Can’t believe I almost missed covering this story! Reminded by Pablo Speciale, here are some best voted illusions for 2007. The contest is held every year by neauralcorrelate.com, and each year they choose top ten illusions from thousands of submissions. If you remember I covered 2006 winner here. I just believe winner illusion would be much more interesting if they were aware of our little community and all of our user submissions. Not to bother you more with unnecessary talk, here are some of them I included in this post.

The winner is “Leaning Tower Illusion” you see below. Is it only me, or is the winner exact replica of Pablo Salto-Weis Azevedo’s “Photoshop CS3 Illusion“? Pablo, if they took your idea you should sue! I included few more flash animation winners after the jump, since they are something new on this site, but to see rest, I recommend you check the contest website. Following is the description for winnig submission:

“Two images of the Leaning Tower of Pisa below are identical, yet one has the impression that the tower on the right leans more, as if photographed from a different angle. The reason for this phenomenon is because the visual system treats the two images as if part of a single scene“.

Which one is your favorite? Just to remind you, I added top list for link exchange, and since its new, your link can easily appear on our main page, and we’ll send you back huge traffic. You only have to place link titled “Optical Illusions” on your website (or “Illusions” or “Magic Tricks”), link it to www.moillusions.com and apply on “Your link here” in sidebar. As soon as you send few visitors, your link will show up in the top list. If you send more than 10, it should appear on the main page. Top 15 links appear site-wide in our sidebar, on main-page and over 1000 sub-pages (visited by more than 30,000 visitors daily!). Enjoy!

News, Seemingly Bent,

(20 votes)

Riju Dasgupta, the guy who already submitted illusion few days ago, already sent a new one! The art we see below greatly resembles Skull Bakery, covered by one of our guest bloggers. I forgot his name, but believe it’s the same artist. What is interesting with below illusion, is that it holds few hidden meanings. Not only does the beautiful naked woman in it, participates in a bigger, older women’s profile, there is also a hidden face in it, and one more thing I found… Can you see it? This is probably a reference to life and how it passes us in a blink of an eye. This motive is very often found in art, specially illusions – like Young Woman or an Old Hag, and Old Couple.

This is what Riju wrote: “Dear Vurdlak, I was excited at seeing my name on the internet. I know there’s more like it, it just shows how people think things up. They are more, switch between two things like the old school old woman-young woman illusion. Keep up the good work!” Now I’m off to play some arcade games… hope I find Tetris :)

Multiple Meanings, Octavio Ocampo

(29 votes)

Tomasz Korościk asked me what do I think about his submission. It reminded me of Ames room a little. I was puzzled with this photo, like with many others on this site. First I thought the difference in size occurs only because of the distance of the other person. Then I realized it couldn’t be only that, since they both are sitting very close to each other. Then I though to myself, maybe one person is extremely huge while the other is dwarfish. Both of my theories don’t have much sense. There is a slim chance that both of them combined could make this illusion like it is. Then it struck me – I finally realized the truth. I won’t tell you, though. As normally, I advise you to empower your brain cells and work this one yourselves :)

Another site improvement I did in my spare time! Aside giving the web page darker blue border, I added top list for links! You can see it in my sidebar under “Recommended Sites“. I just started with this, so if you have a website, there is automatic link exchange you might be interested in. Be sure to add your site, since currently you can make it to the top very easily. I just started adding some friendly links, and you can check them here. Be sure to add yours if you own a website as well! It is completely automatic, so your link will appear instantly! Top referrers get huge traffic in return..

Relative Sizes,

(13 votes)

Sean McLeary quoted here: “This is a really cool illusion of two faces, I’m not going to tell you where they are, you need to figure that out yourself.” It was an easy one Sean, I spotted both of them immediately, but what made this illusion interesting, is the meaning behind it. I won’t try and guess what the author of this image below had in mind, and believe it is best if everyone who saw it made their own little story. This way everyone is a winner. I am really interested what you guys think. If you observe the picture a little longer you will find few more illusions beneath. Like for example, seeing only one person gives impression of a broken heart, the other part can be seen as a shadow, etc. What I like about this website, is the comments section, and how often your comments can start a real debate, and point to meanings and things I never managed to perceive. Lets see what comes out of this one.

