It never ends.
How "spooky" is this?
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The story, "reported" by The Sun, says that a woman took this picture at an aquarium in Hull, East Yorkshire, using a phone cam, and that she only noticed the face when she got home.
Now, we all know how much I love pareidolia, the psychological ability for humans to see faces in random patterns. But look at that one! We see hair, eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks, even ears, and they’re all in the right place! So is this pareidolia?
Update: ScottH, in the comments below, shows pretty conclusively that this is a fake, a Photoshop. My conclusions about it being a reflection in the next paragraph are, evidently, in error.
It would be easy to say that maybe the woman who took the picture is putting us all on, that this is a hoax. But honestly, isn’t it a little bit likely that there was someone else at the aquarium that day, maybe standing behind her, whose face was reflected in the glass? Note that the face is looking up. What’s the most obvious thing in the overall picture? A shark swimming… and note too that we see its belly, meaning anyone standing there would be looking up at the shark. It’s blue because the water is blue; a white face reflected in the glass would have the blue glow of the water diffused through it. Etc. etc. A reflection explains every single aspect of this story.
… except for the breathless headline and uncritical reporting. The first paragraph of the tabloid article says,
IT’S just what you’d expect to see in a snap from an aquarium. A shark, blue water — and a disembodied HUMAN HEAD.
"Disembodied?" O RLY? How did the writer come to that conclusion? The picture cuts off right where the neck would be, so saying this is disembodied is a stretch to say the least.
This is really obviously just a reflection of another aquarium-goer. And as dumb as this is, I am spending time on it to remind you, my dear BABloggees, that this is what counts for news in many papers. The Sun is a notoriously bad paper, akin to the Weekly World News or The Star: gossip, photoshop, and dumbosities. But this kind of stuff is reported in the mainstream media as well — remember the gas station ghost (which turned out to be an insect illuminated by IR LEDs and rendered blue by the IR capabilities of the camera)? Or any of the dozens of Virgin Mary/Jesus/Allah sightings?
As long as this stuff is reported uncritically, we all have our average credulity magnified, and our ability as a group to think critically decreased.
Tip o’ the severed head to Echobucket.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Wait. The Sun? And you’re freaking out that they posted a story that’s supposed to be shocking?
I had to go look up to make sure it wasn’t a bloody tabloid. And I’m still not sure after reading their site.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Well, it’s The Sun.
This is actually good enough that I’d have thought it was from a Photoshop Phriday or summat.
A reflection does make sense, but I’d like to see the aquarium in question. There really is no context in the picture.
Still – with so clear a portrait I think the guy’s recognisabel, so if he or any of his mates read The Sun we should expect to see his story in one of the tabloids come Monday. I hope.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
I am reminded of the Richard Nixon eggplant example Sagan uses in “The Demon-Haunted World”. Would be sort of fun to post a story about the RNC manipulating eggplant DNA and see if the media bought it hook line and sinker…
Yeah, I am reminded of what Agent K says in MIB, “People are stupid.” Why do you have to keep confirming this to us and depressing me.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
According to the article, the aquarium checked CCTV footage and the photographer and her dad were the only ones in the tunnel at the time the photo was taken. The photographer says the face looks nothing like her dad. The aquarium also supposedly attempted to reproduce the photo under various conditions, with no success.
Could just be a strange distortion in the reflection of her dad that preserves the appearance of a face while changing the appearance of the person.
October 18th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Ah, I missed the CCTV aspect, but I would find it easier to swallow that the article (or CCTV claims) is inaccurate than this is not a simple reflection or Photoshop.
October 18th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
It’s the Governor of California, right?
October 18th, 2008 at 2:17 pm
She claims she’s easily “freaked out”. Knowing this, perhaps someone played a joke on her.
October 18th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Oh my. That anyone would think it was anything but a reflection is what amazes me.
October 18th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
I vote for photoshop. I’m willing to bet if someone had a lot of time on their hands (assuming they’re not spending it posting comments on blogs), they could find the source illustration for the head.
Now if it had been in the Weekly World News….
October 18th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I honestly don’t think that that’s a reflection, the lighting and opacity are really off for that. I also vote for photoshopping, by someone who isn’t completely incompetent but isn’t a pro by far.
