I know a zillion other people have blogged about this, but c’mon, none of them used this title. And it’s a good one.
At a wake for Pope John Paul II on the second anniversary of his death, a bonfire took on the shape of the ex-pontiff:
I am something of an expert at pareidolia, and I’m here to tell you, that’s a pretty good one. A Polish priest, who knew JPII, even said it was him.
Now, I will be the first one to point out that seeing patterns in random shapes is just a trick of the brain, and has no meaning. But a lot of folks think it does have meaning. So what does it say when you see a man who presumably went to heaven when he died… and he’s covered in flames? It says to me you can’t pick and choose what has meaning and what doesn’t. It either all does — Jesus really is in an eggplant, and wood grain, and an oil stain in the basement — or it doesn’t.
I’m going with doesn’t.
Tip o’ the mitre to the many many BABloggees who sent me this!
October 17th, 2007 at 10:44 am
It looks more like John Travolta to me: http://www.displacedaussie.net/2007/10/staying-alive/
October 17th, 2007 at 10:46 am
I don’t have the original image (does anyone?) but this sure looks doctored to me. Is there any evidence that is has not been ’shopped?
October 17th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Yes, it’s a good one if you already seen the pope take that stance. To some it might look like a girl with a kimono.
October 17th, 2007 at 11:11 am
Hmmm, it looks more like Obi Wan Kenobi to me. “Use the Force, Phil!”
October 17th, 2007 at 11:22 am
I know Glenn Beck isn’t popular around here, but I was pleased to see that he made fun of this and other pareidolia on CNN this week. Just goes to show not all theists buy into this sort of nonsense.
October 17th, 2007 at 11:32 am
The comments on that article are also worth reading… a good, healthy dose of British common sense and wit, I’m happy to note
October 17th, 2007 at 11:33 am
INSIDE EDITION showed the picture to photo expert, Misty Rice at the New York Institute of Photography. She says, “I think it’s an altered photograph to stir some questions, curiosity, maybe inspiration.â€
i agree. Have you ever seen flames look anything like this. Could you picture flames forming like this? =PHOTOSHOP!!! Natural pareidolia like all of nature flows in perfect taoistic flow lines that no artist can duplicate. (Art is a covenant between God and the artist , and the less to do with the artist the better- Andre Gide). This type of imagery gives pareidolia a bad name.
October 17th, 2007 at 11:47 am
I saw James Randi in my sandwich once. As I remember, it was quite tasty.
(It was a turkey and swiss melt)
October 17th, 2007 at 11:48 am
But, the Lord did appear as a burning bush… it’s hard to argue against symbolism that can be re-interpreted to fit your viewpoint. Given the number of paradoxes and seeming contradictions in the Bible…
October 17th, 2007 at 11:59 am
If this is a fake, whoever made it should be ashamed of themselves. An amorphous blob that vaguely resembles the silhouette of the pope in one particular pose isn’t exactly spine-chilling. It’s just lame.
October 17th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
If I had any kind of musical talent (I don’t; or rather, I can play the tin whistle badly) I’d now feel compelled to start a band called Jesus is an Eggplant.
October 17th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Is suggesting Arthur Brown too much?
.
October 17th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
I thought it was one of the Easter Island Koala Bears.
October 17th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Ibrahim sez:
I saw James Randi in my sandwich once.
A regret - maybe my greatest regret - was missing a dinner party with Randi. (I was living in Albuquerque at the time; Ken Frazier was a friend.)
I’m told that Randi imbibed of the wine and got all “Lemme show you how that bastard Gellar does it.”
Some silverware was sacrificed to the cause.
.
October 17th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
Re: Jesus in the eggplant etc.
Actually, given that words must eventually be defined by how they are used as opposed to what where they originated, the word Jesus will eventually come to mean “Iconic image that Christians see in eggplants”. Ditto for the virgin Mary, ‘cept she’s on a grilled cheese sandwich.
So I’d say it’s fair to say that jesus actually *is* in the eggplant. Where could he be?
October 17th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
[…] Bad Astronomy: “Popeidolia”) Deceive you not the fires of hell will take you / Should death await you … a musical quote […]
October 17th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
I see a profile of a person from the shoulders up, facing right in the picture. Perhaps a Centauri from Babylon 5? Imagine Ambassador Mollari:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Londo_Mollari
in profile.
October 17th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
@fred ressler: Yea, it does look fake now that I think about it… In fact it seems as if you can even see that the file was saved as a JPG and then later modified with the smudge tool in Photoshop…
I’m calling phony.
October 17th, 2007 at 1:09 pm
Too bad if it’s fake.
I’d love to point out to the faithful that it must imply that the late pope is frying along just fine in Hell where he belongs. Too bad there isn’t one, but I guess I’lll just have to settle for a upsetting the believers.
