The Internet is buzzing about a NASA-captured image of what looks like a ghost woman on Mars.
First people thought they were seeing a massive crab on Mars, and now it’s a ghostly woman. Thanks to TIME’s science writer Jeffrey Kluger, we know the sights are actually due to pareidolia; a phenomenon that makes us see all sorts of things that aren’t really there. It’s when people see familiar images in unfamiliar patterns.
In a story explaining the large crab on Mars image, Kluger writes:
The pareidolia phenomenon is actually a deeply rooted one, something that helps infants focus on faces early and also allowed humans in the wild to spot danger easily—picking a potentially menacing human or animal peering out from a backdrop of leaves or scrub. Yes, more often than not it’s a false alarm, but better to overreact fifty times than under-react even once.
So no, there’s not a ghost woman on Mars, and there’s no giant crab, but it’s probably not the last time there’s a “sighting” of something unusual on the planet.
MORE: Why Your Brain Thinks This Picture Shows a Giant, Martian Crab Monster
[Mashable]
More Must-Reads From TIME
- For Antony Blinken, the War in Gaza Is a Test of U.S. Power
- How Trump Took Control of the GOP Primary
- Inside the Nuclear Fusion Facility That Changed the World
- Jane Fonda : You Can’t Have Healthy People On a Sick Planet
- Breaking Down the Science of Science-ified Foods
- Jodie Foster on Returning to Her Killer-Hunting Roots
- Taylor Swift Is TIME's 2023 Person of the Year
- Want Weekly Recs on What to Watch, Read, and More? Sign Up for Worth Your Time
Contact us at letters@time.com