October 18th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
It’s Joe the Plumber.
October 18th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
Its Jon Stewart!
October 18th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
The fact that it’s the Sun doesn’t make it any more or less likely to be B.S. these days, I’m afraid. CNN is reporting that CareerBuilder.com (which CNN owns) has done a study showing that people born under certain astrological signs earn more than others. The line between “tabloid” and “real news” continues to blur.
October 18th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
I’ve been to The Deep on a couple of occasions, and I can happily confirm that there are no heads in the water other than fishy ones and they all seemed to be well attached to fishy bodies.
There are a pair of sand sharks, both of which look a bit sad and never seem interested in taking a passing nibble at anything (I can’t blame them when they’re cooped up in an aquarium). I really didn’t like seeing them cooped up like that.
The picture screams photoshop to me.
I wouldn’t worry about the editorial in The Sun either. Their readers only look at the pictures.
October 18th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
that face looks like William Hartnell, the first Doctor who
October 18th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Folks:
I’m really disappointed – you too, Phil. There are at least four other possibilities besides hoax or reflection:
1. An aquarium worker gag.
2. The head of a statue someone thought would look good in the exhibit – for that nice sunken Greek temple effect.
3. An amazing effect of pareidola. Don’t discount it. It may be a combination of fish, rocks and shadows, only visible from that vantage point. Zooming in, the mouth looks odd and there’s an unusual startled expression.
4. A digital artifact. Is it possible to “double expose” a digital photograph? Technically it shouldn’t be, but I’ve seen some odd glitches before.
There is also 5. A phenomena we cannot explain which may or may not be supernatural. That’s probably going to bring on howls of protest, but if we’re going to be real skeptics, that possibility must remain on the table. I’m reminded of an Arthur C. Clarke “Strange World” episode where he made short work of a series of “ghost” photos, with one remaining that he admitted he couldn’t explain.
To me, the image doesn’t look right for a reflection. If this is a reflection, then it is of a startled person standing almost parallel to the exhibit. Why?
Oh? And Phil? Disembodied is the correct term. Is the rest of the body in the photo? No. Siskel and Ebert used the word in just this manner while reviewing a B-movie: The scene had a character playing a rapper stick his head through a hole in a screen and do a rap in a show.
October 18th, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Does anyone actually believe that “bosses would spend hours looking at CCTV footage”, as the article claims? These guys have nothing better to do than chase ghosts? Sounds like either a hoax, or the distorted reflection of her dad.
October 18th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
@ KC:
Am I going to have to do a “Mikey Horn” on you?
I’d be happy to photoshop up a sample.
That one solution (hoax, photoshop) so far outweighs all the other possibilities, that listing them out seems ludicrous. Nobody’s mentioned space aliens. Why aren’t they on the list? Or genetically mutated lobsters, or zombie aquarium workers, or David Blaine trying out a new stunt. Or John McCain fishing around for an election strategy. Or….
October 18th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
You’re right… It’s most likely just a reflection of another aquarium goer (Or at least the most plausible explanation), but you gotta admit… It looks so well blended in, I had a heart jump when I saw it.
October 18th, 2008 at 5:15 pm
“… except for the breathless headline and uncritical reporting.”
Dude. It’s The Sun.
October 18th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Dude, everyone does that about Obama now.
Oh wait. You’re talking about the photo.
Never mind.
October 18th, 2008 at 5:25 pm
I think its just a shadow and the materiel looking like a head from exactly that perspective.
October 18th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Oh don’t take the Sun newspaper seriously…. I expect in the USA you have similar tabloid nonsense. Anyway in the Sun wrote a front page article a few months back where it said a police chopper in Wales chased a UFO. The pilots denied chasing later, and still the paper refused to admit their mistake. This has happened with other sightings, where one had been explained as Jupiter by a ufo society, and yet they still printed it as a ufo. Duhhh!!! LOL. But I suppose in this day and age they’ll print anything just to sell newspapers.
The next most likely cause for the face in the aquarium is a face mask or model, way way before even considering an actual human head. And then before printing this should be verified or at least gone thru’ some proper procedures. But the most obvious ones before those two would be a reflection of someone looking up at the sharks, or even a photoshop edit.
