Category: pareidolia

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

September 21, 2016 • 6:38 am

It’s Wednesday, September 21, and the “food day” holidays have reached their nadir with National Pecan Cookie Day. I doubt that any reader here will eat one. Getting to the larger events on this day in history, in 1897 the New York Sun published its famous “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” letter, helping inspire, I’m sure, dozens of Christian apologists.  The Sun‘s response, evoked by an inquiry from an 8-year-old girl, is given below. It could have been written by someone like C. S. Lewis, but substituting the word “God” for “Santa Claus” and leaving out the chimney bit. It even extols faith and says the world would be meaningless without Santa! Have a look:

200px-yesvirginiathereisasantaclausclipping

Speaking of fantasy, on this day in 1937 J. R. R. Tolkien’s book The Hobbit was published.

Notables born on this day include the great mountaineer Hermann Buhl (1924), killed by falling through a cornice on Chogolisa in Pakistan in 1957. He’d made the first ascent of Nanga Parbat, finishing it solo and bivouacking overnight at atltitude because he was caught out late. Leonard Cohen was born on this day in 1934, Stephen King in 1947, and Bill Murray in 1950. Those who died on this day include Walter Brennan (1974) and Florence Griffith Joyner (1998, epileptic seizure). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili has taken to sleeping upstairs on the guest bed.

A: You have become very fond of this place lately.
Hili: The guests come and go but bedding stays.
p1040860

In Polish:

Ja: Bardzo polubiłaś ostatnio to miejsce.
Hili: Goście przyjeżdżają i wyjeżdżają, a pościel zostaje.
Lagniappe: from Dangerous Minds, via reader T. Fife, we have the face of Charles Darwin seen in a patient’s eye scan. Pity the person can’t charge others to come see it!
js99657983_465_455_int
js99657975_465_309_int

The Holy Spud awes Canadian seniors; CBC said it could be a “sign from above”

September 5, 2016 • 2:00 pm

Canadians are acting badly again, and here I’m referring to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, who should know better. From the CBC, we have a story about a Holy Potato. The text is indented, and the figure captions are from the website.

A cook was cutting potatoes at a Quebec seniors’ residence when he decided to slice one lengthwise instead of across, as he usually did.

What he saw inside is being called a sign of a divine presence in the building.

“He saw it was a cross and he said, ‘It’s a sign,'” said Émilien Morin, president of the residents’ committee at Le Mieux Vivre Residence in Grande-Rivière.

“He thought it meant ‘I’m here’ — a religious sign.”

The sacred spud was discovered Aug. 22 at the Gaspé Peninsula residence by cook Alain Lévesque.

“He couldn’t believe it,” Morin said.

holy-potato-cross
The potato will be on display in the dining room where all residents at the seniors’ home in Grande-Rivière, Que., can enjoy being near it. (Submitted by Gaston Lebreux)

I love the figure caption above (my emphasis). But wait—there’s more!

Morin said the residents are devout Catholics and sought a way to preserve the potato.

Jeannette Moreau, a residents’ committee member, is currently housing the potato in her apartment as it dries.

Morin says the potato-drying process could take up to a month, adding that the spud has started to darken but the sign of the cross at its centre is still highly visible.

He doesn’t want people to visit the vegetable until it’s fully dried and ready to be displayed in a custom-made display case.

Morin said the potato will be on display in the dining room where all residents can enjoy being near it.

“It makes them feel safe,” Morin said.

holy-potato
Alain Lévesque and Émilien Morin have been instrumental in preserving the potato. (Submitted by Gaston Lebreux)

Now here’s the bad part in an otherwise amusing article (amusing for nonbelievers, that is): the ending of the article:

Screen Shot 2016-09-05 at 1.35.21 PM

Seriously, CBC? “Might be a sign from above?” “Divine?” Given that they have a naturalistic explanation, why on earth would they raise the possibility that God made these markings? Who’s in charge of this article?

I sent this to friends in Montreal, who said the only thing to be done with this spud is make Holy Poutine, which could be offered to Québécois as a kind of communion.

Here’s another Jesus potato, along with 21 other images of Jesus in food from BuzzFeed, including my favorite, a Jesus banana:

enhanced-buzz-2829-1364580714-0

Someone call Ray Comfort: his apology for the banana video was premature!

enhanced-buzz-16727-1363980765-7

h/t: Snowy Owl

Pareidolia: Satan afflicts a sick baby?

