Man on Mars?

Glenn · Post by **Glenn** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 6:40 pm

I'm always amazed at how the brain is programmed to cue in on certain patterns, whether they be real or a trick of lighting and shadows.
Is that a man on Mars?

Glenn · Post by **Glenn** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 6:51 pm

The object in that picture reminds me of

Dale Houser · Post by **Dale Houser** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 9:37 pm

Looks like he needs to work on keeping his arm straight when he punches. Otherwise, nice horse stance.

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Thu Jan 24, 2008 11:58 pm

Squint your eyes or blur the picture enough and all kinds of things seem plausible.

You are right though in that our brains are pattern detectors, and some patterns elicit stronger responses than others. Things that look like faces tend to evoke a response. I remember as a child how much the fronts of cars looked like faces to me. Take a shadow and move it around a field full of chickens just the right way (like a soaring hawk) and watch them go bizerk.

- Bill

JimHawkins · Post by **JimHawkins** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:04 am

Bill Glasheen wrote:I remember as a child how much the fronts of cars looked like faces to me.

So true..

I remember walking up my block in the 70s and looking at all the funny faces..

Shana Moore · Post by **Shana Moore** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 2:02 am

Bill Glasheen wrote: Things that look like faces tend to evoke a response. I remember as a child how much the fronts of cars looked like faces to me.

Perhaps it's the childlike wonder I choose to view the world with (that's my story, and I'm sticking with it

) but I still like to play with patterns and see faces or images in ordinary things.....

boy....it's late, and I need to leave work! good night all!

chef · Post by **chef** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 3:20 am

Damn...I'm still working...faces, laughs, anything but work.

I love those figure-ground relationships...wonderful. M.C. Escher was the master at them and a turn of the century mathematician.

Too much work and not enough play...I think I am becoming a very dull girl.

G'nite y'all.

Regards,
Vicki

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 4:27 am

chef wrote:
I love those figure-ground relationships...wonderful. M.C. Escher was the master at them and a turn of the century mathematician.

Like this?

Van Canna · Post by **Van Canna** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 6:06 am

TSDguy · Post by **TSDguy** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 12:50 pm

Glenn · Post by **Glenn** » Fri Jan 25, 2008 3:18 pm

Of course Mars has had this kind of publicity before, such as the famous Face on Mars first detected on a Viking 1 image in 1976. Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) images in 1998, and again in 2001, have shown the Viking image to just be a trick of lighting and shadows.

Below is the famous 1976 Viking image that appears to show a large face carved into a mountain or something on the surface of Mars, followed by a series of magnified pictures showing the difference in how this feature looks on images from Viking and MGS, from Unmasking the Face on Mars: