Yowiehunters Forum

G'day all.

I found an interesting effect of pariedolia (to myself at least, others might see absolutely nothing at all ) while looking over a recent pic I took in the Blue Mountains. I took the pic so that I would know the exact area and the plant life therein. When I looked at it (at full resolution), this seemed to stick out. Though I'm sure it's a stump or something (possibly a random play of light/shade adding to it) and my mind's ability in finding patterns amongst random shapes, I would be interested in what others see, if anything at all.

A shame I can't upload the original file, as it's too big and I had some trouble, but has much better clarity and detail. So I reduced it. While the reduced pic is too small to be of any use, downloading or opening the file in a new tab gives a better idea of what I am talking about.

enlarged a bit more. Looks odd, again...pariedolia.

Hey Sapere

Yeah its a classic case of pariedolia alright, but thanks for posting, occasionally i get things sent to me by email, which I always reply there is nothing there, to me its always not conclusive enough.

Hopefully soon enough we will see the real thing

Thanks Dion.

The anomaly in this pic seems to be a photographic effect of some inanimate object/s. I found it interesting when I asked someone who is generally very sceptical (as I often am) and they picked it out immediately, even describing what they thought it looked like exactly the same way as myself. Yet when I asked a couple of people who are generally not so skeptical, they couldn't see anything without having it pointed out, even then they were nonplussed by it.

As a keen (amateur) photographer I find this subject fascinating. I have put a lot of work into looking at/enhancing various video and pics at times trying to bring out detail. Just for my own interest, to be able to have a more informed opinion. I remember one time looking into a certain claim. Instead of just finding some effect in photoshop that was easy to debunk (the original claim) I looked into it in a lot more depth (spent months in the end enhancing video at different rates and making hundreds of stills of certain sequences to find background movement etc) after I noticed a few very strange things that seemed lost on those making the original claims. In the end I gave up and had to put it down to pariedolia, while being open to the possibility that it may well not be.

Yet other times I haven't been able to find anything odd, or that even resembled pareidolia to begin with and simply scratched my head wondering what people were talking about. It seems so much depends on the way our mind interprets this sort of information, which I guess is a bit different for each of us.

I also remember a couple of years back on another forum a discussion about a well publicized ufo sighting. One of the members actually contacted the person who took the photos to ask if they could assist in investigating it (they ended up joining and took part in the thread). Using the exif data (which even gives the coordinates on iphones) he was able to establish the claimed sequence of the pics to be different from the account given (which wouldn't be unusual in itself). It seems the pics in question were actually viewed through a car windscreen instead of out in the open as claimed.

In the end (from memory), after a bit of experiment, it appeared the ufo's were a mixture of debris on the windscreen and street lighting at dusk. It seemed hard to refute and was quite well done. Not so much from people trying to debunk, as those genuinely interested in ufo's and looking for the truth of it. While the person looking into the pics displayed nothing but gratitude and respect , it's shame not everyone displayed the same manners and in the end I can see why people would hesitate to come forward in similar circumstances.

For this reason I often wonder if people do have genuine pics of things like cryptids, either passed off as some anomaly due to not being conclusive enough, or even if it is clear, they don't bother because they can see it really wouldn't be worth the trouble.

The PG film seems a good example. For everyone who sees a fake man in a suit, with obvious fabric joins and fake rubber feet, there will be someone who sees an anatomically correct creature displaying muscle movement etc. For everyone who sees fake fur covered breasts, another will say it must be real as no one would fake such a thing and so on and so on. In the end it is, it seems, all a matter of personal opinion.

For anyone who has ever wondered what the world might sometimes look like from the point of view of a trail cam photo, with a touch of pariedolia in the air above: