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Mystery Lab / Observation & interpretation

Compare one arm, its shadow and the Sun’s side

Inspect corresponding pose changes, then compare the front-mist display with the Sun behind and in front.

Observation & interpretation · two guided observations

What will we check in the misty figure?

A Brocken spectre is the large, unfamiliar-looking shadow of an observer cast into mist or cloud with the Sun behind. It is distinct from the coloured rings of a glory that may appear around it.

First lower and raise one arm of the invented figure and inspect its shadow. Then keep the figure and front mist fixed while comparing the Sun-behind and Sun-in-front arrangements.

① Inspect both the lowered-arm and raised-arm poses. ② Use both Sun arrangements and compare whether a shadow appears on the front mist.

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Continue with the story and its records

Explore how the difference you noticed connects with the surviving records of the historical story.

Read the Brocken spectre story
Open the source

Sources and scope

We consulted the Met Office’s optical-effects explanation, WMO’s 2017 International Cloud Atlas and US National Weather Service educational material. These provide definitions and general explanations, not three separate experiments testing our invented diagram.

  1. 01
    Optical effects: nature’s light show Met Office · Checked 2026-10-22
  2. 02
    Glory · International Cloud Atlas World Meteorological Organization · 2017 edition · Checked 2026-10-22
  3. 03
    Owlie’s Weird Weather! · Glory NOAA · National Weather Service · Checked 2026-10-22

The text, figures, shadows and light diagrams are original. No institutional photograph, video or observation image is reproduced. We use two poses with matching coordinates and simplified parallel light; we do not calculate droplet distances, mist movement or scattering, viewpoint-dependent impressions of size or a glory’s coloured rings.