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If you mean naturally occurring illusions we usually say in the desert or other hot places. What happens in those cases is that the Earth's heat (which it gained from the Sun) is warming up the air closest to the ground. As in the case of most materials this heating causes the air to expand. So it becomes lighter or less dense.

It is the "less dense" that matters here because light travels in different paths when crossing from colder air into hotter air.

This behaviour of the light rays gives the appearance of an oasis or lake in the distance, but what you are really seeing floating is an upside-down picture of part of the ground in the distance, thus suggesting that it is water which is reflecting.

On a very hot day when you are travelling a very hot road where the ground rises and falls you can see what appears to be water on the road surface. Again this is due to hotter deflecting the light rays so that you see a reflection of part of the road above the real road.

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