Yesterday’s post was on The Shroud of Turin. Today I present to you… The Receipt of Staples (you know you want to laugh).
Take a look at this face! I see a boy with very neatly parted hair in a tux. But wait… do you see more than one face? I see at least three. The creepiest one took me a while and is in the middle and to the left of the word “online”.
I make no claim that this is truly paranormal, and neither does the site that I believe originally posted this, or the man who submitted it. I’m certain this would be relatively easy to fake, being that it is digitized and online, and we don’t have much information about the source it came from, other than his name. However, receipts these days are sometimes printed on a mysterious thermal paper with an image that seems to disappear quickly…and as a person who keeps all of his receipts in his wallet, if these receipts ever get wet, good luck reading what was originally printed on them. Wikipedia tells us that “most direct thermal papers require a protective topcoating to reduce fading of the thermal image caused by exposure to UV light, water, oils, grease, lard, fats, plasticizers, and similar causes.” Reduce these things? That tells me a certain amount of it is expected to happen, creating magic artwork on the paper as it gets crinkled, handled with greasy hands, left out in the sunlight, etc. So it would be fairly easy for me to believe that a receipt could come out with patterns that would create a visual pareidolia… or recently referred to as matrixing. But is this little boys face a little too clear and perfect?
Here’s another face on a receipt…
You can find tons of examples of the phenomenon pareidolia on the internet. Some are man-made on purpose and some examples of pareidolia make their way to the toast you ate for breakfast this morning. Are you sure that wasn’t the face of Jesus? Or maybe you passed by the image of a stained Mother Mary on the way to work under an overpass? Oh look! There’s a cloud outside my window in the shape of a Care Bear! 🙂
March 2nd, 2012 at 10:29 pm
The image of the boy on the first receipt was just too amazing….whatever the source!! thanks!
March 3rd, 2012 at 9:05 am
Maria… Was there ever talk of the Shroud at the convent? Would the topic have been taboo?
March 3rd, 2012 at 7:48 am
Yeah yeah – Jesus on a shroud, Mary on your toast, faces on your receipts… but have you seen….. ELVIS BACON?
http://pinterest.com/pin/107171666102561245/
March 3rd, 2012 at 9:00 am
Till now I’d only heard about the bacon. Thanks to Ash my life will forever be changed! 😉
March 3rd, 2012 at 8:04 am
i didnt know about this phenonmenon, interesting….thanks for sharing!
March 3rd, 2012 at 9:03 am
Welcome! There are lots of examples of this online now. Most of the time very fascinating rather than paranormal I guess.
March 3rd, 2012 at 5:37 pm
Hi & Thank you,I found your site via Elisa’s 🙂
This is really interesting.I have a photo of a face that I actually saw materialising,it was a reflection made in the sunlight on the back of dining room chair at my Daughter’s house. It looks like the face of an African warrior. I’m off to search the net now after reading here!
Best Wishes
March 3rd, 2012 at 5:43 pm
Thanks for visiting, Lin!
March 3rd, 2012 at 5:40 pm
*just seen the ‘Baconised’ Elvis !! 🙂
August 17th, 2021 at 6:48 am
As the owner of the receipt, it was found on the floor of my husband’s car. He was cleaning out his car, found it on the floor with other receipts. When he opened it to see what it was for, he saw the images of the faces. We know that heat causes the paper to blacken, so we tried different things on other receipts. We were never able to duplicate it. Certainly not with such detail.