How cool (HAHAHAHAhahahaha! I kill me.) is this?
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Yeah, that’s a face in an icicle. It’s an incredible example of pareidolia, one of the best I’ve ever seen (nothing will ever beat Lenin, though). Yahoo has a funny article about it, saying tongue-in-cheek it’s Jack Frost. I had to laugh; after all, who would think that some random collection of shapes that happens to look like a face would actually be a real manifestation of a supernatural entity?
Tip o’ the toque to BABloggee Daniel Quiñones.
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The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking, movie reviews, and all that) can be found here.
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February 4th, 2009 at 10:00 am
…Huh. Randi?
February 4th, 2009 at 10:10 am
Face is too good. I suspect human intervention.
February 4th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Suspect, hell. J’accuse!
February 4th, 2009 at 10:13 am
What I like is the comments on the site, with skeptics thinking of ways it could be faked, and the “fiancee” of the photographer saying, “no, really”.
All it would take is a few more photos from different angles, or a video, to prove it is natural.
I have a video of an Indian head which appeared on a burning log in my fireplace a few years back. It’s similarly eerie. I guess I should post it to youtube.
February 4th, 2009 at 10:16 am
It’s Zathras!!!
“It is good that Zathras does not mind the cold, has even come to like it. But still, no one listen to poor Zathras…”
February 4th, 2009 at 10:16 am
If its real, it is great. One of the best.
February 4th, 2009 at 10:24 am
It’s clearly Sophocles.
February 4th, 2009 at 10:28 am
It’s Charles Darwin! It’s a sign, I tell you. A sign!
(okay, I promise to lay off the third pot of coffee today)
February 4th, 2009 at 10:30 am
I have some real issues with the geico commercials with the googly eyes on a wad of dollar bills. That just gives me the creeps.
I haven’t figured out what it looks like tho’.
February 4th, 2009 at 10:38 am
Ah yes, I remember Lenin… and just to remind everybody, Abe Vigoda is still alive. (I checked over at abe vigoda dot com (safe for everybody)
February 4th, 2009 at 10:38 am
@Shane,
That was our last, best hope for good TV, wasn’t it?
It could be Santa!
February 4th, 2009 at 10:41 am
I see your Jack Frost, and raise you one spring chicken.
February 4th, 2009 at 10:43 am
This guy screwed up big time by not calling it a Jesuscicle. With as short a shelf life as an icicle has (even a Jesuscicle), he should be hitting up the Catholic crowd for $20 a head while he still can.
February 4th, 2009 at 11:14 am
Lenin! Well, he was also in my garden four years ago… http://preview.tinyurl.com/cnh349
February 4th, 2009 at 11:18 am
It’s an ice Christical!
February 4th, 2009 at 11:23 am
I’ve got a few cool images in a lecture I give. http://www.bioen.illinois.edu/courses/bioe202/syllabus.html (ppt presentation 8a) (tried to find them on google to link–no luck)
One is of stem cells forming the shape of Italy AND Sicily on it’s dish of support cells. Was the cell culturist Italian? Or did that person just eat Italian food? Oregano and basil in the culture media?
There is also a “famous” image of some white blood cells with their nuclei spelling USA. Yes, the answers truly are inside you, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise! Unfortunately, to find them out, you need to bleed, then fix and stain and then use a microscope.
Then the chromatin in a nucleus making a smiley face. That organism was happy that day, I guess- before it met it’s untimely end so that picture could be captured!
February 4th, 2009 at 11:28 am
It is Darwin!
That looks nothing like Jack Frost.
February 4th, 2009 at 11:47 am
HOLY FROZEN FACE, BATMAN!
February 4th, 2009 at 11:51 am
what a bunch of loons.
February 4th, 2009 at 11:57 am
It must be Robert Frost… or David Frost… at least some kind of frost guy.
February 4th, 2009 at 11:58 am
Nice image, but I feel it’s too good to be pareidolia; I think it’s more likely artificial… or rather, artif-ice-ial. Hah!
