Pareidolia: Why we see what isn't there

A happy face on Mars. Image credit: NASA June 16, 2016 /Photography News/ A cloud resembling an angel reassures some - and terrifies others. Traffic jams stretch for blocks as people flock to see the Virgin Mary on a bathroom window. Photos of Martian rocks resembling people, rats and crabs go viral in an instant. That's the power of pareidolia, a peculiar, but entirely natural, function of the human brain that causes us to impose patterns on random collections of images and sounds. From the Gre...