That’s the psych term for seeing patterns (usually faces) in random patterns. Like, say, the “face” on Mars, or Lenin in a shower curtain, or, of course, the mother of all faces: the Virgin Mary in a stain on an underpass.
People tend to see what they wish to see, so of course any vaguely longish oval with a smear around it looks like Jesus. Scale is not important; you can see Mary in a grilled cheese sandwich, or in a bank window (scroll down that page to see it).
Some people see Jesus in the Eagle Nebula, which is hard to beat for scale. Still for terrestrial terms, this new one ain’t so bad.
It’s brought to you courtesy of Google maps, it’s two miles wide and four long, and it’s in Peru. I’ll admit, it does look like a face, but unless Jesus bears an uncanny resemblance to Gandalf (or perhaps Confucius), I’m guessing that some people are seeing a wee bit too much into this. Of course, when you see something like this:
… maybe Gandalf isn’t such a bad guy to have around.
July 20th, 2005 at 11:39 pm
Wow, the Fomalhaut/Sauron eye image is absolutely stunning. Big thanks for showing it – I’d never seen it until now. Absolutely incredible. Truly makes you contemplate how vast this all is.
July 21st, 2005 at 5:24 am
Wow…loved this article. You figure if it was Jesus, he’d be a little less vague about what he looked like and where he showed up.
July 21st, 2005 at 6:09 am
Nah, that’s obviously Slartibartfast!
July 21st, 2005 at 8:03 am
Are there still glaciers in Peru, then?
July 21st, 2005 at 9:25 am
Great stuff.. been visiting your site on and off for years now, but only just realised that you’ve started a blog as well.
I just finished reading your treatise on astrological bunkum and loved it! Began wondering — are you a religious guy? Or perhaps “religious” is too strong a word.. let’s rephrase that: do you believe in God/a higher power/whatever? I’m undecided but definitely leaning toward the doubters.
Some people, including some scientists, simply have two different “compartments” in their heads: one for scientific thinking and the other for “faith-based” thinking. Which is why I thought I’d ask you what your approach is.
July 21st, 2005 at 4:25 pm
Plenty of glaciers in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile. The Andes top out at well over 23,000 feet, with many peaks over 20,000′. Even though some are close to the equator, the conditions are fine for glacier formation.
Re the face in what appears to be a talus field, it’s a stretch to me. Give it a few more years of erosion, landslides, and general weathering, and whatever it is (if anything) will be gone.
July 21st, 2005 at 6:45 pm
It’s not Jesus, it’s Slartibartfast! Apparently at the point along the Probability Axis that we currently occupy (at which the Earth has not yet been destroyed to make way for a new hyperspace bypass) Slartibartfast won an award for Peru rather than Norway.
Actually, it king of does look like the Face of God as seen in Monty Python’s Holy Grail.
July 22nd, 2005 at 9:02 am
Wait, wasn’t there a coment saying this was man-made? The author must have deleted it. Oh well; I couldn’t find any info on that, and I really doubt anything like this would be done artificially; it would look better, for one thing!
July 23rd, 2005 at 12:57 am
In Mexico in the ’80′s on a whitewashed wall a face with a stunning resemblance to jesus began to appear. After a while with the usual commotion following these things, it turned out that the face was actually a poster announcing a Willie Nelson concert. The poster had been painted over and when the paint began to fade Willies face started shinning through.
I know this is not the same as pareidolia because this was an actual face being seen, but I still like the story.
I’ve read this story in a Willie Nelson autobiography and the only other reference to this incident I’ve been able to find was on an obscure website about cargo cults. So this might be an urban myth, but again…. I still like the story
July 23rd, 2005 at 6:53 am
About Bad Astronomy
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He's written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic and fights the abuse of science, but his true love is praising the wonders of real science.The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking, movie reviews, and all that) can be found here.
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