October 17th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Popeidolia 2007!!!!
The Sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY! at the Stinkborough Country Auto Speedway & Supermall! Bring the Kids! NASCAR action! Off road funny side cars! Balloons! All the meat you can possibly eat! Extra wide seating in the stadium!
And a very special appearance by an image of the POPE in a burning conflagration of Harry Potter books and Dixie Chicks records!
Opening act: ***Robosaurus!***
Make sure to get your shots before visiting.
—————————–
Actually, I hate to admit it, but Robosaurus *is* sort of cool.
>>> Some silverware was sacrificed to the cause.
Although a huge skeptic, I have some issues with Randi, but I would like to have been there for that one.
October 17th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
With the camera iris being wide open combined with a long exposer time, and the large camera shake while the shutter was open, I can safely say the flames never looked in reality as they do in the picture. While I cannot rule out someone digitally edited the picture, I find it more likely that it is optical artifacts made the image look as it does. Although without the original picture I cannot say for sure. (BTW: I’ve been doing digital image processing since 1979, and am certified as an expert witness in digital imaging in New York State)
October 17th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
How do you pronounce pariedola anyway?
October 17th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Anybody can see it’s Paul McCartney, left handed bass and all!
October 17th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
>>It says to me you can’t pick and choose what has meaning and what doesn’t. It either all does —>>
Millions of years (at least thousands of years) of evolution has hardwired this unto all humans. You CAN pick and choose what has meaning - if you didn’t nothing would have any meaning. Religon is necessary for all people. Being an atheist esp. believing all this politcally correct stuff makes you just as religous as a Christian or Muslim.
It is easy to dump religon but far more difficult to attain a spiritual replacement.
Simply star gazing is truly awe inspiring, but tell me for an amateur astronomy blogger what is it that troubles you to make fun of religous people in such a meanspirited way?
October 17th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Ray M: “The comments on that article are also worth reading… a good, healthy dose of British common sense and wit”
Shurely that can’t be right. This IS the Daily Mail - great British bastion of all that is nuttery and woo - we’re talking about, isn’t it? Crikey. However, I’m sure regular service will be restored shortly… how about a nice “Catholics Cause Cancer” headline or something like that?
October 17th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
I spotted a good “pareidolia” face in a tree trunk only yesterday, and pointed it out to a friend I was with. This led to a realisation that once you start looking for faces in things, you see them literally everywhere. In the following couple of hours we were seeing faces and body shapes in wallpaper, carpet patterns, fruit, furniture, in fact practically everywhere we looked. In my friend’s kitchen there is a large wall chart showing all varieties of dried chilli peppers photographed in vivid colour. We both managed to spot faces in over half of the images - as soon as one of us identified a face and pointed it out, the other one could see it also. And in case you were wondering, we were both 100% sober and free of drugs!
October 17th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
has: Yes, I know it was the Daily Mail, and that made the comments even more extraordinary. Miraculous, even
October 17th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Nah, can’t be Londo. The profile in the flames is smiling, and Londo doesn’t smile anymore. Not after what he did.
October 17th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
It’s not Londo Mollari, it’s Krusty the Klown.
October 17th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
I’m waiting for someone to find something in the image of Richard Hoagland….
October 17th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
ToSeeked
October 17th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
>>> How do you pronounce pariedola anyway?
nÅn’sÄ•ns’
or, alternately
stÅ«-pÄd’Ä-tÄ“
October 17th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
It is clearly Pope John Paul II, and obviously he is burning in hell. This is a message, don’t be a Catholic, or you, too, will burn.
October 17th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
>>> How do you pronounce pariedola anyway?
I pronounce it “pair-a-DOLE-ee-a.” How’s that for phonetics?
Jen:)
October 17th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Travolta Seen in Hell…
‘Nuff said:
Thanks to Displaced Aussie via Bad Astronomy (where people are saying that the fire photo was doctored).
……
October 17th, 2007 at 9:28 pm
A few years ago some sensationalist media reported (in Mexico) that on some particular date (I belive it was december 12th), the sight of the Virgin Mary would appear inside the microwave ovens (don’t even ask me why she would choose a microwave oven).
Unsurprisingly enough even my neighbors claimed their own sightings. Of course my conclusions were that they hadn’t clean their ovens for a while, with ample oportunity for pareidolia in the multiple spots of their ovens.
October 17th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
Why would god force the pope to continue to be all hunched over suffering from osteoporosis in the afterlife?
October 18th, 2007 at 2:27 am
>>You CAN pick and choose what has meaning - if you didn’t nothing would have any meaning.>>
I can’t disagree with that, filtering out the meaningless from the meaningful is something that we have to do just to function.
