Pareidolia and the Paranormal

Seeing faces, animals, and humans in such things as clouds or water has a name. It is called “pareidolia.” However, in the paranormal field, pareidolia is very subjective as it relates to evidence, and it can certainly cause a bit of chaos if there are disagreements.

When I was around the age of 19, I discovered that the “man on the moon” was something else altogether. One night while I pointed out the man on the moon to a friend, I was shown that there was instead a “rabbit” on the moon with ears…etc. To this day, I can no longer see the man on the moon, even if someone tries to point it out to me. It’s a rabbit I tell ya!

The same can be said when pareidolia comes into play when paranormal investigators are reviewing their evidence. As investigators, I am sure that many of us have seen a picture or two posted online of people sitting on a porch, and there is a misty face or a body next to them. You then scroll down and read the comments. A flame war has erupted between people who are convinced it is a ghost, and the people who are convinced that it is nothing more than cigarette smoke. Sometimes you may encounter a couple commenters who state they are unsure, but that is usually few and far between to find those that are on the fence.

There is also an abundant amount of YouTube videos which are filled with “evidence” such as a ghostly figure standing behind a window in an abandoned house, or perhaps a shadowy figure walking out of a doorway. But one must wonder if what we are seeing is an entity from the other side or is it indeed just pareidolia?

In my opinion, I would hope that any paranormal investigator who has an image/video which raises the question of pareidolia, would have tried to disprove the image/video from every angle before posting it online. If every questionable item is ruled out during the review stage, it should be put out there for the rest of us to view (if that is what the investigator or group wants). I do have to admit that it is disheartening to see people (or TV shows for that matter), post obvious pareidolia images for the sake of likes, followers, subscribers, or viewers. Yet, it is also disheartening for people to shred someone personally because they don’t agree with the image or video, when in actuality the poster of the evidence truly believes in what they are seeing.

Discrepancies in pareidolia even stretch into established dictionaries. Look at the following pareidolia definitions from three notable dictionaries:

Cambridge Dictionary: A situation in which someone sees a pattern or image of something that does not exist, for example a face in a cloud.

Merriam-Webster: The tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern.

Oxford Dictionary: The perception of apparently significant patterns or recognizable images, especially faces, in random or accidental arrangements of shapes and lines.

Even the above dictionary publishers cannot agree on what exactly pareidolia is. The Cambridge Dictionary outright claims that the pattern or image is something that “does not exist.” The publishers of this dictionary have already concluded the results of your evidence for you – what you see in the picture or video you took during your investigation last week is not real. However, the other two definitions are less harsh, offering the words “meaningful” or “recognizable” which leaves a bit of wiggle room into what you are seeing.

I don’t think that many people have experienced the feeling of excitement that a paranormal investigator feels when after spending hours or days examining their evidence, they find that one special image or frame of video which could possibly be concluded as factual evidence of the other side. I have felt the excitement countless times, as I am sure lots of you have as well. However, I can’t stress enough the fact that we must not let the eyes of pareidolia cloud our judgement in a race to provide proof to other investigators, or the skeptical public in general.

We need to thoroughly examine our images, and we need to be open to the very big possibility that others will disprove our discovery. Just like when we review EVP’s, we can hear one thing, while our partner or other team members can hear something totally different. The same can be said when viewing a misty image from behind a window. More than likely, what we are seeing falls under the category of pareidolia. But, let’s not close the door to the fact that there are a number of images and videos out there that are unexplainable, and that is something we should take into consideration before shrugging it off as just pareidolia.

It’s alright to come back empty handed from an investigation. It’s alright to have our evidence scrutinized. It’s alright to have your own opinion as to what you are seeing. It’s also alright to stand behind your evidence, whether people agree or not.

The bottom line is that putting out obvious pareidolia images is not very professional, nor is publicly ridiculing an image or video that an investigator or team truly believes to be evidence of the other side.

Do you see what I see? Perhaps a good first step would be for us not to tell anyone what we see during the analyzation of evidence. Write your thoughts down privately, then have the other reviewers do the same. Afterwards, compare your notes. This will help in determining if the evidence is pareidolia, or if it is truly something that just may in fact be supernatural. Going in blind when reviewing evidence is perhaps the best way to truly be objective in our analyzations.