Tree pareidolia in Goshen, NH
Greg says:
It's a Flickr set of some trees in my backyard.LinkIt had just rained, the trees were wet, and then from the couch, I saw a face. It was so vivid. Who was it?
I was laying down, and the face was only exactly visible from my spot.
The pics are unaltered.
the latest
latest episodes
I'll go to erowid.org for my trip reports, thanks.
How this might have played out in, say, 1985: "Oh, hey, that sort of looks like a face. Huh." [goes back to taking a nap]
How it plays out in 2008: "Holy crap, I have to take some pictures of that, create a Flickr set, and hopefully get on BoingBoing so thousands of people can see it and go, "oh, hey, that sort of looks like a face" and then go back to taking a nap.
I see G.W.Tree, with bleeding eyes.
Goshen, NH - "a good place to nap"
Really though, it is.
There's a birch tree on a relative's property with markings on the bark that look exactly like Bob Marley's face. As in identical to the picture from his Wikipedia article.
He's getting a little worse for wear the last couple of years, though. Kind of creepy.
Macaulay Culkin
I have Asperger's, and while I do have mild synaesthesia, pareidolia I don't do well.
Spoiler, please?
Is this going to kick off a trend of pictures that show food, clouds, and fauna that vaguely resemble things?
I can't really see the face, but then again I usually can't see the the pictures in those "magic eye" illustrations either. It's all so frustrating.
Definitely a Dryad. A young one, perhaps no more than a thousand years old.
One should beware: they do not like to be photographed. Your life may be in grave danger. You can prevent any harm to yourself by propitiating the spirit with an offering. But, by Zeus, do not show this image to anyone else!
There's a skull-like face in the exact center of the picture.
The face in the tree seems to be saying 'get a job'.
Eddie Munster?
barn owl wearing a halloween mask
God is in the rain, Satan is in the trees.
Acid's fun, innit?
I'm just happy to have learned a new word today :)
Looks like The Punisher.
Bad haircut and too much mascara.
My god! Andy Boy is alive!
Looks like The Punisher.
Viral campaign, anyone?
Same as #3, except I saw running black eyeliner.
Go hike Mt. Monadnock, then take a nap. And use a better camera next time, too.
Looks like Hunter S. Thompson. He wants his shrooms back.
wrst bngbng pst vr.
WHEN YOU SEE IT YOU WILL S**T BRICKS
too much mascara
Is that possible?
Actually, this post has been brought to you by the National Pareidolia Awareness Foundation -- increasing awareness solely of the meaning of the word "pareidolia" for over fourteen years.
Now now... It is the severed head of Heath Ledger as The Joker. Really!!
It's a streetlight!
That's a grilled cheese sandwich tacked onto the tree, and the sandwich has a face on it. I know of a casino that will pay $28,000 for it.
#27 - too soon, too soon.
Hrum, Hoom! Let's not be hasty. Perhaps Merry and Pippin are around.
It looked like the head of a young 1850's child with collar, full cheeks and vacant black eyes.
Or a tree.
I love these things.
My primate brain is always looking for faces.
A favorite is the "demon" face that showed up in the backdrop of the candidate debate between Bill Bradley and Al Gore. That one sure got people riled up!
Of course, that thing that shows up on the front of Dick Cheney's head always gives me a fright...
It's Vincent Furnier.
>>My primate brain is always looking for faces.
I swear I first read that as "My primate brain is always looking for feces."
Oh my God! It's the ghost of Ray Walston! He obviously wants "My Favorite Martian" back on the air.
Why did this get posted? picture of a tree with a link that no work...
Are we looking at the spot on that tree, or some face that is made up of the leaves and branches? Can someone outline what we're supposed to be looking at?
It's the Shaggy D.A. BARK!! BARK!!
The link works for me.
Mark's nefarious plan to test the pattern recognition skills of BB readers seems to be working.
This discussion is now about how this discussion has more comments than the other story about the e-passport cloning.
With just a tad more image compression this guy should be able to start posting Bigfoot photos.
It's French Symbolist poet, Charles Baudelaire!
La nature est un temple où de vivants piliers
Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles
L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles
Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers.
Nature is a temple where living pillars
Let escape sometimes confused words;
Man traverses it through forests of symbols
That observe him with familiar glances.
