Gandhi living it up on Mars ?
A European Space Agency satellite flying by Mars sent back pictures that some say show Mahatma Gandhi’s face on the far-away planet, even though that image looks way more like Vladimir Lenin.
Of course that’s not really Gandhi — or Lenin — nor is it the first time someone has spotted a “face” on Mars. As The Daily Mail points out, amateur astronomers in 1976 claimed to see a human face in the heavens, but more recent and high-resolution pictures reveal it was nothing more than space dust.
Humans have a tendency to project human faces onto decidedly inhuman things. It’s a phenomenon called pareidolia.
When that optical illusion strays into religious territory — such as when people imagine they see Jesus in a tortilla — it’s called “simulacra.”
Such mirages could also be called “wishful thinking,” a “totally righteous trip” or “slow news day.”
Photo credit: European Space Agency.
