By Vurdlak on November 17, 2009, with 388 Comments
"Afghan Girl" by Steve McCurry
Probably all of you saw this picture at some point of your life. Titled the “Afghan Girl”, this photo was named the most recognized photograph in the history of National Geographic. Although girl’s name was not known, her picture appeared on the June 1985 cover of the magazine. The image of her face, with a red scarf draped loosely over her head and with her piercing sea-green eyes staring directly into the camera, became a symbol both of the 1980s Afghan conflict and of the refugee situation worldwide. Gula was known throughout the world simply as the Afghan Girl until she was formally identified in early 2002.
Over time, many variations of Steve McCurry’s original photo appeared. At some point even in optical illusion form, as we see below. All I could find about this illusion, is that people can’t seem to look at it for too long. Apparently you get a headache, or become nervous at best. Maybe this isn’t the true nature of this illusion, but it just didn’t make me hallucinate like some other animations did. Wait few seconds for the animation to load (it’s 1MB big), and share your experience afterward.
(144 votes)
d says:
February 25, 2010 at 8:44 pm
that is NOT a damn optical illusion douchebags
its a moving gif image
qft :))
Headache? No. Nervousness? No. Sleepiness? yezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…
This is animated my computer kept freeezing and every tim it did the illusion stopped moving when it unfroze the illusion moved.
Wonder if the Time photographers knows what been done to his photo??
LoL I am Just preety shocked after waching this image ! my Eye cant see anymore ..O God I ‘m going to an eye sergan :P
Idk but I didn’t get passm five secondz cuz I felt too creep out by tge way she looked at me in this “illusion” lol scary eyes but beautiful natural
OMG my head!!!!! I feel…… nothing.
What an amazing illusion! If you stare at it for a few seconds, the guy who created it turns into an asshole!
This made me want to throw up… :S
frigging lame. NOT an illusion. I didn’t notice anything watching this animation.
This is not an illusion. The third circle does not originate from an optical illusion of the two circles at her eyes, because I covered them and could still see the pink :P
Hey, Thanks for the seizure you idiots! I woke up and saw it in front of me and went spazz again! Now I have half a tongue, would you like to make a gif. outa that?
After staring at it for approximately 45 seconds I found myself feeling very bored. Did anyone experience this phenomenon?
It makes me sleep…
oh jeez….yeah i can’t stare at that for too long…i feel uncomfortable after 10 seconds and have to look away
Didn’t feel a thing, zero effect!.
That’s not an optical illusion, it’s an animated .gif
Um… this is an animation – how is that an optical illusion?
I didnt relize i was still looking at it until my head hit my computer! lol
It makes her look like Marilyn Manson.
it looks like gerard way if u stare for long XD
I gotta strange headache after five minutes. It was interesting
I have no effect after 10minutes of watching this and many people have said this so at first i didnt post nothing. But i downloaded this pic to my pc and my gf only saw the nonmoving thumbnail on my desktop and told me to remove it there since she feels it’s very disturbing. No idea if she would feel the same with original Afghan Girl pic tough…
There is something very disturbing about the eyes… I enjoyed it :)
I don’t consider this an optical illusion since it is an animated gif
That is so completely lame. It is just an animation, not an optical illusion. Simply one frame after another – a series of changing images.
I guess every movie you see is an “amazing optical illusion” to you. Wow. You are easily impressed.
Sucks!
I threw up.
Nothing. Nothing at all.
IT”S JESUS!!!!
It kinda looked like she was moving towards me, it was kinda freaky.
Nothing is thr..
for me her entire face disappeared…
I think that the illusion comes from looking at her eyes. At first it seems like the pulsating waves are coming from her eyes, but the illusion is that there is a third point where waves originate-> right above her eyes, on her forehead. Not being aware of that probably gave u guys the headache, because you would be focusing on both eyes and but that ‘forehead wave’ would be interfering.
If you see it long enough, the girl is disappeared, the only thing left is that the circles.. ~_~
I also get bored after staring her hard for at-least a minute :(
The only thing it does is make you bored.
It’s annoying to look at because the way it pulsates in inconsistent
*IS IS IS
i am afraid to see this girl
what a nice
After a few seconds of watching it intently, A tremendous wave of nothing hit me.
absolutely no effect on me.
This did give me a headache but in all fairness I was hit by a car and suffer headaches anyways…
she’s smiling to me :)
Stare at her upper nose and she turns and looks at you, creepy
OH MY GOD !!!! When I saw it I became a terrible headache for 2 hours !!!
I got a hard-on.
She,s an alien coming to destroy all of us
Well im not gonna lie she’s freaking me OUT.
It’s headache … Do not spoil this image by this optical illusion..
Ok, I felt nothing even after focussing for a good 5 mins…
yeah now this is a most beautiful magazine
thank’s for brinking this photo’s
we are proud to be afghani
$/-/@/<!r(sweet)
If you stare at it for a while and look away it distorts what you look at
After looking at it for 3 seconds, I went out and killed my neighbors and committed suicide.
How is an animated gif an illusion? It’s called ‘animation’.
Maybe they should track this girl down…..if she is still alive.
Look up Sharbat Gula (a.k.a. Afghan Girl) on National Geographic they did a follow up article on her…they know who she is…check your facts sir.
Not a good idea for people like me with intense motion sickness, made me throw up and i had to lie down… kind of like the movie Cloverfield
Try to look at her upper nose. It looks as if she turns and looks at you. THIS PIC CREEPS ME OUT!!
Did nothing for me! I didn’t throw up,kill anybody, forgot what I was looking at or committ suicide.
Uhh..this may sound funny but i got high a lil’ bit on this one lol since im sleepy :o
i get extremly nervous
I think it’s cool; I don’t get nervous or anything, the lines start to move when I stare at it. COOL (:
Maby it’s because i’m drunk, but this has no effect on me. I stared at it for ages. It’s actually kinda fun.
How long do ya have to stare at it? I did for a good couple minutes or more and nothing. Maybe I was focusing too much on how the circles were moving and not zoned out enough to get the full effect?
ya um i stared 20 minutes my eyes dried up some but thats all.
ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD
Look at her upper nose. It’s like she turns and looks at you.
Sorry to kill all your hopes and dreams, but its obvious that the lines are ACTUALLY moving. Look at the thumbnail at the top of the page. It’s just smaller version, but those lines aren’t moving.
umm
my eyes straded to water and then i felt pain in my right ear =]
but it is so cool
i got a boner
wow…, nice….
@Shelby… the lines are meant to be ‘actually’ moving, that’s why it’s called an animation.
that afgan girl is so strage it was like something was hidden behind her eyes… SPOOKY
wow……. freeky
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^ that ‘cool’ guy is an idiot .. T_T its an animation! i mean like come on! u can srsly distinguish moving from ‘stil standing optical illusions’ …omg ..and ofcourse ud get nervous! when u stare at it the image in ur mind may change what u say and maybe ur starting to see the … devil? differences (obviously) from person to person….
Hahaha i saved this pic and its a .gif file and files like that usually move that explains why the lines move
It felt relaxing to me.
it’s weird. the longer you stare, the more contorted ‘Girls’ face becomes. until you you shake it off anyway…
I stared at this the first time and pretty quickly after a few seconds the whole picture seemed to distort into blurs of it;s basic colours, with red rings everywhere, except for the eyes, they stayed perfectly clear.
After reading some fo the comment to make sure I was doing it right, I stared at the bridge of her nose and I started to getantsy, and then the girl seemed to turn around and face me. It was really freaky.
Awesome pic!