"I told some of my friends, you know, 'I got a turtle,' and I said it has the image of the Virgin Mary on it, and I said it's getting plainer and plainer, and they said 'Yeah, Shirley, you're 81 years old. You think we believe that?' I said it's the truth, so now they all believe it," said McVane.

Yeah, this was on the front page of the Chicago Sun Times. I am so proud of my city.

Nah that's not the Virgin Mary.... wait a minute...
OMG It's John Lennon again!!

Looks like an alien to me.

I'm pretty skeptical of these apparitions, and this one looks more like the bottom side of a turtle shell than anything else, but it does look more like traditional pictures of Mary than that glob of chocolate or that piece of popcorn did.
Specifically, it looks like Our Lady of Guadalupe:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Guadalupe

To me it looks like. . .well let's just say "private girl parts". . .

As to virgin or not, well I'm not a gynecologist.

Looks like the bottom of a Western Painted Turtle to me. I have 3 at home will similar markings. I am so glad that I don't suffer from Pareidolia. It seems like it is becoming a disease these days. Virgin Mary on the bottom of a turtle one day and Jimmy Hoffa in the text of my post the next.

*Points up at Lounge Lizard's post*

Oh, My Goodness! It's Jimmy Hoffa. Right there in that post!!!

Looks more like Darth Vader to me. Hmmmm, Darth Vader on the underside of a turtle... what does that portend? Cute turtle, though.

OK, seriously, what would happen if I said that I just discovered an image of the Virgin Mary on my penis, or that my penis LOOKED LIKE the Virgin Mary? Seriously, would the press take me seriously and put me on the TV news? I would keep a straight face, of course, and maintain that I was serious about the "apparition." How would they handle that?

Is my story really more absurd than a Virgin Mary made of chocolate drippings or in the burn mark on a tortilla? Could I get pilgrims to make donations to see my miracle penis?

Damned, Cranky Media Guy beat me to it. I was just going to post that the vitiligo spots on my, uhm, "male organ" look like the Virgin Mary....

OK, seriously, what would happen if I said that I just discovered an image of the Virgin Mary on my penis, or that my penis LOOKED LIKE the Virgin Mary? Seriously, would the press take me seriously and put me on the TV news? I would keep a straight face, of course, and maintain that I was serious about the "apparition." How would they handle that?

Well, Cranky, there's really only one way to find out...

For the love of god, NO pictures - PLEASE!!!

My biggest concern with this idea is that I've now spilled the beans here, therefore I would probably get "caught" pretty quickly. I guess it was more of a "mind exercise" than anything else, but I really do wonder what would happen with something like that.

My best guess is that they would do the story, with no shots of the actual "miracle apparition." What I wonder is whether they would treat it as a serious story about someone who "saw" a "miracle" or would it be ridiculed. On what basis could they ridicule it, though, given what they've treated seriously in the past?

LaMa said:

"Damned, Cranky Media Guy beat me to it. I was just going to post that the vitiligo spots on my, uhm, "male organ" look like the Virgin Mary...."

Sorry about the discoloration, Dude, but in all seriousness, you sound as if you'd be the perfect person to pull this off. Oops, bad phrasing there, huh?

Seriously, if you have any acting skills, you might want to seriously consider being the guy who "finds" the "miracle" on his best friend, if you catch my drift.

Too bad you're in Europe; America seems to be the place where this kind of thing happens most often. But, hey, the Lord works in mysterious ways, right?

Do it Cranky. I want to be able to point at my television and state, "I know that penis!"

Am I the only one who sees a Coke bottle? Is this some original advertising technique?

(And JoeDaJuggler: Shirley McVane's already said the turtle's a girl. So what do you expect to see when you look up between its legs?)

Charybdis said:

"Do it Cranky. I want to be able to point at my television and state, "I know that penis!"

If I did it, that would be MY prime motivation as well.

Awww,not again...if saints and Jesus wants to make their presence known,why do it in such stupid ways?
Grilled cheese sandwiches,turtles and ultrasound pictures...geeez.
Why not make a big statement instead,you know,a big time apparition across the sky or something?
Well,these people want attention,or want to feel chosen.Let them have it if the newspapers has nothing better to put on their front pages anyway.I guess it harms noone.

"I was just going to post that the vitiligo spots on my "male organ" look like ..."

I'm usually a "show me" type of person, but in this case, I'm more than willing to take your word for it.

nitedrive said:

"Well,these people want attention,or want to feel chosen.Let them have it if the newspapers has nothing better to put on their front pages anyway.I guess it harms noone."

I sort of disagree with you on that. With two (or is it three? I forget.) wars going on, New Orleans still not recovering significantly from last year's hurricane, etc., it seems to me that there's plenty of REAL stuff to fill the daily newspapers.

These people can feel "chosen" if they want, I guess, but the press doesn't have to enable them in their delusion.

If I found something that really looked like a religious figure where there wasn't supposed to be one, I would definitely try and sell it on eBay for $$.

cvirtue said:

"If I found something that really looked like a religious figure where there wasn't supposed to be one, I would definitely try and sell it on eBay for $$."

I believe that you can't sell livestock on eBay.

Wasn't really thinking this turtle in specific, although the turtle's owner could kill it, then sell the shell, I suppose. To me, the design more closely resembles a marital aid than a Mary idol.

What gets me is how sure these people are about the identity of these pictures - it's not like we have any 2,000-year-old drivers' licenses or stuff like that for comparison. I defy anyone alive today to reliably distinguish between an image of Jesus and an image of Judas. Suppose I found a clump in my cat's litter box that looked like a face? Would christians get angry because it's made from cat pee like they did about the art that used elephant poo?

The tendency to see familiar images in random patterns is called pareidolia. And if you want to see a real penis shaped like the VM, go to http://www.divine-interventions.com/mary.html

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