This article describes a numerical study of the role played by two-dimensional turbulent fluctuations in microwave reflectometry—a radar technique for density measurements using the reflection of electromagnetic waves from a plasma cutoff. The results indicate that, if the amplitude of fluctuations is below a threshold which is set by the spectrum of poloidal wave numbers, the measured backward field appears to originate from a virtual location behind the reflecting layer, and to arise from the phase modulation of the probing wave, with an amplitude given by one-dimensional geometric optics. These results suggest a possible scheme for turbulence measurements in tokamaks, where the backward field is collected with a wide aperture antenna, and the virtual reflecting layer is imaged onto the plane of an array of detectors. Such a scheme should be capable of providing additional information on the nature of the short-scale turbulence observed in tokamaks, which still remains one of the unresolved issues in fusion research. ©1998 American Institute of Physics.