23 Pareidolia Pics: Best Batch of Things That Look Like Other Things

Eleonora Bader

Feb 12, 2023 9:00 AM EST

For those of you who don't know, pareidolia is a word that is derived from the Greek words para (meaning something wrong/faulty) and eidōlon (form/image/shape). It's a form of apophenia, which is a more general term for the tendency to seek patterns in random data. In other words, it's a trick of vision. We see weird stuff (what else is new?).

There is an entire subreddit dedicated to pareidolia images, which is where we found this batch. While scrolling through, we made several double takes, wondering if what we thought we saw was actually the thing that we thought we saw but had to conclude that no, the thing we thought we saw was not in fact the thing we thought we saw. OUR EYES DECEIVED US. It's like our brain is playing footsie.

So without further ado, we invite you to have a look for yourself. Get ready for some easy brain freeze (sticking your tongue to the roof of your mouth ain't gonna fix this one). You're also welcome to check out these hilarious classical art memes that would make our ancestors less than proud.