, but I knew that I had to get up there. Like a game of musical chairs, there were only so many oxygen masks to go around on this packed flight, and I was seriously at risk of being the only one left standing when the music stopped.

Lurching forward, I stumbled over injured people laying in the aisles, stepping over them awkwardly and feeling dizzy from lack of oxygen.

I looked back to see the creature was inside the plane now, and for some reason it had its dead eyes fixed on me. It raced towards me, its horrible limbs leaving black, inky stains on the seats as it raked them with its claws.

The world was spinning and I was getting a terrible headache as my breathing quickened, my lungs desperate for air.

I fell over, unable to keep my balance, and began to crawl towards the front of the plane, my vision fading in and out.

At one point I must have blacked out, because I woke up to the thing on top of me, snapping its liquid black jaws just inches from my face.

Screaming, I reached up to push it away, only to find that my hands sunk into the thing like molasses. It was tenacious and sticky, binding to my skin and refusing to let go.

"Die you fucking hell spawn!" A man's muffled voice yelled, and I looked up to see a guy wearing an oxygen mask, holding a heavy-looking piece of luggage over his head with both hands.

He threw it at the creature and I recoiled, worried that it would crash right through the oily black creature and would land right on me.

The heavy suitcase did just what I expected and slammed into the thing, splashing it in every direction like a water balloon being destroyed by a sledgehammer. The luggage landed on my gut, knocking the wind out of me and fracturing three ribs in the process.

But luckily for us it took care of the creature. I was still covered in its sticky black goo, but at least it wasn't about to eat me anymore, and for that I was grateful.

I stood up on shaking legs to thank the man for saving me, then doubled over in pain. My ribs were screaming at me with each breath I took and my vision was going dark from a total lack of oxygen.

The contents of the plane were still whipping around in the air of the cabin as the alarms sounded and I heard the captain saying something about an emergency landing.

And then everything went dark and I passed out again, this time staying unconscious until after we landed.

I woke up in a Chinese hospital. According to the official reports, none of what I've told you actually happened. They covered the whole thing up, as if it never occurred.

We tried to tell them the truth - me and several of the other passengers have kept in touch over the years and we've all tried to get our story out there.

Unfortunately, no one will believe us. The official reports contradict us at every step. The media won't even listen to our story, and I can't blame them really.

Fata Morgana, they tell us. It was Fata Morgana and nothing more.

But I know what I saw. I know where we've been.

Hell is real, and it's waiting for us in the clouds.

MAD

TCC

YT