Eerie thrift store find hides secret scary detail – you have the eyes of a hawk if you can spot it
COMMENTERS believe they’ve identified a hidden image in a rustic piece of art one woman bought at a thrift shop.
Many believe there’s a skull camouflaged in this gloomy green painting of a bird flying around a tree-lined swamp, but others can’t see it.
The macabre secret image was first spotted when the buyer posted it to a Facebook page to have the piece appraised, Yahoo! News reported.
“Do you see a skull?” one commenter asked.
“Yes, now I can’t unsee it,” said another.
But others found different hidden images in the ominous painting.
“I see a ghost around a little bird,” one commenter said.
“I see a kitten,” said another.
But many commenters agreed that there was something deeply morbid about the piece of art.
“Looks like a painting that would be in The Ring,” another Facebook user said.
For those struggling to spot the strange images hidden within the painting, they should cast their eyes to the left of the art piece.
As the artwork posted to Facebook was a print of the original, the colors were slightly altered which made the skull visible to some for the first time.
One commenter correctly identified the painting as a copy of “The Home of the Heron” by George Inness, which belongs to the Art Institute of Chicago.
He created the piece toward the end of his prolific career in 1893.
“The painting is characteristic of his late work, with loosely rendered detail and dim objects that seem bathed in an almost incandescent glow,” according to the museum’s description of the piece.
It was based on a swamp Inness came across in Florida.
“The picture’s blurred outlines, broad handling, and delicate, subtle tonalities, as well as the solitary presence of the heron, masterfully evoke nature’s stillness and mystery.”
Hidden images like the purported skull in Inness’ painting are known as “pareidolia.”
People often find human faces in inanimate objects like trees or houses.
Some of the most famous instances of pareidolia made it into the news when images of Jesus Christ and other religious figures were spotted on toasted bread.
In 2004, a woman sold a 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich with a purported image of the Virgin Mary for $28,000, NBC News reported.