Fa"ta Mor*ga"na (?). [It.; -- so called because this phenomenon was looked upon as the work of a fairy (It. fata) of the name of Morgána. See Fairy.]
A kind of mirage by which distant objects appear inverted, distorted, displaced, or multiplied. It is noticed particularly at the Straits of Messina, between Calabria and Sicily.
© Webster 1913.