THE WAY IT WENT DOWN: FATA MORGANA (Patreon)

A Fata Morgana (Italian: [ˌfata morˈɡaːna]) is a complex form of superior mirage visible in a narrow band right above the horizon.

I tell my antarctic ghost story now, at the end of my career, when I'm drunk, or regaling some youngster with strange tales of my past. The kids in photography today are like Buck Rogers. Point, shoot, consider, edit, all on the same doohickey. But I am old, and digital didn't enter my lexicon until I was staring down retirement. 

My antarctic ghost story goes like this:

The retrospective was for National Geographic, back when it was a real magazine, you understand, not some internet thing, and the money was significant. I had made my money up until that point photographing both poles. The animals, the people, the outposts. I was good at it. That cold, dark world said "home" to me.

My childhood in Cambridge Bay had paid off dividends, as did my dad's doting nature. First Leica at 12. Every attachment and film stock I could imagine from them, and endless encouragement. He ran the Distant Early Warning radar station there, back when we lived in the arctic, and he had to do what he could to keep me occupied. I grew up in the white. I knew what it was to live, or to freeze, in the arctic (and by transitive property, the antarctic). Hence, the job. It was, as they say, "right up my alley".

Two weeks at McMurdo station waiting for the pilot and the guide, and the two scientists. It was very different from when I was last there. Expanded. Almost like a self contained little town, really, and it reminded me of DEW Cambridge Bay, a bit, and made me reminiscent of my childhood. I drank, got fat, and packed.

Then the Eurocopter AS350B2 on the first clear day. We were flying to multiple abandoned sites, trying to photograph crashes, abandoned outposts, old flags and whatever might be found left behind from basecamps dating back to the 1955. But the crown jewel was  the South Pole... in the hopes we could find some remnants of the British Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition there.

First we flew and photographed the wreck of the Wren near Mount Erebus, and after some decent pics of weather-dead landing gear and wing remnants from that doomed, 1959 flight, we were off to the Beardmore Glacier base and the French team base, to refuel. We spent almost ten days there due to weather.

Then a refuel at Byrd Station. You could tell it was winding down there. Hollow eyed crews were loading up palettes for one of the heavy lifters which would take them out, and the plan was to shutter it no later than 2006. It was here I met Bret McGovern, a US Navy lieutenant, who had just arrived, and was a bit of a hand on scuttlebutt and locations out in the snow. One night of drinking and stories was enough to convince me we needed Bret, and since he was killing time until his return to the world with no assignments, it was easy to co-opt him for a few days.

Two down days at Byrd Station. Then a 210 mile jaunt to the South Pole and a mess of flags, cast off, half-buried fuel bins, and some ancient, wind-trashed wood.  Lots of white. Lots of wind. Weather that made even me cold. Bret took me to the bin dump; a natural depression filled with a jumble of corroded fuel containers, cast off like some giant's collection, and that made for some good photography. 

It was August 21, when we saw it. The sun hovered in a line at the edge of the world in a perpetual twilight. That's when the black mountains appeared on the horizon; or, more to the point, above the horizon. Angry black teeth that seemed to float above the snow, like flat, black pyramids where none could be. A wall of jagged black. The geophysicist laughed and said, "those things would have to two miles tall, at least..." but he didn't take it seriously, chalking it up to an optical illusion. The photos I took there, with the sun behind and below those black peaks...they were the best photos I had ever taken of...anything.

I snapped over two hundred images of them, while the team watched, confounded and filled with wonder. The pilot too dismissed it as a Fata Morgana, a common optical illusion seen on the oceans, but I was certain we were seeing something. Bret clapped and laughed and said, "would you look at that!" "That shot is going to make your career, Dave!"

A quiet two days on the ground, and then Bret shook my hand and helped me load my gear up, and then we were on our way back to Byrd Station. I was certain I got something great on film. Something amazing, really. Maybe even a career maker.

I was eager to get back to McMurdo and a darkroom. You see, in those dim, dark days, kids, you had to wait to see what you got. Especially in the white world of the antarctic.

When we landed back at McMurdo, I was filled with some huge ideas. I was certain great things were coming. 

Then I opened my camera bag. It was empty except for a bunch of MRE bags. I had nothing. Not my camera. Not one single image from that undertaking left in my possession. I got on the radio to Byrd Station. What the hell? Did they mix up my bags? Put Bret McGovern on the line, I demanded.  

"Byrd Base here, we had no one by that name on base," the crackling voice came back.

And you know what? When I checked with McMurdo, there was no US Navy Lieutenant named Bret McGovern on the manifest. No one named Bret McGovern had ever been to Antarctica, according to the US.

Well, there it is. That's my antarctic ghost story. 

Drink up, kids.