Haha at least they didn’t print that it was an alien abductee that was decapitated and dumped in the aquarium. I wouldn’t put it past the Sun for printing even something as silly as that.
Here’s a quote from the news story “Bosses have spent hours searching CCTV footage, which confirmed the pair were the only ones inside the tunnel. ”
Now that would be amazing if that was true, however the sun usually makes unsubstantiated stories so I think that’s more likely what happened.
At the aquarium they say “There must be some sort of optical illusion or reflection of images between the window, but we cannot figure out how it has been done.”
Well there you go, some common sense at last, but the sun doesn’t take this a hint that they’re not experts in optics as the reason they didn’t find out, but instead comes to a crazy conclusion.
Anyway if ghosts exist then evidence on such a phenonemon will be discovered one day, so I suppose you cannot disregard the possibility, but we can’t come to that conclusion without a real investigation if that’s even possible.
October 18th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
OR- it could be a joke. I work at an aquarium as a diver, those corals and rocks in an exhibit large enough for a shark are actually man made. Could be whoever made that coral head made it look like a human head to freak people out…
October 18th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
kuhnigget:
And I could do the same thing myself. Take an image in gray scale, make it almost transparent, and paste it on an image. Or I could get artsy and do a color replacement. But that only shows it could be a hoax, not that it is. The only way this could come close to a valid argument is to show that most likely there is no other explanation.
Example: Those documents that CBS Nightly News claimed was G.W. Bush’s service record, but was extremely unlikely due to the type of typewriter needed at that time. OTOH, it was trivially simple to produce the same results with Times New Roman and a photocopier. Thus it was more likely a product of a modern word processor. However, if that typewriter had been issued to every National Guard HQ across the US, then the Times New Roman demonstration wouldn’t have shown it was a likely produced with a word processor.
What’s really necessary is a close examination of the photo in the original resolution. This may reveal possible image manipulation artifacts or lighting inconsistencies (for instance, is the face at the same resolution or at a poorer one?). If the image of the face turns up in another photo, such as on the WWW or clip art, then so much the better.
However, in this case, whipping up a Photoshop ™ equivalent won’t do anything, as much as we might be tempted to put Phil or Randi’s face in the photo just for laughs.
October 18th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Isn’t this nearly the same photo as a recent ad for Florida or Club Med or something? As I recall, that photo was the same composition (rocks on bottom right, sharks upper left) except for a couple schools of fish in the shape of people.
October 18th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
There is a slightly larger version on the suns website.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1804838.ece?CMP=KNC-Mixx&HBX_PK=spooky+snap+taken+at+aquarium
I think the fact that the side of the face closest to us is so well lit rules out something actually being in the tank. You can make out something as far down as the ear on the face, but all of the coral facing us is black.
Zooming in, it also looks to me that resolution on the face is significantly greater than the coral directly behind it. The fact that the head just happens to appear in the darkest place in the photo also says hoax, although it’s not proof. Dark solid backgrounds are the easiest place to seamlessly insert an image from another picture.
October 18th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
I can’t believe Jesus shaved his beard
October 18th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
The head looks translucent and I can see the dark rock in the aquarium thru the head so it’s definitely a reflection of someone looking up at the shark.
October 18th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Angle’s wrong. If it was the reflection of someone looking at the shark, we would see practically all of the face and not just the profile. OTOH, the angle’s also wrong for something in the tank looking at the shark. If it’s a reflection, it’s of someone in profile looking at something besides the shark.
October 18th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
This is most likely not even a reflection. I’m guessing this is a persons head in an aquarium tunnel much like this one at sea world http://z.about.com/d/gocalifornia/1/0/L/t/SharkEncounter-sw.jpg
They keep the moving walkway so dark that the light coming through the tank and into the tunnel turns everything blue. This combined with the angle (the man is looking straight up as if hes looking through the top of the tunnel at another shark) and the fact that it looks like the man is to the right of the subject all ads up to this fact.
Well at least thats my take on it.
