And on and on it goes. Pareidolia never sleeps.
Synopsis: Couple cuts down tree branches. Couple sees semi-random pattern in branch. Couple says it looks like an angel. Couple gets written up in local paper. Article writer (or editor) wants a feel-good quote. Settles on:
“The more I look at it, the more I think it’s an angel,†Sherri said.
[...]
Like most people, the Conklins have had some rough moments in their lives.
But things have been better lately, and Sherri expects them to improve even more.
“I feel like I have a guardian angel now,†she said.
It’s unknown if she means that literally or not, so I’ll reserve judgment. I will note with some pleasure that a skeptical view was printed as well:
John Hott, site superintendent at Kickapoo State Park, said different natural factors could create such a design or image.
"It could be sap seeping into the pattern of the growth ring, or it could be environmental factors," he said.
… though it’s not really a skeptical comment; it didn’t say anything about people seeing random patterns and interpreting them according to their culture. Still, it’s better than the usual "neighbor says it looks like an angel too" type of thing.
So, as usual, post your best guesses in the comments. I do not see an angel at all. Honestly! At least the bird at the state fair looked like an angel. Can anyone see an angel here?
I see a mutated cyclops koala. Maybe the branch was from a eucalyptus tree.
Tip o’ the halo to Fark (as usual, NSFW stuff there).
June 24th, 2007 at 10:40 am
Frankly, I see a pastor (in the middle) standing up raising his arms shouting “Hallelujah!”… or maybe also a brain with large tumor on the right. But even more frankly, I don’t see anything.
June 24th, 2007 at 10:49 am
I see a lop eared rabbit with eating a marshmallow. Granted that’s just my interpritation. But I have no clue what kind of angel that could look like.
June 24th, 2007 at 10:51 am
Same here!! Before I read anything, I thought the woman was holding a bunny rabbit!!!
Perhaps it’s an angelic bunny?
June 24th, 2007 at 11:09 am
Yeah… it’s weird. It’s kinda like a little chubby elf with short arms, but it also has some sort of growth off the side of it’s head.
June 24th, 2007 at 11:15 am
it really looks like a lop eared bunny rabbit to me.
June 24th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Took me a while to see what she was talking about. The part that looks humanoid is not the entire brown part. It’s just the right side of it. I can see head with eyes, torso with nipples, arms, and legs. I also see what seem to be horns, as easily as I see the eyes. Maybe it’s a Satanic demon, and that’s why so many branches from the tree were falling and damaging her home — an arboreal assault from hell
Cool pareidolia, once you can see it.
June 24th, 2007 at 11:19 am
It reminds me of one of my wife’s baby quilts. A little bear with hands
outstretched.
June 24th, 2007 at 11:20 am
OK, now I see the mutated cyclops koala – i guess the angel was the white part? I still think my demon looks more realistic. Look at the muscles!
June 24th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Ohh yes, i see a chubby hobbit standing against a stone wall, he has his hands up, perhaps did something bad, and is about to get shot to rags by the army…
nope, not an angel… and certanly not a mutant one-eyed koala either…
June 24th, 2007 at 11:23 am
Angel? That’s no angel. That’s Gorbachev’s forehead!
June 24th, 2007 at 11:25 am
This interpretation rocks:
http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/5581/woodofsauronoq4.jpg
June 24th, 2007 at 11:25 am
It’s obviously the helmet of Samus Aran, star of the Metroid series of Nintendo games. No doubt a sign that space pirates will soon descend on our planet.
http://www.generationmp3.com/revoblog/images/jeux/Samus_Aran.jpg
June 24th, 2007 at 11:37 am
So if the angel is made of wood, and wood floats in water…then what else floats in water…lesseee here…ducks! So if both angels and ducks weigh the same as wood then Ducks must be angels!
June 24th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Front view of a cocker spaniel head.
June 24th, 2007 at 11:47 am
Sphinx moth! Oh, wait. Nevermind.
June 24th, 2007 at 11:58 am
Looks like a beaver to me. You can see his little paws at the bottom, big teeth, white underbelly, and a tail at the back, on the right side.
I haven’t seen anything remotely human yet, though Scott Panzer’s report of nipples intrigues me enough to keep trying….
June 24th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
The brown part looks a little like an outline of my head when I let my hair get long. So, I must be an angel. You all may now worship me.