But I must take issue with the rest of your comment, Religion isn’t necessary. Arguably a sense of purpose in life is, but religion does not have to be the place we get it.
Also I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say dumping religion was easy for them.
October 18th, 2007 at 4:42 am
Koala’s from Easter island … Nah!
Australia if you please (or rather if tehKoala pleases!) is where they live.
If I were the kind of Gullible that so “thinks” then I’d say its a great sign from God that Pope John Paul II is recieving the merciful god’s furious divine punishment for severely worsening the lives of billions of fellow guillibles around the planet humiliating women, forcing millions of extra deaths through AIDs and creating hell on Earth* for so through unwanted preganancies, homophobic and misogniyst and any-faith-but-catholism bigotry, ad nauseam ..
Clearly the Pope is in hell and his (doubly) demented, still crippled figure has appeared in the glow of hellfire (a.k.a. normal chemical combustion plus photoshop) as a grim warning for all catholicxs to abandon their destructive faith and embrace Empedocles Fire elementalism or some other equally archaic, obscure cult.
But, alas, I’m not that kind of guillible o& so can only regret that :
1) The Pope died and is just plain old dead. He’s NOT there at all just as he wasn’t before his birth and thus is NOT receiving the divine punishment many (like me) would beleive he deserves.
2) That so many people will somehow think such pareoidalia is actually supernaturally “real” that the “ghost” of the Pontifus Maximus is actaully inthe flames &
3) that the one disease JP II didn’t get before his death was Tourettes syndrome! Coz that woulda been funny!
——————————————————–
* Hell onEarth - far more real and evidnece based than any fictional hell elsewhere. Except thecraterobntheMoonof coyurse!
October 18th, 2007 at 4:48 am
Expletives typos!
—-
“If I were the kind of Gullible that so “thinks†then I’d say its a great sign from God that Pope John Paul II is receiving the merciful god’s furious divine punishment for severely worsening the lives of billions of fellow guillibles around the planet humiliating women, forcing millions of extra deaths through AIDs and creating hell on Earth for so
*_many people_*
via unwanted preganancies, homophobic-misogniyst- &-any-faith-but-catholism bigotry, STD’s, lifelong guilt over being natural biological creatures, ad nauseam .. ”
—-
is what was supposed to be there …
Please Phil Plait, O Great Bad Astronomer, sir, please can we have some more ..
…editing capaibility here that is!
October 18th, 2007 at 4:53 am
&
* Hell on Earth - which is, naturally, far more real and evidence based than any fictional hell elsewhere. Except for the crater on the Moon of course!
Incidentally, I think I’m remembering correctly when I say that was named after astronomical priest Maximilan Hell …
There’s also Utopia on Mars (a bit plain really; one of the Vikings landed there) & Valhalla on one of Jove’s moons - Callisto I think ..
&
there was a Beer continent on some old Mars maps pre-robot explorers mapping…
October 18th, 2007 at 6:39 am
I can’t find the appropriate image, but I assure you that it’s Ishikawa Goemon from Lupin the third!
October 18th, 2007 at 9:35 am
Bah! You’re all wrong. It’s clearly Dilbert’s boss, facing right.
If it is JPII, he’s apparently waving only a single finger at the camera. Perhaps Hades is not to his liking.
–James
October 18th, 2007 at 9:47 am
For the curious :
Hell crater is a 31 km astrobleme (or in plain speak - meteorite crater - the Moon, incidentally, has no meteors as it has no substantial atmosphere!) found on the South West / 3rd Quadrant, below the Mare Nubium or Sea of Clouds; lat 32 South, long. 8 West . It’s named for Father Maximilan Hell - I’m pretty sure …
Source : Pages 54 & 55, Atlas of the Universe, Patrick Moore, Philips, 1994.
October 18th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
I found a LOL version, too.
October 18th, 2007 at 4:33 pm
I heard on a news report yesterday that this image was actually taken in 2001 or 2002, well before the Pope died in 2005.
I see Samurai Licoln…or is it Wayne Gretzky?
October 18th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
Maybe the flames are like the flames that guarded the Israelites during the Exodus. That would make them holy, and this bonfire, looking like the Pontiff, would be holy, as well. Maybe not.
October 18th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Tragic Floo Powder accident?
TMNT-film-esque blue-ghosty Splinter attempt?
Emperor Palpatine’s big comeback?
October 19th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
Stop, drop, and roll JP!
October 21st, 2007 at 6:49 pm
When a memorial flame for the French unknown soldier was re-lit after the occupation, a photo showed a vaguely skull-like image in the flame. Really, why are images like this any more significant than ‘pictures in clouds.’
October 23rd, 2007 at 5:02 pm
[…] than coincidence ? This flaming pope thing has been all over the internut, including at Ye Bad Astronomer, but I suddenly twigged what it was reminding me […]