October 18th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I dunno. I kinda like the idea of an aquarium worker falling in the shark tank and gittin’ eaten. But wouldn’t it sink and land on its side? Sounds like a job for the Mythbusters to test.
October 18th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
Note the absence of white concentric circles coming out of his forehead. Clearly, it’s not Aquaman.
October 18th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
@KC
Sorry, too obscure reference, I guess. Mr. Horn is a UFO nutter who always assumes the most improbable solution is the most likely. His idiocy was demolished (IMHO) in another post a while back.
Sometimes you just go with the odds. An obviously photoshopped image is most likely…wait for it…a photoshopped image.
But if you can secure me the original, I’d be happy to examine it for you under the most rigorous of scientific conditions.
October 18th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
There is NO WAY that’s a reflection. I’m calling it a hoax.
October 18th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Super-imposed mode of a man gazing at the high autumn clouds and the aquarium tank, no?
But those two pairs of synchronized swimmers’ legs sticking up… See the teeth of the shark above? He is enjoying a visual feast.
October 18th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
It looks nothing like a reflection would. A reflection would retain significant amounts of normal color.
Besides that, I have the smoking gun. It is completely a photoshopped photo.
Here is a 2 frame gif animation that I created. It is an alternation between the green and blue color channels of the image, each as a greyscale.
http://www.hurstphoto.biz/badastronomy/aquareidolia.gif
It is VERY obvious the head was added at a different time from the rest of the image. Here is what you are seeing…. In the tank, green and blue light are lighting objects in the tank from different direction, which makes the appear to shift back and forth when flipping between color channels.
The head doesn’t have this effect because it was lit evenly (by color) and merely color shifted after the fact to match color of the tank.
October 18th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
The “Weekly World News” exists only in cyberspace and as an insert in the “Sun” these days, where they live up to their motto of being “The World’s Only Reliable News”. One of their current groundbreaking articles exposes that Gov. Palin is exterminating bigfoot. There’s absolutely no question of the veracity of the head in the photo, just as there’s no question of the veracity of Bat Boy. You’re right that the “Sun” is akin to the “WWN” since it’s the mother publication to the alien love child baby that will jump out, stick to your face and implant it’s Bat Boy seed to gestate in your chest.
Next up, Phil rips “The Daily Show” for Photochopping violations.
October 18th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
I would say that a reflection can be ruled out. Why do we not see a reflection of anything else? Also, the head is not looking towards the shark, it is actually looking up and away from the shark.
It honestly looks like the rocks/coral/whatever just happen to look like a face. Look at the rocks around it. If you try really hard to not see a face, you don’t see a face… So what? Think about all the rock arrangements in the world and how many are photographed, then count the number of rocks that look almost exactly like a head. Probably a handful. Well within probability, I would assume.
October 19th, 2008 at 12:02 am
scotth,
Excellent analysis!
October 19th, 2008 at 12:30 am
My previous comment is currently awaiting moderation.
I said that scotth’s analysis was excellent. However, I’m not completely convinced of photo-manipulation. I think the photo may have been taken from inside a tunnel and we are not seeing a reflection of a man’s face, but his actual (unreflected) face. The inside of the tunnel is practically entirely lit up from light from the aquarium. Different diffraction rates for blue and green through the aquarium glass and water may account for much of thet shift seen in scotth’s animated gif. Some of the coral on the right side of the photo barely shifts. Perhaps that part of the coral is laying on top of the glass.
October 19th, 2008 at 12:38 am
Hmmm…on second thought I’m not too sure about the the prism effect I was just writing about.
If I have time a bit later, I would like to post a photo representing the ratio of blue to green in areas where blue isn’t saturated (255). It appears that the ratio is typically around 1.5 for the aquarium area and 1.25 for the head.
October 19th, 2008 at 12:47 am
[...] Aquareidolia: [...]
October 19th, 2008 at 3:29 am
That’s some very nifty work there scotth.
October 19th, 2008 at 6:10 am
If it was in “The Sun” its total nonesense…it is more likely that our world is actually flat and supported by four elephants travelling upon a giant turtle than this being a “disembodied head”
Personally i think its a reflection. Or a hoax
October 19th, 2008 at 7:07 am
kuhnigget:
The problem is that the odds aren’t distant enough to make the call. That’s the point of the Rathergate example of the CBS News documents. In that instance the odds were so unlikely that a National Guard HQ would have an ultra expensive specialty typewriter that it practically ensured that the document was of modern origin. In this case we have not eliminated other possibilities to where there most likely explanation is an altered digital image.
