IN THE Dubai desert, not all is as it seems. In 2008, Irenaeus Herok was driving outside the city of Dubai, when a strange set of buildings suddenly loomed up in the sand ahead.
When the photographer arrived at the shimmering towers, they turned out to be fake. A large white board, roughly 15 metres high and 80 metres wide, had been painted like a movie set. āIt has this really weird effect when you drive past,ā Herok says. āIt comes out of nowhere in the middle of the desert and looks kind of real, but you donāt know what it is.ā
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Exploring further, Herok discovered half a dozen more of these massive painted boards, each spaced about a kilometre apart. They turned out to be the vestiges of failed plans for a theme park and residential zone in the area. The developers erected these structures to give investors a lifelike vision of what the scheme would look like, says Herok.
āWhen you drive around Dubai, itās easy to get lost because thereās just sand everywhere. You turn right, and thereās sand again,ā he says. āSo I think they put these sets here to show people how [the development] would be arranged.ā
But it didnāt work. When Herok returned eight years later, there was no sign of a construction site nor the sets. āLike a mirage, they seem to have never existed ā swallowed by the desert and the heat.ā
This article appeared in print under the headline āDesert mirageā
