[DouglasKC]

That shouldn’t be possible if there is this curvature dip of one foot per mile based on the 25,000 miles circumference of the spherical earth. A photographer clearly captured the Chicago skyline all lit up 60 miles away from St.Joseph, Michigan, but that shouldn’t be possible either:

I'm going to pick on 1 thing at a time. I'll start with this because I used to live on Lake Michigan and there were times that I experienced this phenomenon.

Let's start with a couple of things. If you ARE correct we should have MILLIONS of photographs of the ALL buildings in Chicago from ANY city on Lake Michigan regardless of distance if it's a clear sunny day or a clear night. But we don't. We have images when the weather is just right but that's the ONLY time.

Does that make sense? On any clear night we should be able to see the lights of all cities on the other side of the lake..right? And on any clear day we should be able to see buildings, no matter how tall, on the other side of the lake from anywhere.

We don't though. What would be your explanation for that?

I did some digging on this too... This (maybe) the image you're referring to:

The photographer himself and anyone who is educated on weather or photography attributes this to a mirage effect.

You'll notice that in the photo there are some parts of buildings "floating" as well.

You can see this effect in this YouTube Video which shows "floating" buildings and other bizarre mirage effects.

How would you explain the "floating" buildings if this were anything but an atmospheric mirage phenomena?

I'll await your answer to this point before I move on to other points you made.

[Sioux-san]

“If you ARE correct we should have MILLIONS of photographs of the ALL buildings in Chicago from ANY city on Lake Michigan regardless of distance if it’s a clear sunny day or a clear night. But we don’t. We have images when the weather is just right but that’s the ONLY time.”

Response: Another false hyperbolic premise that I am supposed to disprove. Conditions, including time of day, season, air quality, all had to be ‘right’ in order to have these Chicago photos at all. I don’t know if it would ever occur to anyone to try to get a shot of Milwaukee from Muskegon. There would be many factors affecting the success of such an effort, and doesn’t prove or disprove the lack of surface curvature in and of itself.