Have you ever looked at an object or building and thought, “hey that kind of looks like a face!”? It’s actually a psychological phenomenon known as pareidolia. Pareidolia involves a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant; it’s a form of apophenia (seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data).
Online you can find entire communities dedicated to finding faces in everyday objects, places and buildings. On Flickr, the group FACES IN PLACES has over 6,365 members and a staggering 23,563 pictures. And on Reddit, there is a subreddit called /r/Pareidolia with nearly 40,000 members!
You can also find countless Tumblrs, blogs and hashtags dedicated to this fascinating phenomenon that so many of us experience. Below you will find a collection of some of the Sifter’s favourite examples. There are literally thousands more, so be sure to check out the sources below if this type of stuff entertains you.
Sources:
– Faces in Places on Flickr
– /r/Pareidolia on Reddit
– Know Your Meme: Things With Faces
1. ‘The Chicken Church’
Church by the Sea, Madeira Beach, Florida
2. Evil Boxes Plotting Something Sinister
3. Happy Headlights
4. Faceplant
5. Say Cheese!
6. Suspicious House in Prague
7. Maniacal Moccasin
8. Stick-tory!
9. Bewildered Banjo
10. Blissful Birds
11. The OMG Wall
12. A Pipe or Three Wisemen?
13. Sad Kiwi is Sad
14. Playful Plugs
15. I Just Want to Sing
16. Om nom nom nom
17. Come on baby light my fire!
18. Holy Sh*t it Looks Like a Woman!
19. Sloppy Sandwich
20. Level-Headed
21. Hmmmmm
22. Droooool
23. Get Off My Lawn
24. That Sinking Feeling
25. Ohhhhh
26. Petrified Peppers
27. Troubled Train
28. I Can’t Believe It
29. Pleasant Pots
30. Drunk Octopus Wants to Fight You
31. 😛
32. Oh My
33. Dry Not to Smile
34. BBQool
35. RAWWWWR!
36. Chocolate Moai
37. Wood Troll
38. Wall-E
39. Zipper FIsh
40. hehehehehehe
41. Cheer Up
42. Oh the Humanity
43. Drink it up
44. Happy Little Tune
45. Sad Monkey 🙁
46. The Snowman
47. Tissue Cross-Section of Marram Grass Leaf
48. COOKIE!?!
49. “I Believe I Can Fly”
50. Louie!
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