Silent Cities - Ireland, 1796

In October 1796, the visage of a walled town appeared to residents in Youghal, Ireland. It was dismissed as a mirage. 

The mirage reappeared in March, 1797. 

Then, in June 1801, Youghal residents reported the mirage of an entire, and completely unknown, city. The city was filled with mansions surrounded by shrubbery. A forest spread behind it.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

The Silent City - Prince Luigi

A decade after the New York Times reported that there was no proof to support the claims that The Silent City exists, Prince Luigi Amedeo claimed to have seen it while climbing Mt. Saint Elias. On the morning of July 7^th, 1897, Prince Luigi and the members of his expedition claim the Silent City was "mirrored in the clear atmosphere."

One wrote, "It was so distinct... that it required... strong faith to believe that it was not in reality a city." The expedition claimed the image lasted some 30 minutes before dissipating.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

The Silent City - L.B. French

Despite having reported that a San Franciscan reporter had identified the cityscape in Prof. Dick Willoughby's Silent City photograph as Bristol, England, the New York Times ran an account from a Mr. L.B. French, who claimed to have seen the Silent City for himself.

French told the newspaper he saw a misty cloud around 5am sometime in early July from which the Silent City emerged. He described it in luscious detail, noting that it did not appear as a modern city, as Willoughby had said, but an ancient one. He described trees, rooftops, and ancient mosques or cathedrals.

French said the Eskimo guides accompanying the expedition fled as he and a companion struggled to setup their camera equipment. By the time they were prepared to shoot, the mirage had receded. L.B. French estimated the Silent City was visible for some 25 minutes.

It should be noted the article was published on Halloween, 1889. Also, all of the features French (who appears to have disappeared from history) describes are visible in Willoughby's faked photograph of the Silent City.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

Photographic Evidence: The Silent City of Alaska

The Silent City of Alaska is one of the most celebrated hoaxes in American history, but its legend is not the open and shut case many skeptics would have you believe. 

Mirages are known to be inexplicably realistic according to eyewitnesses, and the one Prof. Dick Willoughby claimed to have seen was just that. Replete with well-defined rooftops, trees, and streets, Willoughby claimed the modern-era cityscape that arose from a misty haze on the Muir Glacier's horizon lasted only a few minutes before dissipating, but he managed to snap the accompanying photograph, "proving" he had seen something in Alaska in 1889.

America bought the state of Alaska from Russia just 20 years earlier, and few Americans had any idea of what to expect from the area, except cold. When San Francisco papers picked-up the story in 1889, it exploded throughout the popular culture, and papers as far away as New York and Ottawa carried the story and picture.

The article is overly flattering of Prof. Willoughby, establishing his expertise in mining and "Arctic" History, as well as his elevated status amongst natives throughout the territory. Willoughby was the first American to discover gold in Alaska and claimed to have seen numerous, bizarre mirages during his expeditions -- particularly, the Silent City, which he said appeared every year from June 21^st to July 10^th on the Muir Glacier.

According to some sources, Willoughby sold the negative he sent to the San Francisco Chronicle for about $500, and by all sources, Willoughby sold copies of the photograph for 75¢ in gift shops throughout Juneau. He even chaperoned paid tours of the area where he claimed to have photographed the mirage, which some said was the reflection of either a French or German city thousands of miles away. Others suggested Montreal, which quickly became the forerunner even though Montreal experts and officials refuted it. Eventually, it was determined to be the reflection a Russian city thousands of miles away.

Others labeled the photograph a fake from the start, including a photographer quoted in the original San Francisco Chronicle article, who said it was the result of a badly exposed plate. "I regard it as a trick,"  he is quoted as having stated.

He also discounted it as a mirage, noting that all of the mirages he'd seen were of islands and landscapes, not cities -- and absolutely none of them featured people. The idea had captured the public's mind, becoming a media sensation.

The dating of the photograph remains in question. Some sources indicate the picture was taken in 1885, though it was later asserted that Willoughby sent to San Francisco for photography equipment in 1888. Willoughby was no photographer, though some accounts regard him as an "amateur;" he had no prior experience and never photographed anything else. When a San Francisco Chronicle reporter asked to see the negative, Willoughby could not produce it, and claimed the chemicals and process he used to develop the picture were "secret."

On October 11^th of the same year, The San Francisco Chronicle published an article that identified the Silent City in the photograph as Bristol, England. Soon, the story emerged that Willoughby had either received an overexposed plate of the city when he purchased a box from a store or paid a down-on-his-luck English photographer for the plate some years before. In short, it was determined that Willoughby had faked the photograph. 

Sources say the Professor died a mere two years later, but I could not confirm this. What I can confirm is that there is a Willoughby Ave. in Juneau, AK.

But the story of Alaska's Silent City does not end there.

© C Harris Lynn, 2011

The Silent City

Alaska's Silent City was said to be an incredibly realistic mirage of a cityscape visible over Muir Glacier between June 21^st and July 10^th of each year. So many eyewitness accounts had been recorded - often from Indians and prospectors - that, by the turn of the 20^th Century, the story of the Silent City was well known and widely accepted, though no one could account for its detail and clarity, nor why so many had seen the same mirage. The most prominent explanation was that it was a reflection of a town in either Russia or Bristol, England. Both towns were at least 2500 miles from the location at which most eyewitnesses claimed to have encountered the bizarre phenomenon. Skeptics claimed that was flatly impossible.

In 1897, the duke of Abruzzi led an expedition in search of the fabled mirage. According to reports from members of that expedition, the party met with spectacular success. "We could plainly see houses, well-defined streets, and trees. Here and there rose tall spires over huge buildings which appeared to be ancient mosques or cathedrals.
- L.B. French, The New York Times

The picture above was one a prospector claimed to have taken sometime between 1885 and 1888. It was widely circulated and became the image most associated with the phenomenon. But the picture is a hoax. The San Francisco Examiner sent a reporter to track down the mirage, but the reporter did not find the Silent City, he found that the prospector had actually bought the photograph from a British tourist some years earlier. He was passing the cloudy picture of Bristol, England off to people who took his tour - a tour to see the Silent City!

Even though the photograph has been debunked, belief in the Silent City remained stalwart throughout the early 20^th Century. Sightings have not been made in over a century.

© C Harris Lynn, 2009