I’m not sure weather I should place this one in Multiple Meanings category, or rather inside Spot The Object one. What can you suggest? Would different category suit this one better? Help!

Multiple Meanings,

(19 votes)

Hehe, these are cheerful. When I saw these tuttie fruties I had a discrete laugh. Am not quite certain, but don’t you call feminine boys – “fruites” or “daisies” in English language? So as you see, these bowls of fruit, kinda resemble real life persons. There is additional Book-worm man at the end. You’ll have to jump inside the article to see them all, though. Few months ago I knew the name of the artist (he made quite a few of these, frankly), but somehow I forgot. If you remember, drop us a line.

These pieces of art were submitted by Meraj, the guy who sent us that amazing Volvo billboard as well as Reversed Face illusion, and probably few more I forgot. When I site-searched “Meraj” I realized how productive this individual has been for our little community. Would be nice if you thanked him as well in your comments. Which one is your favorite? Which “Fruit Man” you like the best? Like always, enjoy!

Art Installation,

(22 votes)

This impossible scaffolding sent in by Maria Percascu really looks weird. Can you solve the mystery behind this Escher-inspired construction? We didn’t have that much Escher art over the last few weeks, but this one really redeems that. Immediately I remembered our impossible dice triangle, and figured picture this real couldn’t be photoshopped. Then I took few seconds and studied it, and finally I believe I solved it. Thanks Maria, this is one of my favorite illusions for this month. Anyone shares my enthusiasm?

I noticed that our little community started loosing visitors lately. I urge you to help us, and spread the word of our little homepage. If you can, please link us and send a little traffic. Every visitor counts! Those of you who can send enough traffic, we’ll link you back through our posts and send some back. Don’t let this site die, considering effort we put into it each day :(

Escher Style, Impossible Objects,

(19 votes)

I had some fun time thinking how to name this illusion. Few lines came to me, like: Seal-ly Bear, Bear-ly Seal etc. Well, this is one of the famous old-school illusions, created in 1996 by Lausanne G. Sarcone. It has been circulating the web for eternity. I’m not sure quite frankly why we haven’t published it up till today. Probably because back then I didn’t find it so interesting, but lately people email me asking why we don’t post true optical illusions anymore. We do infact, and here is an orthodox one. What do you see: a seal, a polar bear, a dark hole in forming a small “lake“, or all three together? Which of them is most obvious? I got some awesome submissions in my mailbox, but my queue is mile long… Patience, please.

Inside this article there is another similar illusion. It was submitted by Riju Dasgupta, who said: “Hey I found this interesting illusion. It’s like the old duck-and-hare illusion but with new animals.” It also shows a seal :)

Multiple Meanings,

(16 votes)

It was my 23rd birthday two days ago, so you’ll excuse me for lack of updates on previous days. So I went to the cinema with my girlfriend, and we watched Pirates of Caribbean 3. I wasn’t much excited with the movie, but it was OK. I was never big fond of all those battle scenes… well maybe in Leonida’s 300, but thats another story.

I found this interesting photo the other day, created by master of Optical Illusions, Shigeo Fukada. If you saw only the shadow of his creation, you’d thought there is a young couple sitting, and supporting each other’s back – like the logo of Robe di Kappa. The amazing part is there is no couple, just a pile of garbage. I can’t believe how precise is Fukada in his creations. Taking care of every little detail. He is a true master. Be sure to see this video created by him. It works in the same way. Enjoy…

To remind you all, and inform our new visitors, if you like seeing newest illusions on your desktop, be sure to get illusion of the day widget. There are versions that work with PC, Mac and Google Homepage. Hope we find someone to develop the similar thing for Windows Vista desktop… that would be an awesome widget, don’t you agree?

3D Chalk Drawings, Multiple Meanings, Shadow, Sue Webster, Tim Noble

(42 votes)