Wordless, almost.

Faces on the beach:

Shawl and ribbons

Squinty log

Pinnochio, trapped

The lecture

What do you see here?

From time to time, we find unexpected faces peering at us from clouds, from puddles and leaf patterns, from rocks and lichen.

(I have blogged before about some of these: see the Jesus rock, an alien spaceship, and quite a few more.)

A couple of weeks ago, I almost stepped on this figure on the beach. I see a pilgrim; hooded, bearded, in a long traveler's robe, leaning on a sturdy walking stick.


A sign? A talisman for the long road ahead? A visitation? A wandering monk? A Saint of some stripe? A wizard strayed from the LOTR? A figure for a Nativity scene? Good old Joseph himself? Or a Buddhist arhat?

Should I put him on a high shelf and light candles to him, bring him fruit and flowers, or just rub his hood for luck?

Ah, me! For those actions to bring any benefit, one must believe. And I don't. I think it's a piece of driftwood, molded by waves and rocks, turned into a pattern by my meddling brain. Pareidolia, they call it. I'm out of luck.

So I'm happy to have met him, and he can sit on my table for a while and later go to join the oddities on my shelves. But I won't light candles for him.

Here's another face I found. This one, I couldn't bring home. It was a water stain on the ceiling tiles of a coffee shop washroom. Luckily, my camera rides comfortably in my purse.


A girls face in pink and brown. Lots of hair floating in the breeze. Just the thing for a ladies' washroom!

Another UFO

Alien space ship, parked and camouflaged. At least 8 alien faces, watching.
Along the Kamloops-Merritt highway, BC

Pareidolia, again: some good links

(Part IV of 4: Part I, Part II, Part III.)

This just showed up in my blogroll: a woman whose house burned down two weeks ago, now has found a picture of Jesus in her burnt wallpaper. Here.

Phil Plait, over at Bad Astronomy, has several good posts on the phenomenon. See More Pareidolia for links to stories about Lenin in a shower curtain, Jesus in the Eagle Nebula, a Google Maps image of Jesus in Peru and much more. Or see the search results. (Warning; the September 6, 2006 entry may not be to your taste.)

And then there is Jon Voisey, the Angry Astronomer; he has quite a series of posts on the topic, including a Virgin in a cookie sheet from last month.

And that's the last about this for a while. Laurie is now seeing faces and figures in everything, even in the inside of my socks!

Enough.