I See a Face in the Mist, it Must Be a Ghost!
I’ve done it, and you guys have probably done it too. We see something that appears to have 2 eyes, and a larger mouth in the right configuration. It can be in a mist photo, A photo with window reflections is always good for a couple of these. There might be nothing there, really, except a random shadow and light play. Yet to us, we spot, and maintain that there is a face. When we look at photos of anomalies, some of us see ambiguous mist. others of us, with a little more imagination perhaps, are able to see a tall man, with dark hair and eyes, looking back at us. Once someone who has seen this image, points out the references to light and dark and outline that they can see, others are able to discern the same thing. Of course whenever you now look at the picture, you can see the "Face", even though you know there is nothing there. This is what some paranormal investigators are calling "Patern Recognition Syndrome." - Any random shapes that are perceived to be a human-like face.
Much like way we see cute and fluffy bunnies or Jesus in the clouds. We tend to perceive things not always as they are, but as we recognize they could be.like the principles at work in behind Rorschach’s ink blot test.
An explaination for this, given to me by a Neurologist, is that this is the remnant of a primaitve survival skill. As humans began walking upright, we moved ourselves further away from where scents linger and we became more of a visual creature.
It became necessary to see the paterns of the area around us to detect even camoflaged threats, even if we could not hear or smell them. Humans are able recognize these patterns, even though parts of them may be obscurred. A recent experiment had participants view pictures of famous people with different parts of the face blurred. and most people could identify the celebrities by just their eyes or mouth being clear. It is uncertain at this time how the brain processes the visual cues. Nobody knows whether the brain has a flip- book of images and does a 1 to 1 match or if it processes various reference points and mathmaticly eliminates items that don't fit. While the experts may not be able to fully explain how these associations in the brain work, there remains a basic ability to identify shapes and proportional relations and compare them with what we have filed away, to come up with the closest match we can make. Aspecs of the "Syndrome" aren't just found in "Paranormal" photographs. In a few cases it has been behind an overwhelming public outrage with everyday images.
A couple of the more infamous ones are the old Kansas State University Wildcat with the phallic tounge and the picture on the box of Walt Disney's "Little Mermaid" where the king allegedly had an erection under his robes. While in both cases there was really nothing there, enough people "saw" them and the images were pulled.
Written by Independent Writer, Gary Lawrence.
Ghost_stalker1@excite.com