Thus in this instance, “Oh, it must be Photoshop ™,” is the same as saying “It’s a ghost!” We don’t know what caused the image and odds alone neither favor or rule out that it came from Photoshop ™. Nor can we assume it’s Photoshop ™ because it shows up in a darker portion of the photograph, because reflections are also more evident in darker portions (Try it: Take a clear piece of glass and lay it on black construction paper). Scotth have a better argument that mere assumption, but my aging eyes can’t tell much of a difference in the gif animation.
October 19th, 2008 at 7:55 am
It´s the face of god!!!
October 19th, 2008 at 9:07 am
KC:
It’s not mere assumption and not a case of, “Oh, it must be Photoshop.” And that is not the same as saying, “It’s a ghost!”
It’s most likely photoshop, with the odds so stacked up in that corner that it’s safe to say it’s pretty much assured. Is it proven? No, of course not. But I can’t prove flying saucers don’t exist, either.
My eyes aren’t quite so aging as yours, I guess. And I use Photoshop all the time. (It’s the pixels, you know…inside joke.) The photo has all the hallmarks of a photoshopped image. Photoshop or other similar programs are common. People use software like Photoshop to fake pictures all the time, for amusement and/or deliberate fraud. The Sun and other similar publications publish these images on a regular basis, claiming they don’t know what they are. They sell papers. On the flip side, there is no credible evidence for ghosts. “Spirit photography” has been repeatedly shown to be fake. There have been countless examples of fraud perpetrated by people claiming to see ghosts.
Does this “prove” anything? Again, no, of course not. But again, you gotta go with the odds, and these odds are stacked up way in favor of simple photo manipulation.
October 19th, 2008 at 9:10 am
How did Ernest Borgnine get into the tank? It’s some sort of Poseidon thing isn’t it?
October 19th, 2008 at 9:24 am
You cannot trust the Sun (the UK one at least)
I am not sure there is anything trace of truth true in their scoops…
October 19th, 2008 at 9:35 am
KC,
As luck would have it, I am also a profession photographer. By further coincidence, I was shooting at the Dallas Zoo just yesterday. (photos uploading to flickr now) I shot a lot of photos of animals in tanks less than 24 hours ago.
I’ve also shot the Monterey and Vancouver Aquariums:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/scott_hurst/sets/72157602220550552/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/scott_hurst/sets/72157602060008835/
I am extremely familiar with dealing with photography and tank reflections. I can categorically rule out that the face is a reflection. Reflections do not take on the colors of the interior of the tank…..
So, the head was in the tank, or it was photoshopped in.
Additional, I spent several years working daily as a graphic artist and still do a good bit of it. I’ve used photoshop nearly daily since version 3 (1994). That photo has many hallmarks of being photoshopped. Many people have pointed out excellent clues, but comparing the blue and green channels definitively shows the face was not photographed in the same lighting conditions as the items in the tanks.
And, if your aging eyes can’t see that the ‘reef’ area appear to moving back and forth (left and right) between each frame (this shows the blue and green highlights are on different areas of the objects or that there in a huge chromatic distortion) and that face appears completely motionless…. we’ll your old eyes really need to a doctor. The head cannot be inside the tank as it is not lit the same way or is not subject to the same chromatic aberration.
Repeating… what you are looking for is the reef moving left and right and the head sitting still. You can’t see that? Seriously, this case is closed. This is a photoshopped fake (ie deliberate fraud).
October 19th, 2008 at 10:35 am
It appears Old Gregg has shaved his mustache.
October 19th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
Excellent analysis, scotth. See, folks. Leave it to an experienced professional to know what’s going on here. Learn why things work the way the work. Test. Repeat. Verify. Open for scrutiny. That’s how to bring the big picture into focus.
October 19th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Scotth: Nice animation – well done! If only most hoaxes are as easily (and visibly!) disproved.
