Rock ‘n Holes

What you see here is an optical illusion from Little Wild Horse Canyon in Goblin Valley (Utah). Both pictures are the same shot, it’s just that one is turned upside down. Kind of strange effect I think! It is best viewed in full size, so be sure to open it! You’r assignment is to try and figure which one is an original! Is this what you are seeing a photo of multiple holes, or many rocks and pebbles? Be sure to check Multiple Meanings Category for simmilar ones!


29 Replies to “Rock ‘n Holes”

  1. I don’t uinderstand how people keep seeing convexity in the face of obvious concavity! The only pebbles involved may have been the ones whose fossilization caused these indents

  2. haha dude that’s cool i can actually this one unless the mars one. and michael, that’s why its an illusion! learn to see it……loosen up! i mean really, its fun!

  3. The shadows tell the story – they’re holes.
    It’s funny though – no matter how you rotate the 2 shots, one always looks like rocks…

  4. when you see holes connected, you know it’s holes, not pebbles connected with bridges for unknown reason. water + wind made those holes, i guess.

  5. Deffo one of the coolest so far! effective+simple. haha =].

    Clint, water wasnt involved…both illusions are exactly the same, just one is upside down.

  6. This is a common illusion when viewing photos taken on Mars or the Moon. People are trained to expect objects to be illuminated from above, so we expect the top image to be holes (shadows under) and the bottom image to be rocks (light from above again, shadows on rock).

    But in alien places often times illumination doesn’t come from above but from reflections, as is the case on the moon whose dust has the unique property of reflecting light mostly back to its source. (This is because moon dust is composed of little spherules that act like tiny mirrors– that’s why a full moon is 10x brighter than a half moon).

    It’s possible that the lower image is real only if the shadows created by the ‘rocks’ do lay on the ‘ground’ but are contained within the rocks. This is possible if the angle of the sun is just right.

    However, the fact that the angle of the sun would have to be different for each of the ‘rocks’ points to it being the fake. The ‘rocks’ are convincing taken individually, but not as a collective.

  7. no, no, no. It’s an effect that in the bottom one they look more convex, but the top one looks concave. Nice illusion!

  8. Cool. It is concave, but the second one does look quite a bit like it is convex. It dosen’t mater what the explanation is, the point is what it looks like.

  9. did anyone else notice the smiley face??? the eyes are on the top picture and the nose and mouth are on the bottom…. and yeah they’re holes

  10. ok every one there both the sam photo!! ones turned up side down…turn ur screen ull see one way they look bulgy and the other caved in!

  11. I didn’t even see the pebbles/rocks, they both look like holes to me. However the top photo looked correct. If you’ve taken any classes or instruction in photogrammerty, you will know that you should almost always hold a photo so that the shadows face away from you, or towards the top of the image.

  12. Why does everybody have to hate on this and make it more complicated than it has to be? I think its cool but i dont really care that much about wheter they are pebbles or holes.

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