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I think there is a face in my orb! Isn't that paranormal?
Some people believe that 'orbs' are the manifestation of dead people. Unfortunately for them any evidence for this theory is hard to come by. When some people see faces in an orb they believe that a) it is the face of a ghost and b) that this is proof that orbs are paranormal.
The faces people sometimes see in orbs are usually indistinct and you have to make an effort to make them out.
If someone pointed out a 'face' in an orb to you, you might just make it out. The real test of this theory comes when you present these images to people without priming them with the idea of a face. Often people would not notice without being 'told' what to look for.
This effect is known as pareidolia. Other examples include seeing faces in other random patterns, shapes in clouds, the Man on the Moon, the Face on Mars, images of Jesus or the Virgin Mary, the Old Man of the Mountain, etc.
Carl Sagan theorised that as a survival technique, from birth we are 'hard wired' to identify human faces. In practical terms, when we see random or ambiguous data we identify images that we are predisposed to see, but which are actually not there.
Inkblot tests run along similar lines. Nonsense images are presented, and the interest is in how the person interprets the random images.
Going back to orbs: we have already established in the cell orbs section that imperfections in the lens of the camera photographing orbs often produce random patterns in the 'body' of the orbs.
It is these random patterns that we misinterpret as faces. If anyone is in doubt, take a random sample of ten people (ideally people who do not spend a lot of time looking for spooky images) and see if they see the face without telling them that it is a face you are looking for. I have often found that, when prompted, people do see a 'sort of' image; but often an entirely different one to the face originally seen!
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