Found on eBay: "Dark Knight Joker (Heath Ledger) - Face in My Toilet!" The seller writes:



Coincidentally, I'm in the process of remodeling the hallway bathroom in my house and am in the market for a new toilet. But I definitely won't be bidding on this thing.

But at least it's not a Jesus face in a toilet. (Thanks, Heidi)

I've been falling behind on my pareidolia updates. So I'm lumping all the recent sightings together in one post:

Spumoni Jesus
Some patrons of Hatch Family Chocolates in Salt Lake City claimed to be able to see the image of Jesus in a 3-gallon bucket of spumoni ice cream. Me: I can't see it at all. Spumoni Jesus started to melt, so they ate him. (Thanks, Bob!)

Face in Log
This one has been getting a lot of attention. Ernest Ward, a groundskeeper at Magnolia Cemetery in Maryville, Tennessee, cut a tree limb, revealing a discoloration that looks like a human face. (What, not Jesus?) The Telegraph thinks it looks like the Queen.

Palm Tree Jesus
A family in Margate, Florida spotted Jesus on a palm tree outside their home. The guy gets around. To me that face doesn't even look vaguely like the traditional, iconic representation of Jesus.

Texas Virgin Mary
The Herrera family of Midland, Texas spotted the Virgin Mary on a tree trunk outside their home. Many locals gathered at their house on the fourth of July to see it for themselves.

Winter Park Jesus
Joe Lewis, a resident of Winter Park, Florida, claims that shadows created by street lights outside his home form an image on a tree that looks a lot like Jesus.

Virgin of Guadalupe Found on Rock
California-resident Jaime Garcia says he was down-on-his-luck until he found a rock that seems -- to him at least -- to show an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe appearing before Saint Juan Diego. In the thumbnail, Garcia's rock is on the right, and on the left is a representation of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Finding the rock inspired Garcia to quit drinking and smoking. He says: "People used to think I'm crazy. Now, they're thinking different." Cranky Media Guy says: "Yeah, now they think he's out of his f---ing mind!"

We live in paranoid times in which people are apt to interpret harmless objects (such as battery-lit sweatshirts or cartoon characters) as imminent threats. But we're really no more paranoid than previous generations. A case in point is the Nazi Air Marker Hoax of 1942.

On August 10, 1942 the Army public-relations office issued a press release warning the public of "secret markers" that had been found on farm fields throughout the eastern United States. These markers were patterns formed by the arrangement of fertilizer sacks or the way a field had been tilled. From the ground they looked like nothing, but from the air they formed the shape of arrows, apparently created by Nazi sympathizers in order to guide enemy bombers straight toward military factories and airfields.

There was a big public outcry. Editorials warned of the need to guard against the enemy within. But a few days later it turned out that the "secret markers" were really just random patterns. A case of military pareidolia. The Army admitted the story "may be untrue." In one case the pattern had been created by the Department of Agriculture, which had directed a farmer to plow his field in that way to help stop soil erosion.

More about this (as well as pictures of the "air markers") in the photo archive.

Cranky Media Guy wants to know "Who in the press can we implore to PLEASE MAKE THIS NONSENSE STOP?"

He's referring to the most recent finding of a holy potato. From thelocal.de:


Of course, I assume Cranky knows the answer to his question. There is no one we can appeal to. The nonsense will never stop. Ever.

Related post: some other holy spuds

Don't miss out on this gem on eBay. The seller says: "I have here for auction one ruffled potato chip that looks like Bigfoot. Just for fun, let's call him Chipfoot. The chip is in very good/stable condition and should ship quite nicely."

I'd make a bid, but at $3 it's already too pricey for me.

Hudson Pace writes: "I was scraping out a baking tin when I discovered this Face of Jesus on the bottom! I thought of putting it on Ebay, but then I thought, I don't need the money, so why not cut out the middleman and send the picture straight to the Museum of Hoaxes? Hope you like it."

Very nice. Thanks, Hudson. And it's made me think that I really should create a Pareidolia Gallery to better categorize all these image-bearing baking tins, trees, pieces of toast, etc.

More tree pareidolia. But this time, it's not the Virgin Mary. It's a naked lady. In theory, it could be a naked Virgin Mary, but no one has made that claim.

The tree, which is over 100 years old, stood on a corner in West Chester, Pennsylvania. It was going to be cut down. After its branches were removed, local residents noticed the woman. It wasn't enough to save the tree. They chopped it down anyway, but the owners are planning on making a statue out of the wood.

John Ordover sent this in. He was looking at a picture of Jesus (or rather, an artist's interpretation of what Jesus might have looked like) when he realized a piece of toast had miraculously appeared on it. I think this must be a message from John's toaster! But can we be sure that actually is a piece of toast? It kinda looks like a granola bar to me.

Two examples of religious pareidolia have made headlines recently. The first is "Cheesus" -- a Jesus-shaped Cheeto found by Steve Cragg, a youth director at Memorial Drive United Methodist Church in Houston. He actually found it a couple of years ago, but decided to unveil it recently in honor of Easter.


The second is the Virgin Mary on an Easter egg. KGBT reports: "Veronica Cervera said she was making "cascarones" by dyeing hollow eggshells on Good Friday when an image suddenly appeared. Cervera is convinced it's the Virgin Mary." I can't see the image at all. It looks like a white smudge to me.

And now for your daily pareidolia. (Well, weekly pareidolia, at least.)

Manny Duenas of Sacramento was cutting down some old palm leaves in his yard -- on Palm Sunday, no less -- when he happened to look at one of the leaves in his hand and saw an image of the Virgin Mary cradling baby Jesus in her arms.

Duenas says: "God is out there and maybe these are one of the messages that they send."


Actually, I don't so much see the Virgin Mary figure, but I definitely see an outline of the state of Illinois. Maybe it's some kind of message being sent to us by the Illinois Cornflake.

Ten years ago Wendy Divock felt a touch on her cheek. She thought it was her husband touching her, but when she turned around, he wasn't there. What she saw instead was an image of a face in her closet door.

Initially Wendy and her husband called the image the "guy in the door," but after doing some research on the internet they decided that it was Jesus. The pastor across the street assures them that the image is "very significant and that it's authentic."

The Dovicks have created a site, jesusinthedoor.com, to publicize their door. They're selling 8x10 glossy photos of it for $13.50. Whenever you click any link on their site, a pop-up screen alerts you of this. They've also got a creepy animated figure that introduces people to the site.

They don't say if Jesus-in-the-door still "touches" Wendy when her back is turned. (Thanks, Bob)

According to the website dnaindia.com, 50 people in the Kottayam district of India have lost their vision after gazing into the sun for hours trying to see an image of the Virgin Mary:

If people feel compelled to see an image of the Virgin Mary in something, it seems much safer to stick with things like grilled cheese sandwiches or tree stumps.