March 15, 2016 • 8:00 am

Reader Peter sent a freaky photo of his sick son. His notes:

You sometimes post some pareidolia shots and so I thought I would send this screenshot I took off my webcam while I was monitoring my sick baby. I guess because he was so sick, I was spending extra time looking at him and just when he rolled this suddenly popped up. In the split second that my brain took to see the picture I was startled before rationality set in. The growbag that he is in is all white with coloured dots on it (hard to see from the infra-read webcam). There are no images of anything else. This peculiar set of conditions that enabled these shadows to pop up in this configuration is quite rare, I would think. I can only imagine what an irrational mind would think of it.

sick_8_month_old_baby_webcam_screenshot
Could it be . . . ?

A Christian spider?

September 21, 2015 • 1:30 pm

Reader Chris sent me a photo of an oddly marked spider and a note:

A few months ago, one Sunday morning, someone knocked on my front door unexpectedly.
(Or did they unexpectedly knock on my front-door? I fear a reprimand from Steven Pinker now.)
I opened the door to be greeted by one of my neighbours, a middle-aged woman I’d never spoken to before, just the occasional friendly smile and hello.
She grinned at me: “I’d like to invite you to a memorial.”
“Sorry?”
“I’d like to invite you to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus”.
Ahh. It was Easter – damn, I need to get chocolate eggs for the kids.
“I’m sorry, really not interested”.
As I closed the door, I swear she scowled at me. Really? You knock on my door uninvited, and it’s me that’s in the wrong?

Yesterday, as I left the house, I nearly walked into a big spider’s web right across my front door.
I took a photo of the offending beast – having zoomed in to inspect further,
I’m pretty sure that neighbour had something to do with this, just look at the cross on its abdomen!
(I presume it’s an abdomen – I wrote ‘back’ initially. Or is it a ‘thorax’?)

Yep, it’s an abdomen, though I can’t identify the punitive beast. But I’m sure some reader can. Chris apparently didn’t realize the money he could make by exhibiting the spider in its web.
xtian spider

A genuine miracle, and you saw it here first!

August 17, 2015 • 1:30 pm

It totally IS! Look at the shadow of this plume moth! The creature (perhaps an angel?) was clearly sent by G*d as a harbinger of the End Times. Now you can go worship the wall at the House of Ron (the reader who sent this message), or you can worship this site. Either way, this is something big!

But Ron himself, the scalawag, is clearly a doubter, for his email said this:

My daughter spotted this insect on our house in Milwaukee and I took a photo to share with you. The shadow is something special and will amuse some of your readers if you decide to post the photo.

Amuse, indeed. But if this was on a hyper-Christian blog, I’d be inundated with vistors.

Jesus moth

p.s. This does not mean that Jesus is Batman.

Not photoshopped: Gull on Eagle on Gull & Horse on Horse

July 19, 2015 • 8:15 am

by Grania

We’ve all seen the photo of the shark jumping at the helicopter, which is as fake as a fish on a bicycle; but here are two fascinating pictures that are completely real.

From the Puffle Ho, David Canales snapped this amazing shot while kyaking in Prince William Sound, Alaska.

The sad, but inevitable news: the eagle won.

And from the Daily Mewl, a foal in North Yorkshire has been born with a marking that looks like a horse. There are more photos at the link. His owners have called him Da Vinci, or Vinnie for short.

 

Thanks and a Hat-tip: John Williamson

Breaking News: Jesus now in Texas

July 16, 2015 • 8:00 am

by Grania

On the side of a cow trailer.

My only comment on this is: how does this become a news item at all? It’s not like even the news team believes it to be real, whether or not they may profess to be Real Christians™ themselves.

Even they are basically yukking it up at the imaginings of an emotionally compromised individual and her family who are lapping up every bit of attention they can get.

It’s kind of the 21st century equivalent of the old Victorian era freak show.

Yes, some people will get a warm and fuzzy message out of it; although you could get a message out of Harry Potter too without anyone feeling the pressing need to call the local press and share the good news.

Mostly, it’s a tawdry peep show for people to point and roll their eyeballs at, and I guess the media will keep reporting on it while people keep gawping and laughing.

Jesus

Hat-tip: Joyce