June 24th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
At first I thought I saw the vague image of a puppy. After a few seconds, it very clearly became the image of a three-toed sloth.
June 24th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
My hubby and I both see a monkey. And boy is it mad they cut down it’s tree!
June 24th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
It looks more like a cross-section of some tree brain. Mmmm. Eucalyptus Grey Matter
June 24th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Kinda reminds me of Sally Forth…
June 24th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
It looks like a peruke to me…. or like her hair
June 24th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
I see a teddy bear, but also maybe George Washington’s head as depicted on a quarter dollar. Sadly, I see no nipples. I love pareidolia. Phil, keep them comming.
June 24th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
I see… pikachu…
June 24th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
oooo! It’s a supernova!
June 24th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Oh dear… It finally happened! It is probably because I have spent too much time reading skeptic forums, or reading too many BA blog entries, or too many JREF newsletters… I hate to say this, but…… I really – I mean REALLY don’t see ANYTHING in the wood pattern…..
June 24th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Okay, I’m a practicing Christian, and I’ve seen an angel, but… what is it about the fingers of her right hand and the scar in the bark at the bottom? That’s either (1) highly sexually suggestive, or (2) signs of a mother caring for the wound in the tree, or (3) just how someone would hold a piece of wood for a picture in local paper.
June 24th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
I’m sorry, but to me it just looks like a some discolored wood …..
June 24th, 2007 at 1:07 pm
The round center of the tree rings in the angel’s face, and the brown area is the angel’s long hair hanging down on both sides. The angel is also a cyclops, but she (he? it?) has pasted on a fake eye (to our left of the central eye) in order to try and look normal, like Leela once did in Fururama.
June 24th, 2007 at 1:10 pm
Looks like that mole on my back. Maybe it’s time to get it checked?
June 24th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Well, I see what looks like the top of an angel’s head, but it looks like someone plunged a pick-axe into it a couple of times.
Maybe, that’s why she’s an angel..
June 24th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
An angel? Where do they get an angel out of that? Looks more like some kind of mutated Pac Man coming down to earth to feed on the souls of the damned…
June 24th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
I see a fat beaver with a really messed up head. Or maybe Jabba the Hutt…
June 24th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
I see a beaver with his nose chopped off…
June 24th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Looks like a middle-aged blonde woman to me.
Oh, wait…
King Charles’s wig?
June 24th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
If anything, this looks like the Happy Human (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Human) to me…
June 24th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Looks more like big brown bushy hair.
Hermione Granger, perhaps? Someone call Laura Malory, and get it banned from the Ga school system, stat!
June 24th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
My first thought was that it looked a lot like a Thrint, Larry Niven’s ancient race of telepathic Galactic overlords, as painted by Wayne Douglas Barlowe:
http://www.larryniven.org/images/ringworldart/Thrint.jpg
But on second thought, I decided it just looked like Kenny from South Park.
June 24th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Heh.. my first thought was, hmm.. that’s that bear-thing, aussie stuff, wossname.. or that japanese cartoon thingy.. Imagine my surprise to see BA refreshing my memory and naming it koala (yes I know it’s not a bear but a marsupial
) and Dark Jaguar reminding me that my cartoon thingy is called Pikachu.
Looking at it again with eyes half-closed makes me think of Area 51 Greys… The magical ID designer (that’s NOT god, honest to G..oh wait!) perhaps?
June 24th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
And to think that nonsense warranted being written up in a newspaper.
Ugh.
June 24th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Hey! I see Megaman’s helmet!
Megaman is like a GOD to me.
June 24th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
It looks like the logo on the cover of Demon-Haunted World.
Mm, delicious irony.
June 24th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Hey guys, you’re not cynical enough! 1. Find piece of wood with a shape that you can persuade the simple-minded to see something religious in. 2. Get publicity in local paper & hope it gets picked up nationally. 3. List piece of wood on eBay & make enough to send the kids to college, take a world cruise, or whatever.
I’m off now to search the wood pile
June 24th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I looked at it again. Now it looks like a mind-numbingly drunk brontosaurus on its back, with a bottle of Chivas Regal on its belly.
June 24th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
I outlined lightly what I saw in the upper right portion of the sap region.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32576690@N00/616525788/
June 24th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Hi -
I’ll have to go with a gingerbread cookie wearing a woman’s wig.
Wildride
June 24th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
Reverend Big Dumb Chimp has an interesting instance of pareidolia on his blog.
