Our modern world is full of simulations, from synthesized human voices to realistic security drills, representational art to CGI-filled blockbuster movies. Gathered below is a collection of images of things that are real, but not quite real—mockups, practice drills, lifelike works of art, simulators, puppets, models, prototypes, automatons, and more.
The Unreal World
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Read moreA scale model of a dinosaur and a shadow of another in front of La Sapienza University headquarters in Rome on April 10, 2015. The realistic reproductions of dinosaurs are part of the ‘Dinosaurs in the flesh, science and art bring to life the rulers of a lost world’ exhibition. #
Alessandro Bianchi / Reuters -
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Read moreVisitors view scale models of the Pyramids at Tobu World Square theme park on May 1, 2016, in Nikko, Japan. Tobu World Square contains over a hundred 1:25 scale models of famous buildings. #
Carl Court / Getty -
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Read moreMen dressed as 1812-era Russian and French soldiers re-enact a staged battle as a dummy soldier is blown up, near the Belarus village of Bryli, on November 24, 2012, to mark the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Berezina during Napoleon's army retreat from Russia. #
Sergei Grits / AP -
Read moreA replica of the Sphinx is seen through a door on a building, which is made by half of a replica of the Qinian Hall of the Temple of the Heaven and half of a western building, at a studio for film and television production on the outskirts of Shijiazhuang, Hebei province, China, on December 3, 2015. #
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Read moreProstheses are displayed at the stand of the British company Dorset Orthopaedic during the international trade show and world congress, OTWorld in Leipzig, Germany, on May 4, 2016. #
Jens Meyer / AP -
Read moreAn employee from Japan's robot venture Telenoid Planning chats with humanoid robot ‘Telenoid,’ shaped like a child and composed of minimal human features such as a head, a face, and upper body, developed by the Osaka University professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, at the annual International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo on December 3, 2015. The robot is designed for remote education and elderly health care. #
Yoshikazu Tsuno / AFP / Getty -
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Read moreActors play the part of casualties during a simulation of an attack by a suicide bomber inside a shopping center in Manchester, England, on May 10, 2016. Police in Greater Manchester joined forces with other agencies to carry out a simulated terror attack to test the emergency response to a major terror incident. #
Sean Hansford / MEN / AFP / Getty -
Read moreA controlled-burn demonstration in a constructed room blazes away, setting a mannequin standing in front of it on fire, during a media open house at the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms National Laboratory Center in Beltsville, Maryland, on June 18, 2013. #
Gary Cameron / Reuters -
Read moreA visitor takes a selfie beside a Geminoid HI-2 robot, which is made in likeness of its creator, the Japanese professor Hiroshi Ishiguro (not pictured), during the opening ceremony of the Congress of the Future event in Santiago, Chile, on January 19, 2016. #
Ivan Alvarado / Reuters -
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Read moreA label reading “Dead” is pictured attached to the leg of a dummy hanging from a London Underground train in rubble during the Exercise Unified Response (EUR) planned training exercise combining all aspects of British emergency services, in Dartford, England, on March 1, 2016. Britain's emergency services and search and rescues teams took part in a training exercise simulating a building collapse onto a London underground station. #
Justin Tallis / AFP / Getty -
Read moreFake human skulls are placed inside a room at the site for sky burials near the Larung valley in Sertar County, Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan province, China, on October 31, 2015. #
Damir Sagolj / Reuters -
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Read moreThree wax figures of German Chancellor Angela Merkel of her three legislative periods are displayed at the Madame Tussauds Wax Museum in Berlin, Germany, on November 16, 2015. #
Hannibal Hanschke / Reuters -
Read moreThe preparator Stefanie Griebsch fixes the bio-inspired robot ‘Orobot’ during a press preview exhibition called ‘Orobates - After 300 million years reanimated’ in the Phyletic Museum in Jena, Germany, on April 15, 2016. Scientists studied the movement processes of the 297-million-year-old prehistoric lizard Orobates pabsti and displayed the results in a special presentation. #
Jens Meyer / AP -
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Read moreThe product and graphic designer Ricky Ma, 42, poses with his life-size robot ‘Mark 1,’ modeled after a Hollywood star, in Hong Kong, China, on March 31, 2016. #
Bobby Yip / Reuters -
Read moreA life-size robot named “Mark 1,” pictured upright in Hong Kong on March 31, 2016. Ricky Ma, a robot enthusiast, spent a year-and-a half and more than HK$400,000 ($51,000) to create the robot to fulfill a childhood dream. The eyes of the robot include face-tracking and color-tracking functions. #
Bobby Yip / Reuters -
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Read moreThe camera rolls as actors dressed as historical Chinese soldiers act as though they have been hit by artillery, during filming of The Last Prince television series on location near Hengdian World Studios, near Hengdian, on July 24, 2015. #
Damir Sagolj / Reuters -
Read moreBritain's Prince Harry takes a closer look at a robotic mask during a tour of the Star Wars sets at Pinewood studios in Iver Heath, west of London, on April 19, 2016. Prince William and Prince Harry were touring Pinewood to visit the production workshops and meet the creative teams working behind the scenes on the Star Wars films. #
Adrian Dennis / Reuters -
Read moreA car driving at 70 kph hits a dummy on a scooter in Le Mans, France, on October 15, 2015, during a crash test organized to raise awareness among high school students of the risks of road accidents. #
Jean-Francois Monier / AFP / Getty -
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Read moreFrench firemen wearing chemical protective suits take part in a mock chemical attack exercise at the Geoffroy Guichard Stadium in Saint-Etienne, France, on April 4, 2016, in preparation of security measures for the UEFA 2016 European Championship. #
Robert Pratta / Reuters -
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Read moreColombian astronaut Diego Urbina tests the Gandolfi 2 spacesuit next to the Yemo robot, during the MOONWALK project's first Mars mission simulation in the southwestern Spanish town of Minas de Riotinto, Huelva province, on April 22, 2016. The goal of project MOONWALK is to develop and test technologies and training procedures for future human missions to the moon and Mars. #
Jorge Guerrero / AFP / Getty -
Read moreA dummy sits at a table with typewriters at the ‘Bunker-Museum’ in Rennsteighoehe, near the eastern city of Ilmenau, Germany, on October 12, 2013. The museum is a former East German bunker built in the 1970s to shelter the district's command unit in an emergency. #
Ina Fassbender / Reuters -
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Read moreA Malian soldier carries mock weaponry for training during the visit of German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen (unseen) to the EUTM military training mission in Koulikoro, Mali, on April 6, 2016. #
POOL New / Reuters -
Read moreShi'ite fighters, fighting along forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, hold up a decoy mannequin head at a position on the front line, near the Sayyede Zinab area in Damascus on November 22, 2013. #
Alaa Al-Marjani / Reuters -
Read moreA man helps to erect an inflatable doll depicting late President Hugo Chavez during a rally of PDVSA workers with President Nicolas Maduro (unseen) outside the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, on January 12, 2016. #
Juan Barreto / AFP / Getty -
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