A website www.kumanovskimuabeti.mk attempted to manipulate the public in North Macedonia and gain media attention by publishing a video along with the sensationalistic claims that the video shows the Mother of God, which appeared on Mount Athos.
The article on this website was published on December 8, 2021, but the video was originally published three days earlier, by a social media user Sasa Mratic. In the 45 seconds of the recording, a reflection of the sun’s rays mixed with fog in the early morning hours was recorded on a mountain top. The article claims that the scene in the video shows the silhouette of the Mother of God.
But the media in North Macedonia are not the first to claim that. Before the story reached North Macedonia, it was previously published by Serbian media, as Raskrikavanje from Serbia found in their debunk.
The video, however, was shot probably somewhere in Russia, not on Mount Athos in Greece. Moreover, the video was previously posted a month ago (November 19, 2021) on a YouTube channel of Russian origin. The video’s description says that a tourist filmed “The Ghost of Princess Ukok” in the Altai Mountains. According to the Russian YouTube channel, the video was shot in Kosh-Agach. Some locals are convinced that this is a ghost that disappears in the fog, warning people of serious shocks. Some have suggested that it is the ghost of Princess Ukok – a mummy found in Altai 27 years ago and taken to Novosibirsk, after which there was a strong earthquake in the mountains (after the mummy was returned), says the description of the video.
Raskrikavanje from Serbia found the same video on the Telegram channel “Novosti Gornogo” with the same description, an account that shares information from the Altai Republic in the south of the Russian Federation.
But it is impossible to determine either the exact location of the recording or the time when it was created. The first clear fact is that the video and the articles target readers’ emotions and beliefs since it is related to the religious beliefs of the users of the social networks. Superstition is also spread through this video because it shows a natural phenomenon, not something supernatural or religious.
The other fact is that the video shows a well-known phenomenon, not the silhouette of the Mother of God. The phenomenon shown on the video is called Brocken spectre, also called Brocken bow, mountain spectrum, or spectrum of the Brocken, as explained on the Weather online.
The Brocken spectre is a greatly magnified shadow of an observer cast against mist or cloud below the level of a summit or ridge and surrounded by rainbow colored fringes resulting from the diffraction of light. The effect is an illusion. Depth perception is altered by the mist, causing the shadow to appear more distant and be interpreted as larger than expected. Actually, the Brocken Spectre is what meteorologists call glory. Most air travelers have already observed glories. They are most easily seen when one is riding on the shadow side of an aircraft above the clouds.
A Brocken spectre can only be seen when specific conditions are met: The sun must be directly at one’s back, and there must be many suspended water droplets in the air where the Spectre’s glory appears. Sunlight enters the water droplets and reflects off the back of the droplets, and the light comes back towards the sun and the observer. This phenomenon is called diffraction and causes circular rainbow-like bands around the shadow. Even if you are in a group, you can only see your own shadow and glory (rainbow) ring or your own Brocken spectre. Therefore Brocken spectres are confined to high-mountain areas when the sun is low.
The phenomenon is named after the peak of Brocken in Germany, where it was first observed and described by Johann Silberschlag in 1780, and has since been recorded often, given that the mountain is often surrounded by fog.
