planetdan

Monday, July 25, 2005 :::

Pareidolia

Seeing the Virgin Mary in grilled cheese sandwiches and satan in the smoke of the Twin Towers is incredibly lame, in my opinion. People see faces in everything: the devil's face in Canadian money, jesus in outer space, and there's twelvity billion more examples. But why does it always gotta be religious? It's a natural human tendency - hardwired into us at birth - to seek out familiar patterns, especially faces. Although I admit that seeing these creepy fireworks or an ominous hovering baby face over your house might be a little disconcerting:

There was even a tiny chocolate dancer stain on my very own t-shirt the other day when I got careless with some dessert served by K-mack. Could have been jesus, I guess.

::: posted by dan at 8:18 PM :: [ link ] :: (12) comments

Comments are Closed On this Post

12 previous comments:

Holy crap! Abe Vigoda in space? There IS a god!

But seriously -- somebody take pity on the slow kid and explain what I'm looking at with the cloud photo. I've been staring at it for 15 minutes now. I can see a pair of lumpy buttocks if I squint, but a baby face?

By

S&J, at 11:30 PM

it's like the face would be looking down at the houses below it. Follow the light area that runs through the picture, it's like the edge of the face.

By

jay, at 12:13 AM

Oh, ok. NOW I see the baby's face - it's a profile!

But I don't get what the firecrackers on the right are really supposed to be.
The first face is pretty impressive, but: firecrackers that look like stickfigures, with 3 arms and lots of legs? I have to be missing something, right?

By

alivicwil, at 1:58 AM

At first glance I hought the fireworks on the left were from the 4th of July and it was just another picture of you with a sparkler in your mouth. Creepy.

By

Kristina, at 9:00 AM

Just goes to show that if you (a) smoke enough pot, (b) have a really vivid imagination, (c) huff enough gold glitter paint, or (d) have too much time to sit around hunting for stuff, you can see anything in everything. When one embarks on a witch hunt, one usually finds a witch or creates one to suit needs. If you're on a Jesus or Devil hunt.....well, you get it.

By

Michelle, at 12:09 PM

there was an episode of bullshit on about this very same thing last night!

By

duane, at 1:31 PM

I'm with alivicwil. Totally lost on the second firecracker picture...

By

lvd, at 2:33 PM

That second fireworks picture is a big furious dragon beast with fire blazing from its nostrils and talon claws that could rip the innards out of god himself. Can't you see it?

Kidding. At first glance last night it looked like two ghostly figures pointing (to the left) with tenticles for legs, but this morning, not so much. Oh well.

I can still see the big floating baby face pretty clearly, though.

By

dan, at 2:39 PM

Yeah, I agree, those are ridiculous, but THIS is SERIOUSLY Bjork in the parking lot of our grocery store: http://flickr.com/photos/thejacksons/8016936/ It's like that bright light is in the center of her forehead and half of her face (with arched eyebrow) goes all along the right edge of the photo. Cause, you know, I'm not CRAZY.

By

sparky, at 3:29 PM

Are the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles gods? I've got a green peanut M and M that looks like Leonardo to me.

By

mynn, at 2:00 PM

Hmm, the left firworks picture looks as if there are two asians kissing. Its in the actual firery part of the firework. I thats that what the picture was about, until I saw the smoke cloud. Neat, eh?

By

Brad, at 2:46 AM

There is no way this way of seeing is lame!

Consider the amazing art that it yields:

Abstract Extractionism

Scribblism

Secret of the Sages

By

ismael, at 11:01 PM

< Back to Blog