Pareidolia hits a new extreme: Crowds flock to Mali's 'religious wall sign'

[muriel_volestrangler]

First, the shape:



Take a quick guess what it's meant to be, before reading the article. And note "the mark has been changing shape since it first appeared" and "sometimes the white apparition leaves the wall altogether and moves around the compound. Then it goes back".

Thousands of people in Mali's capital, Bamako, are flocking to see what it believed to a religious sign on a wall that suddenly appeared last weekend.
...
Riot police have been deployed to keep an eye on the crowd as people queue day and night to see the mark.
...
''People have come from Senegal to see it and several Malian government ministers and religious leaders have paid us a visit,'' he said.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-33733668

And what people say it shows?

"Many believe the white image on the outside wall of a toilet shows a man praying, interpreting it as a message from God.
...
''We believe it is a vision of our prophet,'' Aliou Traore, who lives in the compound, told the BBC.
...
"When our reporter visited the compound, the mark seemed to look like a drying patch of cement in the shape of a standing woman."

Which introduces problems of blasphemous images of Muhammad, looking like a woman, on a toilet wall.

But thousands are still apparently excited by this, and leaving money 'for the local mosque'. Money I bet they can't afford to give away.

[trotsky]

1. "on the outside wall of a toilet"

I'm just going to leave that right there.

[Person 2713]

2. Meh not "weeping" or on a pop tart or tortilla lame toilet moisture

[trotsky]

3. !!!

[Warren Stupidity]

4. Why are we ridiculing these deeply held beliefs?

The belief that the toilet moisture stain on the wall is a message from god is as equally valid as the belief that it is not a message from god. You all should be ashamed of yourselves.

[rug]

5. Reflex.