I post regularly on a general discussion forum based in my island. One of the threads discussed a subject that many of you will be familiar with or at least aware of given the huge media coverage afforded to this case. However, the case itself is irrelevant but during the discussion a situation occured that beautifully demonstrated the way the human brain can misrepresent what is in a visual image.

The thread discusses a picture taken that the photgrapher believed to be a missing child, Madeleine McCann, who went missing in Spain whilst holidaying with her family. Immediately, some of our regular contributers became suspicious of the image, stating that it may have been altered or manipulated in some way. Some took the image into Photoshop and had a play around to look for anomalies and found some, or so they thought...

Here is a link to the first post casting suspicion on the authenticity of the image : http://www.whyguernsey.com/forums/index.ph...st&p=234163

Following post have some other members getting involved in the speculation and suggesting parts of the image have been scrubbed out or other things altered.

Finally here is my response : http://www.whyguernsey.com/forums/index.ph...st&p=235126

It turns out the image was genuine, unaltered and perfectly legitimate (unfortunately it was not the missing girl) and I just thought this particular event on our forum demostrated beautifully how people see things that simply aren't there. I hope some of you find this as interesting as I did.

Lately, the past week or two, I feel like I've been seeing people in the corner of my eye, who aren't really there. As well as other things such as cars, animals. It's weird.

Just yesterday I noticed, not out of the corner of my eye either, a person standing in a doorway ahead of me. The door was only about 5 steps in front of me I just can't say who it was I saw as I wasn't paying attention, but when i looked down and back up for just a second, he disappeared. Thing is...he had no where to disappear to. The doorway had no door and didn't lead anywhere left or right. If he would have walked out toward me He would have had to walk into me. Really creeped me out.

Yeah, I often read threads here in which people find compression artefacts to be proof of image manipulation, just see things in totally blurred pictures &c. . And not to forget the definite evidence for the moon landing fake seen in a completely motion-blurred part of a highly compressed rm video. And it seems impossible to teach people to mistrust their own eyes--or rather their visual cortices, to be precise.

Good to see a case which is set. A great example. Thanks for sharing.

i vbelive these occurenes are light acting with your mind to produce images. its your eyes adjusting to motion becuase its oft in colaboration with the heads motion.

It's a strange sensation. Sometimes late at night I usually see movement at the corner of my eye when I'm on my computer. I think it only occurs when I'm tired and viewing the monitor so there might be a link. Usually when it's a fly or an insect I can never mistake it, but when this occurs I usually see nothing there which is very odd