Archive for the ‘Pareidolia’ Category

Today, while at work, I was filming a site using a new high definition camcorder with face recognition technology. The camera is impressive, and usually good at picking up faces: front profiles, side profiles, on weird angles — it usually recognizes a face. So what interested me was when it started indicating that there was a face in a piece of fiberglass insulation, which was being removed from a wall. The indicator flashed two or three times, but only very briefly. While I doubt that the camera saw the face of Jesus, it made me start to wonder how in our pursuit to design machines that mimic the human brain, what type of other human phenomena we would see begin to appear in our technology.

CNN and CBS have recently presented another “hard-hitting” series of reports on pareidolia with its piece on Jesus found in the water stains of a weight-loss centre’s ceiling.  The patrons and staff alike confide that they’ve since watched their language, avoid lying, and generally act civil while face-to-ceiling with the water stain Jesus.

Link.

As is typical with stories concerning seeing images in random patterns or artifacts, I don’t see Jesus.  In fact, I see Gorn.  It then becomes a surprise to me that patrons of the centre chose to pacify themselves rather than fashion a cannon out of a hollowed-out bamboo shoot.

So what’s appeared on the ceiling, then?  A) Jesus or B) Gorn?

The answer is neither.  It’s a [Gorn-shaped] water stain.  That’s pretty much it.