October 19th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
http://www.thedeep.co.uk/Deep-Tour/reflections.php
Interesting they call this part of the tour reflections….
Surely the face is blue because it is being lit by blue light, why should it be a different colour?
October 19th, 2008 at 3:01 pm
scotth:
That is so cool of you.
Tanks a bunch for the analyses.
GAry 7
October 19th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Scotth, very nice work.
October 19th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
One question Scott: to the right of the image you’ve separated, there seems to be a large swath of light that does in fact look like a reflection. It’s an area of flat monochrome, that could, I suppose, be a section of carpet, or wall, or some other architectural feature. Notice how it doesn’t shift in your animated gif?
So maybe, ironically, there is a reflection here…just not of somebody’s head.
Gee, I wonder if this one’s been talked to death and back?
October 19th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
kuhnigget, I am not sure what that is.
Really, it only shows up in blue light. My best guess is that it is reflection inside the tank shining on the glass. It is very tough to say with such a low quality source image.
I was pretty lucky they left such a startling obvious artifact to catch the head with.
October 19th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Hm. Now that I look at it again, maybe that “reflection” is only a wash of light filtering down through the water. That would explain why it’s only in the blue.
Thanks again for taking the time to make that gif. How are you on flying saucers made out of trash can lids?
October 19th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
Scotth:
It is one thing to explain your analysis – quite another to do so in what seems to be to be an insulting manner. Yes, I saw the reef move, but quite frankly I thought that was an effect that you put in to draw attention to what you said you saw between the color channels.
You are probably right, but in explaining your analysis you have done so in a manner which I do not appreciate at all. Perhaps cutting remarks are what passes for debate these days. And no doubt some thought you were terribly clever. Yet demeaning comments do diddly squat at proving an argument to be valid.
To be blunt, you don’t know me. What if I was someone with macular degeneration? What if I had suffered physical trama to my eyes? What if I had glacoma or cataracts? What if I was nearly blind? And what if I just now informed you of this?
As it happens, although I once came close to having an eye gouged out, fortunately I’m only afflicted with the normal changes in vision associated with aging. But you didn’t know that.
You may want to keep that in mind. Or not. Quite frankly, I don’t really care either way.
October 19th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
I would have gone for reflection too, but in the age of photoshop (and cheaper, just as good computer tools), why does anyone anywhere make the claim that a photo, particularly one delivered by a digital medium, is proof of anything?
October 19th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Um… that looks like a great white shark. Other than the Monterrey aquarium, is there a tank holding a great white anywhere? Maybe the entire photo is a scam.
October 20th, 2008 at 5:59 am
KC, I suggest you read what I said again and see if it is really as insulting as you seem to think.
1) I explained in my first post exactly what I did to the image. If I had added any shifting, I would have said so. Additionaly, I explained in the first post exactly what was causing the shifting, that the shifting (and the lack of it for the head) was what you were to be looking for.
2) A person with macular degeneration, or almost any vision problem should have been able to see the movement quite easily if they were capable of reading the page. And before you remind me that there are text-to-speech programs for the vision impaired…. Do you really expect me to believe that someone so vision impaired that they needed T-T-S would be commenting that my reveal wasn’t convincing because they couldn’t see it?
3) So, why did you think “that was an effect that you put in to draw attention”? It seemed pretty plain to me that you either did not read the accompaning text or that you were being deliberately difficult. Here is the last couple of lines of my original post as a reminder,
“Here is what you are seeing…. In the tank, green and blue light are lighting objects in the tank from different direction, which makes the appear to shift back and forth when flipping between color channels.
The head doesn’t have this effect because it was lit evenly (by color) and merely color shifted after the fact to match color of the tank.”
4) The remarks just weren’t that cutting. Try reading them in a light hearted rather than sinister tone. Read them especially in the light that I knew the only way you couldn’t see the effect is that you didn’t know what you were looking for or just didn’t want to see it.
Please don’t misconstrue your failure to read all of my opening post as a lack of caring for people with vision impairment. My grandfather is nearly blind with macular degeneration, it appears my dad will be next. I’ll know in a couple more years if that is in store for me.