February 4th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Color me skeptical, too, that it’s an untouched photo. If it is, though, it’s very cool.
February 4th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
Here’s a tree that looks like a chicken:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/4512188/The-tree-that-looks-like-a-chicken.html
February 4th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
It’s a ‘Facicle’! (Perhaps even a farcical facicle, who knows?)
Now if it had formed on the frame of a bicycle…
February 4th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Whoever it is they can’t be happy, seeing as they’re impaled on an icicle and all…
February 4th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
It’s colder than a bucket of penguin poop,
it’s colder than a polar bear’s butt.
The dogs are sticking to the fire hydrants…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbn5a0u7Wok&feature=related
February 4th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
@TheChemist:
oops! I posted the same link! LOL… Brilliant minds think like… or at least have the same news aggregator
February 4th, 2009 at 2:27 pm
It’s the face of Neptune! Repent, repent!
http://www.metasymbology.com/neptune.html
It’s even in ice
February 4th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
@Shane Killian:
I love Zathras reference, I always talk about Zathras but no one listens.
February 4th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
I like the idea of Abe Vigoda in a nebula. Would they call it the Fish Nebula, or would there be problems with royalties?
Abe Vigoda is much more cool than Lenin.
The icicle that evolved into Darwin is also a cool idea, of course some have suggested that this icicle may have been due to Intelligent Design, so nothing new, there.
February 4th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
No, Phil. The greatest example of pareidolia is the Badlands Guardian. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badlands_Guardian
February 4th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
Which Zathras is it? Zathras, Zathras, or Zathras (the quiet one in the family)?
February 4th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
Leonardo da Vinci.
February 4th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
Clearly it’s Karl Marx.
February 5th, 2009 at 4:38 am
I want my own Jack Frost icicle maker! Mr. Ron Popeil pleez!
February 5th, 2009 at 5:09 am
Yeah, looks like Darwin to me.
February 5th, 2009 at 8:33 am
I have a large collection of plant pareidolia pics. Unfortunately, they are all,,,suggestive,,, of mammalian reproductive organs and, as such, NSFW,,,bummer, ’cause they’re really extraordinarily concise and they are all from uncultivated plants.
Just re-reading No Sense of Obligation, by physicist Matt Young.
Love this quote concerning Homeopathy:
One of the leading practitioners, Beverly
Rubik of Johns Hopkins University, has been quoted in several
places as saying, “We need to rethink the properties of matter.
It’s that deep.” Rubik, who proposes no new theory of matter,
does not understand that a new theory has to be consistent with
current theory. That is, it is extremely difficult to overthrow a
theory that is known to work; usually, the best you can do is to
extend such a theory. Homeopathy, as understood by Rubik,
does not extend modern chemical knowledge; to the contrary, it
denies our present understanding of the chemical bond.
The one thing magical thinkers forget is that any new theory must be consistent with the old theory, be able to explain reality as well as the old and go it one better.
Ok, rant over.
GAry 7
February 5th, 2009 at 8:48 am
Quote from the same book:
“real scientists present evidence intended to support
their theories. As Michael Friedlander pointed out to me,
pseudoscientists invert the obligation. That is, they present an
unfounded thesis and defy you to disprove it. They have the cart
before the horse: the obligation of proof is on the people who
make the claims. You have to demonstrate at least that your
claims are plausible, for example, to get your ideas published in
a respectable scientific journal. But pseudoscientists often deny
the validity of accepted knowledge and then defy you to prove
them wrong.”
Gary 7
February 5th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Yep, definitely Darwin. Proof that “god” approves of Darwin Day!
February 5th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
The one you call Lenin looks a lot like Colonel Sanders.
February 5th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
“Darwin”
February 5th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
I hunted down a Badlands Guardian link, then found MF beat me to posting it. It is the best pareidolia ever, and a damned handsome head.
“The feature bears a strong resemblance to a human head wearing a full native American headdress. Because of additional man-made structure, it also appears to be wearing earphones.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badlands_Guardian
February 28th, 2009 at 1:33 am
I found a really “happy” tree a while ago.