Ocean Ripple Optical Illusion

I received this peculiar photo back in January, which was sent to me by one of our fans. With your help, together we can solve the mystery behind it. What is so strange about it, you might ask. Well, some of you may see it as an ordinary photo, of what seems to be a simple column wall, surrounded by rippling water floating behind it. But many may see the columns differently. Some of my colleagues argued that the columns are themselves immersed in water, and that lower part of the column-wall is actually just a reflection on a fluid surface. What is it then? Few of you may even guess that the reflection is in fact part of the wall that can be seen through water surface. However, this solution is unacceptable for many reasons, but just to name one – simple physics shows us that water bends light, so if we were seeing what is below the surface, it would be bent in a way similar to this one.  Lets discuss this!