History Main / HollywoodMirage

* ''Anime/JewelpetMagicalChange'': In episode 33's "Jewelpet: Currently on the Run" segment has a thirsty Ruby in a desert running into mirages of not just an oasis, but of things like a store and a water park too. Then she sees Labra offering her water, at the price of being turned into one of her minions. [[spoiler:When Ruby decides to drink the water despite Labra's mind-control attached to it, she discovers Labra is a mirage... and then ''Ruby herself'' realizes she's a mirage as well.]]

But hark! One of the characters sees an oasis. Glittering [[WaterIsBlue blue water]], cool palm trees, a small carpet of grass growing around it, and in some cases [[BedlahBabe beckoning Bedlah Babes]]. They sprint to it and fill their mouths with handfuls of refreshing water... and then the scene fades, leaving the characters to spit out their mouthfuls of gritty sand.

* In the second ''Animation/PleasantGoatAndBigBigWolf'' movie, Lord Japper throws Weslie and Wolffy into the desert, where they try to find a pyramid described Mr. Slowy as having a special totem that can make them invincible. They come across several pyramids that they think are the one they're looking for, only for them to turn out to be mirages.

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]

[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* Players can run across mirages in ''Tabletopgame/{{Pathfinder}}'' that pose much more danger than simple false hope. Living Mirages are a type of gaseous ooze that can create mirages while remaining invisible, as well as drain all the moisture from the bodies of its victims.

But hark! One of the characters sees an oasis. Glittering [[WaterIsBlue blue water]], cool palm trees, a small carpet of grass growing around it, and in some cases girls in Arab garb. They sprint to it and fill their mouths with handfuls of refreshing water... and then the scene fades, leaving the characters to spit out their mouthfuls of gritty sand.

[[quoteright:300:[[VideoGame/Uncharted3DrakesDeception https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/uncharted3.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:300: Real mirages do not require groundskeepers.]]]]

[[quoteright:300:[[VideoGame/Uncharted3DrakesDeception https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/uncharted3.jpg]]]]

[[caption-width-right:300: [[note]]For reference: [[https://web.archive.org/web/20160823181456/http://www.vicgill.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/2671845245_9ebfd6be7c_b.jpg Real mirages[[/note]]]]]]

-->'''Dracula''': The limo hurts Dracula's butt!

[[caption-width-right:300: [[note]] For reference: [[https://web.archive.org/web/20160823181456/http://www.vicgill.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/2671845245_9ebfd6be7c_b.jpg Real mirages[[/note]]]]]]

-->-- '''WesternAnimation/BugsBunny''', ''WesternAnimation/SaharaHare''.

* ''Film/KangarooJack'', when out in the desert Charlie sees a mirage of a Jeep.

* In ''VideoGame/Uncharted3DrakesDeception'', when Nathan Drake is stranded in the desert after a plane crash, he sees an actual oasis complete with lush palm trees and other foliage that fades away into nothing when he approaches it. He also hallucinates proper about his long time mentor and friend Sully.

The characters are stumbling through a desert, for whatever reason. They're unprepared, dehydrated and starving, desperate, depressed, generally in a sorry way.

** In "Sahara Hare", Bugs thinks he spots an old car he can use to get away from Riffraff Sam, but it fades out as he climbs in and tries to start it up.

* A ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' short shows Daffy Duck in the Sahara desert seeing things including an oasis and an old car.

[[caption-width-right:300: [[note]] For reference: [[http://vicgill.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/2671845245_9ebfd6be7c_b.jpg Real mirages[[/note]]]]]]

* In Creator/RobertEHoward's "Literature/TheSlitheringShadow", Literature/ConanTheBarbarian is at first worried that what he sees, while dying in the desert, is just a mirage.

* One Pepsiman commercial features a man stranded in the desert, whom Pepsiman appears to. Only it's a cactus that the man believed was Pepsiman. The Pepsi can at the end of the commercial also disappears.

* Happens to Franchise/{{Tintin}} in "Cigars of the Pharaoh" and "Black Gold", and to the Thompson twins in "The Crab with the Golden Claws".

* ''[[Film/RoadTo Road to Morocco]]'' has a mirage of a drive-in, followed by singing mirage of Dorothy Lamour, who disappears when touched.

* Inversion in ''Film/TheMummy1999'', Hamunaptra is hidden by a mirage (which makes it look like an empty desert all the way to horizon) until the rising sun reveals it.

But hark! One of the characters sees an oasis. Bright, glittering [[WaterIsBlue blue water]], cool palm trees, in some cases girls in Arab garb. They sprint to it and fill their mouths with handfuls of refreshing water... and then the scene fades, leaving the characters to spit out their mouthfuls of gritty sand.

A RealLife mirage is simply an optical illusion wherein it appears that there is refracted sky which looks like water a distance ahead of you; this can happen in several climates (including temperate ones where one sometimes sees puddles of water on a warm blacktop road), but seeing water in the desert has a greater appeal. However, the term is also used for when someone has a hallucination, leading to this confusion.