Jesus found on Google Maps

I noticed an interesting headline in my RSS feed tonight - Face of Jesus Found in Sand Dune Using Google Maps - which featured this satellite image of Peru. This led me off on a walkabout via Google where I discovered that The Register had picked this up back in July 2005.


There seems to be a suggestion that this is a man-made image, but I can't find any reliable confirmation of that, other than a tourism page which says

"At about 11.00 am we visit " perfil de Jesucristo" (Cosos) Ubicated in the village of Cosos, north of Aplao. It is a rock formation that shows the face of Jesus Christ almost perfectly."

However given that the image appears to cover about 10 square miles (the face is 2 miles wide and 4 miles long), I don't see how it is possible for ground-based tourists to see a "rock formation that shows the face of Jesus Christ almost perfectly". Update: thanks to Luis' comment below with an actual photo of the real Perfil de Christo we now know this map is of something else.

After a bit more Googling it soon became apparent that people are seeing faces all over the place, including Lenin in a shower curtain and the Virgin mary on a freeway underpass. The most famous example is probably the cheese sandwich sold for $28,000 on eBay.

Here's Jesus in the Eagle Nebula (along with the original 1995 Hubble photo).


Apparently seeing faces in otherwise random natural images is a fairly common phenomenon and is known as Pareidolia. The Rorshach Inkblot Test relies on a similar perceptual illusion. Folklorist.net has a large collection of Pareidolia images.

Here is one of my favorite images so far - the Eye of Sauron as discovered around one of our stellar neighbours, the star Fomalhaut.

Related entries

Giant iPod found on Google Maps - 28 March 2006
Google Maps for your phone - 7 November 2005
Google Maps vs. Virtual Earth - 9 August 2005
Google Maps UK updated! - 23 June 2005
Googlemaps - 8 February 2005
Safari Googlemaps - 26 February 2005
Googlemaps - one more time - 8 April 2005
What's new at Google? - 15 March 2004
Security Cameras on Google - 5 January 2005

Trackback Pings

Comments

Subscribe to comments

Enter your email address in the box below to receive an email notification whenever a new comment is posted to this entry.

Email address:

Post a comment

Name:


Email Address:


URL:

Remember personal info?
YesNo

Click a smiley!



Comments:



Please enter this security number in the space below (this prevents automated responses).