"Lao Chang, it sounds like a ghost ship story, I thought it was just a legend, but I didn't expect it to be true, and there are photos to prove it, but how can those rust stains not be left behind by months of wandering?" Huansheng put the file on the table, rubbing his temples constantly.

"Xiao Duan, Team Cao's mission this time must be related to the Eastern Star, could it be that it has reappeared?" I became more and more interested in what was behind the file.

"Uncle Chang, it's really hard for me to answer your question, it's hard to say whether the Dongxing really appeared. Xiao Duan scratched his head and said.

What do you mean? I and Huansheng, who had already shrunk into the couch, straightened up again like an electric shock.

Xiao Duan took out a photo from a plastic notebook he carried with him and handed it to me, with a somewhat strange expression.

This photo should have been taken on the coast, the sea is calm, the waves are clear, the beach is like a belt, and judging from the coconut trees exposed in the corner of the photo, it is very likely that the shooting location is in Hainan. The camera angle is facing the sea, but there is an illusory shadow on the skyline, which can be vaguely distinguished from the appearance of a ship, but the problem is that this shadow is not floating on the sea, but hovering in mid-air, the lower half of the hull is foggy, it is not real, and the size is several times larger than the real ship. On the periphery of the ship's shadow, there is obviously a faint five-color aperture.

"Mirage?" Huan Sheng said suspiciously, and as if suddenly realizing something, he began to turn over the file on the table again.

I probably understood what Xiao Duan meant, and hurriedly asked, "Xiao Duan, how can you tell that the illusion in the mirage is the East Star?"

"Uncle Chang, I only know a little bit of the skin, and it was also told to me by the Cao team, it seems that the Dongxing is a product of the Shanghai shipyard in the early nineties, and it is a semi-container ship in the transitional stage. But this kind of ship was soon replaced by an all-container ship, and the shipyard built only three ships in total, and the East Star was the first, and the shape and location of the bridge were completely different from the other two, so the appearance of the East Star was unique and easy to identify. ”

"Then I guess this photo must have been taken in Sanya, Hainan, and the photographer must have been a sailor of the South China Sea Fleet, and it is very likely that he participated in previous search and rescue activities. "According to the revelation of the small paragraph, I simply made a deduction forward.

Xiao Duan gave me a thumbs up, "Either you are the consultant of our special case department, and you are like a god." ”

"Come on, you said that apart from the people who participated in the search and rescue of the Eastern Star, who would care about which ship in the mirage was?" Before my words fell, Liao Huansheng, who was staring at him with two photos, said gloomily, "I know there is another person who will." ”

Huansheng straightened up, put the photo on the table, stared at Xiao Duan and asked, "Xiao Duan, is there a physicist surnamed Lu and a professor at East China University of Science and Technology who followed the Cao team to Hainan this time?"

Xiao Duan scratched his head, the expression on his face was extremely rich, from thinking to being surprised to being stunned, he was stunned for a long time before he stammered, "Everyone in the bureau said that the friends around Team Cao are all monsters, and this is not wrong at all." ”

"Huansheng, they are all peers, Professor Lu, you must know each other, but how can you be sure that he followed the Cao team to Hainan?" The moment Huansheng spoke, I figured out some of the joints, but I still didn't believe that there was such a coincidence in this world. I picked up the cigarette on the table, handed one to Huansheng, found a comfortable position again, and nestled into the sofa, I knew that when Huansheng generally appeared with this expression, a wonderful story must be behind.

Huansheng also sat back on the sofa and muttered, "I then understood why Team Cao was so happy and reported the ticket." Actually, I guess that Professor Lu joined the Cao team, half of them are Meng, and the other half is very simple, you are very right, who will pay attention to which ship in the mirage is? But if you think about it further, even if the people of the South China Sea Fleet took pictures of the mirage and noticed that the ship in the mirage was the Dongxing, but after all, it was an illusion, how could they help the Cao team find the missing ship, and it is estimated that it would be difficult to attract the attention of the Maritime Safety Bureau and even the Cao team based on this photo alone? ”

I nodded, "Huansheng, you're right, the shadow of the ship in the mirage can only prove that the Eastern Star is wandering somewhere in the sea, and because of the phantom, it is impossible to organize a large-scale search and rescue operation." ”

"So, if there is another person in this world who can determine the specific location of that illusion in the real world based on the illusion of the mirage, I think it can only be Lu Shanlin. Then the Cao team went to sea because of a mirage, and there was no possibility of success without the help of Lu Shanlin. Liao Huansheng's tone became extremely firm.

"Wait, Huansheng, the phantom in the mirage is a projection of the real world, an optical phenomenon under special weather conditions, I have doubts about it, I have the impression that many phantoms in the mirage are difficult to find in the real world, and there will even be many images that do not belong to this era, for example, two years ago, someone was in the Taklamakan Desert and saw a Central Asian camel caravan dressed in clothes from hundreds of years ago, which obviously should not appear in the real world. How can Professor Lu determine which ones are real and which are illusions, and if they are illusions, how can he find the location of the projectile itself?"

Huansheng took a hard puff of his cigarette, feeling a little depressed, and seemed unwilling to talk about the past.

"Often, the formation of mirages is still widely discussed in the academic world, and the phenomenon of optical refraction is the mainstream statement, but in fact, the biggest problem with this theory is in that image. In order to find the reference of the image in the real world, many physicists went into nature, ate and slept in the open air, and searched for more than ten years, but it is very unacceptable that very few can find real scenes, which almost shakes the confidence of researchers. ”

"About eight years ago, there were 23 physicists who formed a small academic organization to exchange information, exchange ideas, and of course, the main job was to search for the real location of the image in the mirage, find the ontology of the image, and deduce the cause of optical refraction and the influence of climate and environment on the refraction phenomenon, and even establish a mathematical model. At that time, Lu Shanlin and I were both members of the organization. I'm ashamed that I only lasted about three years before I gave up that anxious waiting, needle-in-a-haystack despair. I know that there are no more than five people who are still insisting on it, and the soul of them is Lu Shanlin. Privately, we all call those who insist on it mirage. ”

Huan Sheng said slowly, but the corners of his mouth showed a wry smile.

I poured some hot water into his teacup and half-jokingly said, "Huansheng, I don't think the name of the mirage chaser is good, mirage is the saying in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas", the ancients believed that there was a giant fish in the deep sea, huge and incomparable, and the nostrils would spit out smoke, and the smoke formed all kinds of illusions on the surface of the sea, called mirage. The giant fish attracted the ships of the sea by illusion and delusion, and when the ships approached, they made waves and devoured the life on board. Calling those scientists mirages is not a good wish. ”

Huansheng held the teacup, but he just blew it softly and didn't take a sip. "Chang, in fact, scientific research is not only focused on natural phenomena, our research team at that time has collected almost all the famous mirage sightings at home and abroad, as long as there are video data left in China, we have done an investigation of witnesses. Of course, we have not left behind historical legends and ancient myths. ”

"I had a corollary at that time that human beings originated from one place, and now this theory is called out of Africa. But that's based on archaeological and genetic inferences, and if you look at myths and legends, it's a different process. The mythological events of different races in the world are highly similar, for example, there are records of the Great Flood in the East and the West, and even the time when it happened is similar, and even, the Mayans, Indians, Incas, and the indigenous people of Sumatra have all their myths, and there are only two explanations for this, either it was a global flood, or human beings only began to go everywhere after the Great Flood. ”

"Far away, the origin of the mirage, there is also a high degree of similarity in Eastern and Western mythology. For example, in Norse mythology, a mirage is a jet of water spewed out by a whale to confuse passing ships into a giant whirlpool, while the crew is preyed upon by giant whales. In Greek mythology, a mirage was called the Eye of the Siren, a sight seen through the eyes of the Siren, and once a ship or a building on the shore was seen by the Siren, it was quickly destroyed by the Siren. In English mythology, the mirage is known as the Witch's Mirror, and the image inside is the object of the witch's curse. ”

In short, like the records in the Classic of Mountains and Seas, mirages are synonymous with evil and danger. We didn't go until the Han Dynasty, when the idea of immortals prevailed, and immortal seekers regarded the mirage as a Penglai fairyland where the gods lived, so that many people ventured out to the sea to find the fairy cave. We checked the historical materials from the Han Dynasty to the Wei and Jin dynasties, and there were no less than 500 well-documented large-scale expeditions to the sea to seek immortals, and tens of thousands of people set sail on the sea, but very few returned. ”

Many experts believe that these immortal seekers reached Korea, Japan, and even the American continent and settled there. But these immortal seekers are either with the emperor's order, or the leaders of the sect, and at the very least, they are also burdened with the family mission, and the people of that era have a very strong sense of local clans, how can they stay in those wild places, and even give up contact? In my opinion, eighty percent of the immortal seekers who tried to approach the mirage and look for the magnificent scenery in the mirage were buried in the sea. ”

"So I never thought the scene in the mirage was auspicious. But at that time, if we continued to study deeply, we would definitely enter the realm of idealism and agnosticism, which is why I later withdrew. ”

(Turning a blind eye is called Yi; hearing it is not heard, it is called Xi; if it can't be beaten, it is called a small name.) These three cannot be interrogated, so they are mixed into one. There is no rope on it, there is no ambiguity under it, the rope is indescribable, and it returns to nothing. It is called the formless state, the image of nothingness, and it is called trance (10). The first one is missing, and then the one is gone. The way of the ancients is to keep the present. Being able to know the beginning of the ancient times is the Taoist era. --Tao Te Ching)