It really is much better than this one.
June 24th, 2007 at 4:25 pm
A basset hound with very large, floppy ears, resting on its side. The nose is the brown spot just to the left of the center.
June 24th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
It looks like Obi-Wan in The Phantom Menace, when he was hanging down that shaft at the end during the battle with Darth Maul. Those two dark patches curving down on either side of the light patch are his arms, and the patch above the light patch is the top of his head.
June 24th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
I’m with Harold. Definitely Kenny.
Oh No! They’ve killed Kenny!
June 24th, 2007 at 5:41 pm
He he…humans are crazy.
June 24th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
I too saw a sloth but N. Johnson’s contribution has me wondering about that dark ring on the right side. Maybe that dog picture combined with this are a sign!
June 24th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
I see the mutated koala but to me it looks like it’s mooning the observer while hanging over a tree branch. That growth ring centre is just plain disturbing.
June 24th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
No, look closer, it’s Quark from Deep Space 9!
June 24th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
I can clearly see a hobo drinking an XXX bottle of moonshine. However, in the background there is also what appears to be a floating blob of spaghetti. I wonder what that is.
June 24th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Hmm, looks like the flying spagetti monster photographed slightly out of focus to me…
June 24th, 2007 at 6:56 pm
It’s a bow-legged north-bound Alaskan brown bear, as viewed from the south.
June 24th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
Not as convincing as this rendition of the FSM….
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap060822.html
June 24th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
I see a somewhat impressionistic depiction of a human form. Perhaps what it might have looked like had Gauguin painted Goatse.
Sorry, I’m a sick puppy, but that’s the first thing that popped into my head when I looked at the picture.
June 24th, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Wow, it looks like nothing. I’m guessing you’d have to look at it for a VERY long time to see anything. Or your perception is directly proportional to your faith in baloney.
June 24th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Looking at it again, I realize that that helpless angel was trapped in that tree, and has subsequently been cut up into many one inch thick slabs of wood. What cruelty…
June 24th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
The first thing I saw was the bunny rabbit from ‘Watership Down’, then I saw Mr. Burns as that ghostly figure when he was mistaken for an alien, (the white part in the middle), then I saw a bear hugging a toad stool, but THEN I read the article and realized that it’s an angel.
Yep, no doubt about it, that’s an angel from God. It’s perfectly obvious, if you have enough faith.
June 24th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
Christopher: Oh! it’s a cross section of an angel!
June 24th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Its Ultraman, come on.
June 24th, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Seriously, WTF?
Though the phalic outline in N. Johnson’s post is interesting… I’d like to see the woman’s take on that!
Oh, and ABR’s comment “Sphinx moth! Oh, wait. Nevermind.” had me laughing out loud, but probably because I remember that other thread.
June 24th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
It’s a Pokemon!
Sappy Angel, I choose you!
June 24th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
I see no angel
It looks nothing like the that tube station on the Northern line
So that is my latest move in MC, in honour of this nonsense
Angel.
Your move
June 24th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
No angel here either…
Even though I never lifted weights, I see a body builder (bird’s-eye-view), with his arms stretched, flexing his muscles. His little head would be that light circular area in the center. lol
I’m sure if you took something morbid, like cancerous human organ, and if you dissect it, you’d be able to find many shapes including supernatural angels.
June 24th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
I can’t see it…. Mind you, I’ve neve rbeen very good at these Magic Eye things.
PfA
June 24th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
Hallelujah! It’s Miss Piggy.
June 24th, 2007 at 10:20 pm
I give up. I’ve studied Sherri’s tresses for past seventeen minutes now, and I still can’t find a “Nina”!
I’ll try the creases of her palm.
June 24th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
It’s none other then the holy Dorok Emperor from the Nausicaa manga
http://mehveghibli.thibros.com/pics/nausicaa_manga_characters_14.gif
June 24th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
I give up. I’ve studied Sherri’s tresses for “the” past seventeen minutes now, and I still can’t find a “Ninaâ€!
I’ll try the creases of her palm.
(Missed that article of speech)
June 24th, 2007 at 10:37 pm
It looks to me like late Door’s singer Jim Morrison with his Alexander the Great hair cut.
June 24th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
Okay, I’ve stared at the picture long enough. I think the image looks like one of Sid’s (the Sloth from Ice Age) ancestors caught winking as he got frozen in the glacier.
