Perception of Faces

Perception of faces - Page 4

Scientists who study face perception currently disagree strongly over whether newborn babies innately know what human faces look like and whether certain brain areas are solely responsible for distinguishing one face from another. This was taken from an article in Science News. What is clear is that we recognise faces from a very early age and this ability stays with us for all of our lives. Who hasn't seen the "man in the moon" or faces in clouds or in the burning embers of a fire?

This page takes a look at some of these images of faces, whether they be in clouds, smoke, fire, pictures of landscapes or whatever. I haven't put them here to prove or disprove the existence of God, the devil, angels, ghosts or anything else, they are here because, like the other subjects on this site, I find them interesting.

World Trade Centre

Some of the most interesting of these faces came from a terrible event, the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in New York of 11th September 2001.

The following images were taken from the CNN film clip of the second plane hitting the WTC. The whole clip can be found at http://www.cnn.com/video/us/2001/09/12/2nd.plane.hits.cnn.med.asx

I extracted five still images from the film at 1 second intervals starting at 25 seconds into the clip.

Image from CNN film clip - 25 seconds

25 seconds

Image from CNN film clip - 26 seconds

26 seconds - the "Devil's Face" starting to appear

Image from CNN film clip - 27 seconds

27 seconds - the "Devil's Face"

Image from CNN film clip - 28 seconds

28 seconds - Human in agony?

Image from CNN film clip - 29 seconds

29 seconds

Image from CNN film clip - 30 seconds

30 seconds - are there four faces in this image?

I was trying to capture the famous "Devil's Face" image that many people reported seeing in the clip. The devil's face can be seen forming in the image from 26 seconds and fully formed in the 27 second image. While I was going through the film clip I also noticed something else. Take a look at the 28 second image, does that look like a human in agony to you? I've highlighted the images in the pictures below.

Image from CNN film clip - 27 seconds

27 seconds - the "Devil's Face"

Image from CNN film clip - 28 seconds

28 seconds - Human in agony?

In September 2003, Ken Slayton emailed me with something I hadn't seen in the above image. Here's what Ken saw ...

Image from CNN film clip - 28 seconds

In January 2004, Richard Pearson emailed me another interpretation of the above image. Here's what he saw ...

Image from CNN film clip - 28 seconds

The day after I got Richard's email, I got another from someone who signed themselves Babushka. They'd found another two faces in the video. This time at the 30 second frame...

Image from CNN film clip - 30 seconds

I went back to the film clip and had another look through it, and found two more in the same frame...

Image from CNN film clip - 30 seconds

These weren't the only images showing faces in the destruction of the WTC :-

Another devil

Another devil

Another face appears as one of the towers collapses

Another face in the smoke
View from the East River and Broadway, 11th September 2001 at 5pm

This page created 28th June 2002, last modified 12th September 2008


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