These clever 18 optical illusions simply aren’t what they seem

You definitely know about the phenomenon of optical illusions: pictures that turn into something else when you squint, or images that have two meanings at once. However, optical illusion photos are another thing entirely. These are real-life photographs of optical illusions that require a second look! Some even go viral on the Internet. Do you remember the white and gold (or was it blue and black?) dress, or the pink and white / teal and grey Nike shoe? Debates raged, but it all comes down to a trick of the eye, lighting, or perspective. Can you figure out what these photographs are really showing you? Or will you be fooled by the illusion?

Or simply jam-packed apartment buildings from an unusual angle? Viewed straight up from the street level, this old residential building on Hong Kong island becomes a canyon of glass and concrete, jagged with balconies and window-mounted AC units. Lose yourself in the details of this optical illusion photo – just try not to lose your footing.

Or geological magic? The rising sun lights up the fiery sandstone walls of Utah’s Mule Canyon, a real-life optical illusion above these Anasazi ruins. Visitors have named the site House on Fire, and it’s easy to see why. These dwellings are estimated to be more than 800 years old. Take a look inside, and you’ll get a sense of the human history of the place: smoke stains on the roof tell the story of evenings in, long ago.

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Or a big, cold reason to turn your boat around? This stunning blue piece of Arctic ice has broken off a glacier and drifted down into the North Sea, off the coast of England to pose for this optical illusion photo. With up to 90 percent of an iceberg’s mass hidden underwater, it’s best to take a wide berth. One of the largest bergs ever reported was more than 31,000 square kilometres – that’s larger than Belgium!

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Or an amazing natural optical illusion phenomenon on ours? At 113 metres wide, Yellowstone’s Grand Prismatic Spring is the largest hot spring in America, piping nearly 95-degree water out of the earth at the clear blue centre and cooling it to about 55°C in those reddish-brown rivulets. The cooler the water, the greater the variety of light-reflecting bacteria that live there, creating a stunning rainbow effect explorer Ferdinand Hayden called “a privilege and a blessing” to behold.

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Or just a natural phenomenon in the super-clear water surrounding Mauritius Island? This eye-bending optical illusion photo is actually just sand being pushed off an underwater shelf in the Indian Ocean, called the Mascarene Plateau.

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Or coastal lake? This optical illusion photo of Lake Sørvágsvatn in the Faroe Islands (between Iceland and Norway) appears as though it sits hundreds of metres above the ocean. In reality, the lake only sits about 27 metres above the sea! A waterfall at one end tumbles dramatically into the ocean, but when capturing this amazing view from the right angle the lake seems like a natural infinity pool, hovering above the North Sea.

Or clever mural? At first glance, this person looks like he’s heading straight down the road towards a city of towering skyscrapers… until you notice that it’s nighttime at his destination! This is one of those perspective tricks that can really fool the eye.

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Or just a long one? The Cherry Grove Pier juts out 300 metres into the water off North Myrtle Beach in South Carolina, but this optical illusion photo makes it look like it goes on forever. The pier was built in the 1950s but was lengthened in 1999 after surviving Hurricane Floyd. Now, it’s a popular fishing and tourist attraction.

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Or just two zebras standing shoulder-to-shoulder? These stripy pals disappear into one another when they stand side-by-side – except for the extra legs. Did you know that zebras are thought to have black coats with white stripes, rather than the other way around? That’s because the black fur gets its colour from melanin, while the white fur is white because of an absence of melanin. Therefore, black is considered to be the zebra’s default colour. They also have black skin underneath their fur!