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The Face in the Middle: an Example of Pareidolia?

Above: the original photo, as sent to us. It's from a cellphone camera, so the resolution is low and the image is compressed (322x242 pixels, 22KB).

It was taken by the girl, holding the camera out at arm's length, and includes her and her friend. There was no one else in the photograph and we have no cause to believe the photo was faked. Also, there was no reported feeling that anything was unusual at the time the photo was taken; the anomaly was discovered later.

It seems there is some object, be it the girl's hair combined with the ends of her headscarf, or or some other thing, which has the appearance of a human face - a third person who wasn't there. It is probably an example of pareidolia, the tendency of the human brain to find order in random patterns, which can mean seeing faces in objects or hearing voices in random noise, for example. This is sometimes called matrixing.

The poor image quality of the cellphone camera exacerbates the effect decribed above. If the photo had been taken on a high resolution, dedicated digital camera, we might not be discussing it.

Same photo as above, enlarged 2 times linearly in Photoshop, automatically levelled and with mild (44%) Unsharp Mask applied to increase image sharpness slightly. Note that the enlargement process artifically adds pixels and creates artifacts.

 
Original photo straightened to remove the camera angle; the background is now approximately level. Right: same photo cropped, auto-levelled and sharpened 77%. using Unsharp Mask.

Our guess is that it's the back of the headscarf that forms the main part of the face, with the ends of the girl's hair coming across at the bottom to form what looks like the mouth and small bearded chin. There is daylight between the girl's fingers and the point of the chin.

Also, and more important, is the small amount of daylight showing between the girl and boy's foreheads. This is right where you would expect the top of the head of the anomolous presence to be, blocking out that daylight.

Anyway, this is only our opinion. As an example of a simulacrum, it is extremely convincing, to the point where we can't altogether write it off. We would like to hear your thoughts on it.

Email j.d.gilberd@gmail.com - James Gilberd.

Just experimenting here: the r.h.s. of the photo mirror-flipped to complete the
"face in the middle".

Here is a thorough and lucid explanation of pareidolia, courtesy of Wikipedia.