11 real places that look like optical illusions

These breathtaking landmarks are not what they seem.

This scenic road in Norway looks like it just drops off into the sky. The bridge really just curves down, but when captured from the right angle it looks like a potentially dangerous optical illusion.

When these salt flats in Bolivia are covered in a thin layer of water, the surface becomes reflective and makes it appear as though any person or thing on them is simply floating.

Not all tourist attractions are quite so spectacular, here are some of the most overrated tourist attractions in the world.

No, that’s not Photoshop. These strange-looking clouds are actually real and they’re called lenticular clouds. These UFO-looking clouds form when moist air flows over a mountain creating standing waves on the mountains downwind side. If the temperature at the crest of the waves drops to the dew point, the moisture in the air condenses and forms lenticular clouds.

This optical illusion is a little hard to understand in a picture. Magnetic Hill is a gravity hill near Leh in Ladakh, India. Because of its surroundings, it appears to slope upward, but it actually slopes downward. There is also another theory that there is a strong magnetic force emanating from the hill that pulls vehicles towards it when they drive on the road. Thus, even though they are driving ‘uphill’ they don’t need to use the accelerator.

Here are some more optical illusions that will make your brain hurt.

It looks as though there is a waterfall underneath the Indian ocean off of this island, but that’s not the case. This optical illusion is actually just sand being pushed off of an underwater shelf called Mascarene Plateau.

The waterfall may be an optical illusion but these islands will really disappear in the next 80 years.

This bridge was built in Germany in 1860. It was built in a perfect half-circle so that when the light hits it in just the right place, the bridge appears to be a never-ending circle.

This natural optical illusion looks like a painting. These dead camelthorn trees remain standing due to the dry climate. When you capture the contrast between the claypan’s white floor, the dark trees, and the sun reflecting off of the sand dunes in the back it almost doesn’t look like a part of nature.

This natural optical illusion in Arizona is known as The Wave. The stripe patterns on the rock really throw off your depth perception, making it hard to determine the shape of the rocks.

This lake on the Faroe Islands in 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 and has a waterfall at the end that goes into the ocean but when captured from the right angle it looks magnificent.