I tried to post the original French but was told my "text is wrong". The text is right.
Oops! forgot to type in the Captcha. Never mind!
http://www.doctorhugo.org/synaesthesia/baudelaire.html
Batman!
It's the guy from the Scream painting. He's taking a cigarette break.
Or could it be Jack Skellington? Is that tree the entrance to Halloween Town?
Don't believe me?
Take a gander at his mug on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Baudelaire
Dali's term for viewing and creating these images, paranoiac-critical method.
I don't see anything.
John McEnroe?
Closing your left eye, the face becomes a little more apparent, while closing your right eye it seems to fade and be not-as-noticeable.
It's like those fruit-forming-faces study they did.
The left side of the brain (which controls the right side of the body) is programmed to readily identify faces. This trait thought to be developed as humans evolved into more and more social creatures.
The right side of the brain recognizes the elements that make up the photo or face, so it becomes less obvious.
Hmm, I hope I didn't get those mixed up. Anyway...
We are programmed to find faces in everything we look at, no surprise we all see one there.
@51 TX_ROOK
Unfortunately, friend, you did get them backwards. There is some evidence that the right side of the brain is more sensitive to faces than the left side. Although the evidence isn't overwhelming, there are some hints from neuroimaging, brain injuries, and neurological/behavioral methods that hint at a right-hemisphere advantage for faces.
Note it isn't the left eye per se, but the left visual field, because fibers from each eye bifurcate at the optic chiasm and go to both sides of the brain (in everyone but albinos!)
Clearly, Keith Richards.
Anyone can plainly see that it is Alice Cooper.
Hy Bng Bng, nt mch gng n tdy? f y r gng t pst ths, why nt th tns f crp lk t, cm n gys stp by fr gd stff, y hv bttr thngs t snd t t th wrld... hp.
A-Tom, your last check bounced
How about this tree with cat eyes?
Praise the lord! It's Jebus!
I bid $500 for the tree.
This is really not up to Boing Boing par. Or should we all get a sack of potatoes and see if one of them looks like a famous person from history.
It's obviously Gerard Way
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10847303@N07/979963789/
cool shot. check out this one in my neighborhood:
http://thebassguy.com/mrtree1_w.jpg
natural phenom as far as I can tell.
it's 'mr. tree!'
thebassguy
www.mchlchnmgs.cm
thebassguy,
Only on topic blog links, please.
Okay, well I'll play then:
Here's a tree with a face on it I found in the neighborhood known Victorian Flatbush in Brooklyn:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackszwergold/2223714628/
And here's a tree that reclaimed and devoured a "No Parking" sign in Jersey City:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jackszwergold/2234112768/
Dewynken: "Anyone can plainly see that it is Alice Cooper."
I was trying all day to figure it out.... Jimmy Carter? Ozzy - mmmm, no.... Pat Buchanan? hmmm, nah. Mr. Roeper? heh, nope.
but you nailed it sir.
Alice Cooper is exactly who I see.
its jason from halloween (i think), better start running
I instantly saw the face, the chest down to the belt (plaid shirt I think) and the left forearm.
It actually looks like someone reflected in the windowpane.
Oh my god. It's Rumsfeld.
Of course it's Bob Dobbs.
It looks like either an owl or a pattern of wet lichen on the tree.
I also see Alice Cooper. Or The Crow.
The real mystery here is why there is no lol-caption.
"OMG Face Tree is watching me nap!"
It's a Frank Gorshen head shot circa 1967.
It's clearly a Dryad.
You ninnies!
It's Beetlejuice! :D
Vladimir Putin !
"I was laying down"
you were lying down. unless you were laying down the pipe.
Duh! as any believer would know it is the FSM!
its Alistair Sim
Sure it is not a photo reflected in intervening glass? From say a bookcase or other shelf near the couch?
Good foto, I've never seen such an illusion captured on film.
It looks to me like a Soviet-style portrait pose, although I think "soviet-style" really means old-fashioned.
Wait! It looks like an author's foto from a dust jacket. Yeah, that's it...a leftward looking face...definitely male.
Geez i can even make out a shirt collar and tie...
sure there's no reflection on intervening glass/
does somebody smell torillas?