Seriously, I *did* know you weren’t nearly blind for the reasons stated above. Thanks for trying to make me feal bad with the unlikely argument, though. I am sorry you were apparently embarrassed by making assumptions in direct contradiction to what I wrote.
October 20th, 2008 at 6:12 am
KC said:
What, so you didn’t read Scotth’s explanation of the gif that accompanied his link?
Scotth said:
KC again:
Notice that Scott’s more detailed explanation was after you appeared to have completely ignored his first explanation.
Maybe, by ignoring his obvious expertise, you were not being polite to Scott, hmmm?
Hey, he was calling a spade a spade.
Scott explained the image. You dismissed his explanation as speculation. Scott went on to provide a more detailed explanation in which he shredded your objections. If you have a problem with this, maybe you should have thought more before dismissing Scott’s original explanation.
So what? Your dismissal of Scott’s explanation was still stupid, ignorant and insulting. If you did have a disability, would you prefer to be treated exactly the same way as everyone else, or be treated as something “special”?
And nor does it have any bearing on anything.
Au contraire. The evidence indicates that you do care, otherwise you would not have posted your critique of Scott’s last comment.
Now, separately addressing the general theme of your comments above, you have ignored several key features of the situation in your repeated claims that we can’t prove anything about the origin of the picture (I refer here to your posts before you eventually and grudgingly accepted Scott’s explanation):
(1) We already know something of human nature;
(2) We already know something about optics, reflections and photography;
(3) We already know how readily-available software like Photoshop is, and how easily it can be used to achieve an effect like this;
(4) We know that there is no evidence for ghosts or any such phenomena, despite over 150 years of people seeking to prove such things;
(5) We are therefore in a position to make a judgement about the most probable source of the head in the picture. Since various aspects of the “reflection” hypothesis do not stand up to detailed scrutiny, we can conclude (even before Scott proved it) that the head was almost certainly photoshopped into the image.
October 20th, 2008 at 6:13 am
Oops, missed out a set of “blockquote” tags in that post. I hope you get the gist, anyway.
October 20th, 2008 at 6:25 am
C,
Since the article says it was taken at an aquarium in Hull, East Yorkshire called “The Deep”. So, that is certainly something that can be looked into, especially if we’ve got a reader that is close enough to pay them a visit. From their website, they seem to have sharks. I can’t tell if they are the correct type to be matches or if they have a location that shot like that could be framed from.
I have a number of other objections, the last could also be checked on site.
1) The article says that image was shot with a camera phone. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a camera phone that shoots in a wide screen format. Clearly the image is cropped, what did they crop out.
2) As mentioned by others above, let’s see the completely-unaltered-highest-resolution original if it is to be evidence of anything.
3) While it is very difficult to judge with the image provided, it is my sense that the head would 3 feet or larger in size, to be that size in that frame. I’d really like to get a photo from the same location (if such a location even exists at The Deep), with the same perspective, with a yard stick held along the glass for scale calibration.
But, I agree. It is not unreasonable that the entire photo is fraud top to bottom. For all we know, they just lifted a image off the web at random and photoshopped a head into it.
October 20th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Not to be engaged in ex-equine flagellation, but… If you go to YouTube and search for “Hull Sealife Centre-The Deep” you’ll see a video taken from approximately the same spot as this photo. Note the people in the frame. Note the lack of reflections on the glass. Also note the angle at which the shots were taken. To get the angle in the Sun photo, you’d have to be shooting up at about 45 degrees or more. Thus if that head were a reflection, the person would have had to be about 1o feet tall for their reflection to appear where it does.
So, either it’s a photoshop type fake, or it’s a ghost. Guess which one I vote for.
October 20th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Thanks, Scott. You are a shining example of what critical thinking is all about. Phil should name you “Poster of the Week.”
I am no professional, but love photography and digital scrapbooking, and spend a good 8 to 10 hours a week on Photoshop. Digital scrappers are always coming up with trendy techniques. Everyone is blending photos onto other backgrounds these days. It’s easy and looks exactly like, well you know.
October 20th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
kugnigget, I don’t think I’ve ever met a skeptic that was not up for (endless) dead horse beating. It really seems to go with the group. I’ve been guilty countless occasions.
