Sweet Road Optical Illusion

Cory and Laura discovered optical illusion we feature today, and both of them submitted it almost at the same time. So I think it would be fair to give them both credit for their discovery! The flickr artist behind our newest flick goes under the name Robert Bruce Murray III, and what he manage to achieve with his photo is somewhat known effect of flying letters. Just kind of look to the left or the right or above the photo. Have the letters started to float already? Is it only me, or do you see it as well?

61 Replies to “Sweet Road Optical Illusion”

  1. I noticed the floating is more apparent if you look at the side of the image. For example when reading your explanation of the image, the text seems to come towards you.

  2. hahaha! i was reading the description and the words started getting bigger! see i thought this was some strange illusion with random words, i had no clue what that was supposed to mean!(actually i still don’t know)

  3. Nice. I also see the picture bulging out! When I was reading your text above the picture, something came out. It was my favourite-coloured words!

  4. I was looking at his picture on the iGoogle widget for like 5 minutes to see if it was really getting bigger or not!

  5. Amazing! It is like they are getting closer or getting bigger. Continually, which is impossible. I had to cover part of the image to make sure it is not a video or a gif image.

  6. These letters do not fly unless you induce it by looking left behind etc. However, they are flying letters in the sense that they are superimposed on a much fainter background.

  7. It floats no matter where I look. It floats if it’s in my field of vision at all… It goes crazy and grows and shrinks and changes shape… almost subtly, but my brain’s definitely constantly trying to do some work on it lol

  8. Hmm this isn’t really what I would call an optical illusion. It’s just a simple text shadow really, unless I’m missing something.

  9. Interesting trivia question might be, “What is the background photograph”.

    Its a subway train in a station of the Washington DC Metro system!

  10. Doesn’t look like they are floating, but it does look like they are getting bigger. Especially when I move my eyes around.

  11. here’s a tip I noticed. When looking at the letters it didn’t work for me. But after that, I read the text at the top and it was becomming 3D while looking out of the corner of my eye at it. So read the text above and you’ll see the picture coming out.

  12. It seems to grow, apparently due to the offset letter shadowing. As you glance to either side the shadows give the illusion that the letters are oriented differently. It’s subtle but quite effective.

  13. Holy sh!T. I didnt even know what to do. i was just reading the text and it just popped up in my face. then i was like. WTF? i must be spending to much time on the internet. then i got the the part where it sayz how to do it. then i laugh my ass off.

  14. If you put your hands making a “heart” around the borders of the lettering you can stop the illusion of it actually floating. Depth perception at its best

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