Mom buys new curtains, internet sees history’s worst face in pattern

A mom got more than she bargained for after buying new curtains for her apartment, with numerous people seeing Adolf Hitler’s face in the leafy pattern.

Tamir Peretz, 28, shared a photo of the curtains, which are in his 55-year-old mother’s living room in her apartment in the Middle East, and invited Reddit users to share what they saw in the picture. Many users had the same answer, revealing that they saw German Nazi leader Hitler‘s face in the curtains.

“Everyone in the family saw a different image,” he told Newsweek.

“One day I sat with my sister and I told her that I see faces on the curtains, she told me that she sees babies but then we all saw someone else.”

The Reddit post, which has received 30,000 upvotes and thousands of comments since it was shared this week, simply shows the sheer curtains with a pattern resembling sprouting leaves from branches going upward.

“My mom bought new curtains, it’s supposed to be a pattern of leaves, I see something else,” he captioned the post.

After a second take, many people online started to see faces amid the pattern which at first seems unsuspecting. While many social media users spotted Hitler’s features, some saw other people’s faces when they first discovered the optical illusion.

Despite seeing faces in the design, Peretz’s mom has decided to keep the curtains, which she bought in a local store last week.

According to the US National Eye Institute, optical illusions occur when we see two-dimensional images. Because we live in a three-dimensional world, our brains can be tricked with things like light, shading, and depth.

When looking at a two-dimensional image, such as the pattern on the curtains, our brains can be fooled because we are not getting the same clues as when we look at a three-dimensional object.

Professor David Alais from the University of Sydney’s School of Psychology explains why we tend to see human faces in inanimate objects, such as these curtains, writing in a study that due to evolution, it is more beneficial for humans to never miss a face than it is to never see them when it comes to objects.

The facial recognition response happens at lightening speed, which can result in something called “face pareidolia” where we see faces when there aren’t any.

Thousands of people flooded the comments to reveal what they saw in the curtains. “Rather unfortunate that the face I see looks like a basic outline of Adolf Hitler,” wrote u/windtrees7791.

“Look at all those Hitlers,” commented u/AcrolloPeed. Another, u/imbringingspartaback said: “Either [Edgar Allan] Poe or Hitler wrapped in a blanket.”

While u/YouSonOfaB***hImIn- wrote: “Hitler in a tiger outfit,” while u/surrenderedmale said: “Am I crazy? Others are saying they see Hitler and I can’t see s*** ngl [Not Gonna Lie]. Edit: saw it literally after posting the comment.”

However, other users disagreed and many argued that the faces that can be seen on the curtains more closely resemble Edgar Allan Poe, an American writer and poet who lived in the 19^th century.

“Hitler? I see Edgar Allan Poe,” said u/GH057807. Meanwhile, u/MissMaylin said: “I’m not sure why people are seeing Hitler while I’m over here getting Edgar Poe vibes.”

Other famous faces that people claimed to see within the pattern of the curtains included Freddie Mercury and Charlie Chaplin, among many others.

Many struggled to see the faces at first but once they took to the comments, they couldn’t look at the photo without noticing them. “That’s so weird to me. At first I saw the leaf pattern and now I can’t unsee the face,” commented u/DakTheGoatPrescott.

However, not everyone noticed the eerie faces in the pattern. u/Dankn3ss420 wrote: “I have no idea what the hell these comments are talking about, it just looks like everyone’s crazy to me.”

Has your home ever turned into a nightmare? Whether it’s a burst pipe, unexpected renovations gone wrong, or any other house disaster, we want to hear your story. Let us know via life@newsweek.com, and your experience could be featured on Newsweek.