Thanks, Law Mom (and others) for the kind words.
October 20th, 2008 at 5:13 pm
Scotth – and Nigel, too:
Neither of you apparently get it. I wouldn’t have objected to a “You need to read closer,” or “Apparently you didn’t read all of my post.” That is a statement of fact. Nor do I care if someone points out where I’m wrong. That’s a statement of fact, too. I do care very much about a jest made about physical disability. That is the offensive part.
I don’t find blindness funny. Not one little bit. I watched my grandfather gradually loose his ability to read because he could no longer make out the words, and reading was a major joy of his life. The day may well come were I *can’t* make out the background moving.
You find it odd that I thought you did it to highlight a change. You want to say I was looking at the wrong thing, then fine, I was wrong. You can use 24 point font if you like, bold, all caps. You want to say that I was wrong, period. Fine, say that as well, because I was. You can even call me a fool, because apparently I was a fool to belief this was a place for civil discourse.
But the saddest thing is that I don’t think either of you understand why a crack about needing medical attention to the eyes is an offensive thing.
Take it and run it under a stump. This blog isn’t worth it anymore. Nor is the magazine that hosts it.
October 20th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Don’t let the stump hit you on the way out, KC.
Everyone has their pet peeves. For you, it’s apparently eyeballs. For others, it’s loss of mobility. Others still, get uppity when anyone makes any sort of metaphorical statement about “craziness.” If a guy (sorry, a person) tried to avoid all language, literal or otherwise, that might offend someone, he’d have to remain silent.
Lighten up.
October 20th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
@scotth,
Its not that I didn’t believe you, but I wanted to see it for myself. It took about 2 minutes.
I opened the color photo at the top of this page in Paint Shop Pro (its basically the same as Photoshop, only cheaper.)
I then selected Adjust -> Color -> Channel Mixer.
I set Red and Blue to 0, and Green to 100, and saved to a new file.
I then selected “Undo” and set Red and Green to 0 and Blue to 100, and saved to another new file.
I moved both of the new files to a new folder, and opened them with Window’s built-in image viewer.
When I toggle between the two files, I see exactly the same thing as your animated gif.
Almost everything in the photo moves between the two frames – the fish, the sharks, the white spots, everything – EXCEPT the head.
Conclusion: The head in the photo is not part of the original picture.
Ain’t science great?!?
October 21st, 2008 at 5:30 am
Greg,
One of the reasons I posted exactly what I did with the image was so that anyone who wanted to could replicate my results.
I am actually glad to hear that someone took the time.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:08 pm
@scotth – great photos, I love your pics. Also, great analysis. Now, why are we spending sooo much time discussing this photo?
October 22nd, 2008 at 8:58 am
You’re right, Charly. We forgot our primary purpose when looking at pareidolia…
Its obviously Mr. Fantastic, with his neck stretched way out, which is why you can’t see his body. And he’s obviously looking up at The Invisible Woman.
October 22nd, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Speaking of paradolia — there is one on the side of Aoraki/Mount Cook, the tallest mountain in New Zealand:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4736941a7693.html
October 23rd, 2008 at 6:17 pm
Scotth, I’m also a photographer and your analysis is interesting. Wouldn’t it be true, though, that a person reflected in the aquarium would not be illuminated by the blue and green lighting in the aquarium but instead the room lighting and therefore you would expect those channels to appear differently as they do in your animation?
October 23rd, 2008 at 6:46 pm
@ Mark:
Not to answer for Scotth, but if you look at other photos of “the Deeps” exhibit at the Hull Aquarium, you will see that there is no other lighting in the corridor where people stand. All of the illumination comes from ambient light from within the fish tank.
October 28th, 2008 at 11:04 am
ScottH – you win several Internets for a simple but utterly convincing debunking.
KC: – You write “What if I had glacoma [...]”
Well, I was diagnosed with “chronic open angle glaucoma” some 25 years ago (it’s no big deal) but saw the point made by the GIF immediately. And I certainly wouldn’t take offence at the term “aging eyes” if directed to me.
I’ve never heard a glaucoma joke, but if I ever do, I’m sure I’ll laugh and tell it to my eye doctor!