June 24th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Dan – Well, I thought I saw a King Charles Spaniel, at first sight. And I don’t even like dogs. And then I thought I saw the Happy Human. Sort of.
June 24th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
That’s our most ominous 19th bonus hole a top Kilauea. The fairway grass looks a bit burned in summer, flanked by 2 tiny ponds at the base and another larger pool of Pele’s tears on the right of the green. The flag reads ‘umikumamaI’wa’ (19), but hard to decipher from afar. The rest is pahoehoe lava. And most golfers utter a sigh of ”a’a”! seeing your ball tumble down the slope.
June 24th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
Clearly that’s a base jumper. A muscular one at that.
June 24th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
I go with the sloth interpretation. Juxtapose it with this picture:
http://www.amazon-indians.org/matses/02-Matses-Indigenous-Sloth.jpg
The prosecution rests.
June 24th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
Angel? Nah. I see a bear. Bear’s are cooler than angels, too. And besides, it that tree WERE housing their guardian angel, then a: They’re not Xians, but more likely druids (who just killed their dryad), and b: Angels with wood. Hmmm …
June 24th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
I see Hannibal crossing the Alps!
Or maybe a proud mother holding her newborn hunk of wood.
June 24th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
It’s clearly Scrat. Very old tree, see?
June 25th, 2007 at 12:57 am
People often are such morons…or pretend to be. Anyways, silly story.
June 25th, 2007 at 3:06 am
To me, it’s either the space amoeba from “The Immunity Syndrome” or a head on view of Porthos having a bad hair day.
June 25th, 2007 at 3:57 am
I see one of the monsters from Metroid, the one that drops from the ceiling to hit you.
June 25th, 2007 at 4:07 am
WM Said- “It’s a bow-legged north-bound Alaskan brown bear, as viewed from the south.”
This cracked me up because the first thing I saw before I read the article was the butt end of a bull dog…
June 25th, 2007 at 4:35 am
I saw the rabbit first, too. In fact…
http://store.sluggy.com/bunbun-pin-large.gif
Hmmmmm.
June 25th, 2007 at 4:37 am
Wait a moment
I see something
Yes it is someone trying to make money out of the gullible.
June 25th, 2007 at 4:39 am
I saw a squirell. There are several squirells who live in the trees at my work, so I see them everyday, and that is why that image leaped out at me.
The more I look at the image, the less it looks like anything, and now I can’t even see the squireel image anymore.
What I want to know is, why did someone look at a piece of wood they had just cut?
June 25th, 2007 at 4:39 am
I thought it was a dog in one of those bite collars before I read the article.
June 25th, 2007 at 5:20 am
Looks like Mothman to me – - oh wait Mothman is mythical, so it MUST be an angel, right?
June 25th, 2007 at 6:25 am
I definitely see a beaver. He looks kind of mad too. Maybe he’s mad at Pareidolia.
June 25th, 2007 at 6:51 am
I see a cocker spaniel. Walking away from me.
So Angels look like dog butts?
June 25th, 2007 at 7:16 am
It’s funny. My very first impression was also of a sloth.
After reading the text, I do see the “angel”, but it looks more like a fairy. Either one with a small head, or (if you take the center as the head), a cycloptic fairy with a gigantic eye.
June 25th, 2007 at 7:23 am
Nope, it’s the purple TeleTubby walking onto the stage through a cloud of machine-made smoke, but doesn’t yet realize that the triangle has been knocked off his head.
June 25th, 2007 at 7:37 am
Looks like a badly made paper doll – the light area, that is. I have been to see (years ago) JESUS ON THE SCREEN DOOR in Pt Neches Tx. and I discovered “Buda on a floor tile” in a McDonalds in Beaumont
June 25th, 2007 at 8:02 am
Tree sloth?
June 25th, 2007 at 8:07 am
I see Bubs. http://www.hrwiki.org/images/5/5f/Bubs.png
June 25th, 2007 at 9:14 am
Oh my… I thought it was a croissant on a yellow dish!! 8-0
I didn’t noticed it was a slice of tree until I looked more carefully, after reading the whole post and read nothing about pareidolia on a croissant…
Admiteddly, I’m far more used to see croissants than angels. So I thought the brown stuff was a croissant and the yellowish stuff behind was the dish…
June 25th, 2007 at 10:27 am
Before I read anything, I saw a grizzly bear.
