Mirages in FS?

I've been flying a tour through eastern Europe and the Middle East for the past few weeks, with no particular plan other than to visit places I haven't been before. I haven't had much time to fly, so it's been slow going.

This afternoon I left Bina (UBBB), in the Republic of Georgia, and headed southeast over the Caspian Sea, across the southwest tip of Turkmenistan, and out over the mountains and deserts of northern Iran. My destination is Karachi, Pakistan, from where I intend to start a tour of the Himalaya Mountains, from end to end.

Flying at FL360 in my Lear Jet, I had crossed over the northern-most chain of mountains in Iran, and continued southeast out over a desert plateau.

Off to the south, I started seeing a large body of water. In the distance, it looks like a lake, that rippled, reflective, turquoise color of FS09 lakes, with a convoluted shoreline, and a large river entering (or exiting) the lake to the north.

I zoomed in and out on the GPS; there should not be a lake here. I checked the map; no large bodies of water for hundreds of miles in every direction-- the Caspian is hundreds of miles behind me to the north, and the Persian Gulf is still several hundred miles away to the southwest.

So I altered my course, and flew toward the lake and things got really weird-- as I got closer to the lake it began to disappear! I could still see the lake in the distance, but where it's closer, the color suddenly turned to sandy brown. When I turned to approach a closer patch of blue, as I drew near, it turned to sand! 😳

Thinking maybe it was low lying clouds (although that WASN"T what it looked like) I changed the weather to "Clear." The lake was still visible in the distance, but turned to sand close up. WEIRD!!

So I gave up chasing mirages, and resumed my flight towards Karachi. Now I have ANOTHER lake off to the east-- where there is no lake on the map. 😕

In case any of you want to investigate this, I recorded my location when I SHOULD have been over the lake, as 35 degrees 24.4' north, 56 degrees 05.8' east.

Good luck. 😉

Ed