A mirage is a naturally occurring optical phenomenon in which light rays are bent to produce a displaced image of distant objects or the sky. The word comes to English via the French mirage, from the Latin mirare, meaning "to look at, to wonder at". This is the same root as for "mirror" and "to admire".
In contrast to a hallucination, a mirage is a real optical phenomenon which can be captured on camera, since light rays actually are 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.
Mirages can be categorized as "inferior" (meaning lower), "superior" (meaning higher) and "Fata Morgana", one kind of superior mirage consisting of a series of unusually elaborate, vertically-stacked images, which form one rapidly-changing mirage.
More information about Mirage
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The uppermost inset frame shows an inferior mirage of the Farallon Islands. The second inset frame is the Farallon Islands with a green flash on the left-hand side. The two lower frames and the main frame all show superior mirages of the Farallon Islands. |
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| The cause of an inferior mirage (light curvature greatly exaggerated) |
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