June 25th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
I think she’s just trying to sell off some woodcut portraits of Jim Morrison that she made in industrial arts class back in her hippie high school days.
Looks a lot more like Mr. Mojo Risin’ than it does an angel.
June 25th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
I see dead people.
June 25th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
It kinda reminds me of the “monster in the box” from the original The Outer Limits episode, Don’t open until doomsday.
http://www.homevideos.com/freezes-outerlimits/OL-DontOpenUntil9.jpeg
June 25th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
I really wonder what people are thinking when they come up with this stuff.
OOOO! Look it’s a message from God! In my cut down tree branch! I mean, I know he’s supposedly creator of the whole universe and all… but the best he can do for a sign is a barely discernable image in a slice of wood (or concrete stain, mineral deposits on a window, cheeto, tortilla, grilled cheese sandwich, take yer pick folks)? The all powerful, universe creating, paying attention to lowly old me deity apparently decided that “Hey, picture in a branch! Bomber idea!”. From this I can conclude only one thing. This particular God has smoked WAY too much weed.
Ya know, is asking to much for just one instance of 500 foot high letters of flame spelling out I AM GOD or some such? I mean that would be a sign we could all get behind right?
June 25th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
At first I saw someone’s hand flipping a coin. Then a goat looking right.
But I finally see it? The angel is the white part. Saruon’s eye is the halo, the robe goes to the bottom of the cut, and the bunny ears are the retracted wings. Kind of like this: http://carol.gimp.org/writing/images/parking-angel.png but with the top of the wings more exaggerated.
June 25th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
it’s def. a bear!
please, the white part in the middle is a badly drawn doll….
I dont see why things like this is suppost to be of newspaper value?
June 25th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Not knowing what an angel might look like I shall accept the opinion of any tree surgeon who cares to make a statement on this subject.
June 25th, 2007 at 4:58 pm
I see Joey Ramone.
June 25th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
The all powerful, universe creating, paying attention to lowly old me deity apparently decided that “Hey, picture in a branch! Bomber idea!â€. From this I can conclude only one thing. This particular God has smoked WAY too much weed.
ROFL I love that! It’s perfect!
June 25th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Rav, My parents wanted me to be a tree surgeon, but I can’t stand the sight of sap…
June 25th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
If I squint really hard, it looks like a Beholder (sorry for the D&D reference)–if a Beholder had two arms, was given to seriously working out and was striking one of those body-builder, two arms curving downwards with every muscle flexed kind of pose. Only if I squint hard, though; otherwise, it just looks like a blob.
June 26th, 2007 at 3:42 am
Christopher Sisk said at 12:41pm:
“It looks more like a cross-section of some tree brain. Mmmm. Eucalyptus Grey Matter”
Not surprising, as there is a Eucalyptus species called the “Ghost Gum”, and it is grey as well. ( I was going to say “Grey Ghost Gum”, but I think RR used that name first!).
But the idea of a cross section of something is appealing. I know, it reminds me of a cross section of a tree trunk or branch that has had an attack of some Angle Moth caterpillar.
Ivan.
June 26th, 2007 at 4:01 am
[after staring at the picture for 2 days]
…Hey….hey wait, I start to see something…. Yes! It’s a… it’s a…. well… no…it’s not…(sigh) oh, bugger. I still don’t see anything.
[goes back staring at the picture]
June 26th, 2007 at 7:10 am
Looks to me like a cross between a puppy and a camel.
June 26th, 2007 at 9:13 am
Troy’s got it right. That’s Jim Morrison… after turning into a vampire and being shot in the middle of his forehead…
Wonder what a psychologist would make of that!
June 26th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
“I was going to say I saw a duckie and a horsie, but I changed my mind”.
With apologies to the late Charles M. Schulz.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
My first reaction was “marmoset”. No particular reason, just that word came to me. I started seeing a mangled bunny or a floppy-eared dog with no nose, maybe a cocker-spaniel.
After Scott Panzer, I think I see the “angel”. It is a full-bodied angel, facing to the right. The dark circle on the right is the head, and there’s a lighter spot above it as the halo. The body in robes goes down, and the rest of the big brown stain going left over the middle is the wings. Deformed, droopy wings.
June 28th, 2007 at 11:05 am
I see a cyclops Jesus with an eclipsed sun behind him. Or, a really nifty piece of wood.