Mirage
Mirage
!Various kinds of mirages in one location taken over the course of six minutes, not shown in chronological order.
Mirage
In contrast to a hallucination, a mirage is a real optical phenomenon that can be captured on camera, since light rays are actually refracted to form the false image at the observer's location. What the image appears to represent, however, is determined by the interpretive faculties of the human mind. For example, inferior images on land are very easily mistaken for the reflections from a small body of water.
Inferior mirage
!A schematic of an inferior mirage, showing a) the unrefracted [line of sight, b) the refracted line of sight and c) the apparent position of the refracted image.](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/08/Mirage-diagram.svg/500px-Mirage-diagram.svg.png)
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