Mirages

A mirage is an amazing thing that happens when light bends in a strange way. It can make you think you see water in the desert or on a hot road. But when you get closer, there is nothing there. Mirages are not imaginary, they are real things that your eyes can see.

How Mirages Happen

Mirages happen when hot air sits on top of cold air or the other way around. The different layers of air bend the light as it passes through them. This makes things look like they are in a different place. The sky can look like a pool of water on a hot road. Your brain thinks it sees water, but it is really just the bent sky.

Types of Mirages

There are two main kinds of mirages. A lower mirage appears below where the real thing is, like the sky on a hot road. An upper mirage appears above the real thing, like a ship that looks like it is floating in the air. Upper mirages happen more often in cold places near the ocean. Sailors have seen ships and cities in the sky for hundreds of years.

Fun Facts

• A mirage is not a hallucination and can be photographed with a camera.
• The word mirage comes from a French word meaning 'to look at'.
• Some scientists think mirages helped start old stories about sea monsters.

Did You Know?

A very strong upper mirage is called a Fata Morgana. It can make distant ships and cliffs look like castles floating in the sky.