Faces on the Wall, Smiles on the Car: Why We Always See "Faces"

Many paranormal photos have such details: a face in the wallpaper pattern, a human figure in the tree trunk, something reflected in the window glass.

This phenomenon is called "pareidolia". The human brain is especially sensitive to faces, because in human evolution, recognizing someone's face is far more important than recognizing other things. Babies just a few days old will pay more attention to face-like patterns: two dots on top, one line below. So even with only these three marks, the brain will think of a "face", and may even recognize it before there's time to think.

Look at the front of a car, some think it's smiling, some think it's angry. Look at an outlet on the wall, it's also a face, two eyes and a mouth. The colon and bracket we use when typing, a colon and a half bracket, make a smiley face. The shadows on the moon are seen by people from many countries as the "Moon Rabbit" or "Man in the Moon", the same thing.

In 1976, an American probe photographed a mountain on Mars that looked like a human face, causing a worldwide sensation. Later, when they took another photo with a clearer camera, it was just an ordinary mountain; different lighting angles made it look like a face.

In dark places, this illusion becomes stronger: when details are unclear, the brain has to fill them in itself. So when you can't sleep at night, staring at the wardrobe, curtains, or ceiling, seeing a face or a human shadow standing in the corner is very common.

At this point, turn on the light and look again: once the light is on, that face turns back into a pile of clothes, a stain.

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