Mighty Optical Illusions

Falling Beans Optical Illusion

2013-05-20T21:59:46Z

Newest addition to our #Seemingly Animated category depicts falling beans that aren’t. Another beautiful illusory pattern provided by great Gianni Sarcone. If you move your eyes around the picture while concentrating on each individual coffee bean, the rest of the beans in your peripheral vision will seem to move like crazy. I don’t know what’s with all of the coffee illusions that are popping like crazy lately, but they all turn-up awesome!

Find The Differences: Atomium!

2013-05-19T01:22:20Z

While ago, one of our fans who was obviously inspired by Atomium’s impossible structure, sent this in as a suggestion for our little’o website. I was distracted and couldn’t see it at first, but the photo below contains both the illusion and “spot the differences” game all wrapped into one single package! Can you see the illusion first? Now, how about finding all of the differences and then sharing them with ~~festivus~~ rest of us? Let the hunt begin! P.S. Make sure to open the picture in full size, in order to see all of the tiny details!

How many differences can you find? Are there any at all?!

Meals On Wheels Optical Illusion

2013-05-17T03:22:33Z

Here’s what you get when you combine an ad agency, #Akiyoshi Kitaoka’s famous illusory “moving snakes pattern” and home-delivery service provider. I can’t seem to ignore the irony behind this advertising message, but it’s better for me to let you decide on it yourselves. Meals on Wheels!

Two Of a Kind (Dirty Sofa Illusion)

2013-05-13T22:08:53Z

Some of the best illusions on this site can be found categorised inside #sexy hashtag. It’s not that I’m such fond of provocative content, it’s because illusions such as this one have to pass some extra filters in order to qualify for our homepage. I have to be extra careful with these, as there are youngsters among us, where it’s really important for me that they immediately understand the joke - Even when they mistake the content for what it appears to be, the end-result shouldn’t appear distasteful. Having said that, these sofas have really fooled me first time I laid my eyes over them! They still makes me laugh today…

Puzzled Fox Optical Illusion

2013-05-09T23:44:55Z

It’s been a long time since last time we featured one our “Spot the animal” puzzles. At one point in time, Gardner’s hidden animals over-populated this blog so much, they started popping out with each “Random illusion” button click. I swore to myself then, I’m done with them forever. Don’t get me wrong – there were some really marvellous puzzles showcased back then, it’s just that I haven’t had the feeling when to stop posting them. I think it’s safe to break my pledge now, after so many years where I stood true to my promise. Here’s a very similar jigsaw puzzle produced by Currier & Ives. It appears our little fox is alone in the woods, but why is he so puzzled then (or is it she?)…

Impossible Triangle Solution GIF

2013-05-07T23:08:40Z

More often than not, I receive emails from fans all over the world. While most of them are complimentary, thanking me for maintaining this site and expressing gratuity for regular content, I also receive a complaint here and then (mostly addressing my English). Questions and suggestions fly in as well. One that stood out lately was a complimentary email from Agnes, where she also expressed her disappointment regarding solutions often not being included inside the articles. I have to acknowledge this, yet I’ve always felt the solution shouldn’t be handed out on a plate. In my view easy answer degrades the value of a question (or illusion in our case). Somehow I always disliked shortcuts in life. Perhaps this Spartan approach doesn’t work for some, but it certainly helps starting the conversation (comments section!). This also forces you to stop and think about the illusion for a second. After all, isn’t the feeling when you come up with the solution yourself – rewarding by itself?! Having said that, I have to admit many illusions I posted are still a mystery to me. They may appear beautiful or simple, but sometimes even I can’t see the answer. It’s one of the reasons I enjoy reading your comments so much! It’s one of the things that keep me going… Here’s a solution animation that may help with one of our latest posts ;)

Chocolate Pieces Puzzle

2013-05-03T11:32:03Z

I just had to share this sweet chocolate animation with you guys! I know that missing piece puzzle was recycled so many times by now, but I’m sure you’ll admit it’s fun to see something so simple yet so amazing.

If I were a food company, I’d apply this principle immediately to generate some extra profit! What do you say? I can’t seem to pinpoint the answer, yet I’m perfectly aware you can’t generate matter out of nothing!

Beautiful Figures Made Out of Wood

2013-04-12T18:26:05Z

You may accuse me of recycling some already-seen ideas, but I felt obligated to share Jason’s recent submission – one featuring beautiful impossible figures made out of wood. I haven’t had the chance to ask Jason if he made or photographed these himself, but the outcome is either-way perfect! Not sure about you, but I’d be delighted if we could obtain photos of these figures photographed from different, illusion-revealing angle. Let’s see if craftsmen among you are able to replicate these in wood or some other material…?

Perfectly Timed Photos [Gallery]

2013-04-12T17:58:28Z

Perfectly Timed Photos, also known as Photos Taken at Just Right Moment are often to be found floating around the net. I tend to ignore them, until I’m able to collect enough qualifying samples, ones I can feature inside my #galleries. Even though most of them involve sun or a moon, there are other extraordinary examples featuring funny, puzzling, sexy or artistic moment. I’ve included some more popular ones, and you be the judge which of them features most of the mentioned attributes!

Check the Full Gallery of Photos Taken at The Right Moment:

Saxophone Player or A Face?

2013-04-12T18:11:31Z

Since this “Jazz Musician” optical illusion was one of the earliest attempts of me trying to blog, where since then it has long been buried deep inside our web archives, it made me very happy when I found out it wasn’t forgotten and was used as a print for a very popular T-Shirt brand!

Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not the original creator behind this illusion: I even suspect it belongs to the early days of the internet, where its author never came out and claimed it. Still, it brings very nice memories, and I’m particularly fond of the simplicity behind it.

Tombstone Face Follows You Around

2013-04-12T16:11:42Z

Here’s an interesting, yet spooky tombstone my brother stumbled upon while visiting Paris. Based on famous “Hollow Face” illusion (examples can be found here and here), face of the deceased doctor follows you around, as you’re passing-by his final resting place. I can’t imagine how one would react if he encountered this during the night, with full moon shining over the doctor’s face… Feel free to imagine! In case I haven’t fully explained the illusion – Hollow Face appears embossed / convex, even though the shape is actually carved deep into the tombstone…

Blivet (Devil’s Fork) Illusion Collection

2013-04-12T17:55:09Z

A blivet, also known as a poiuyt or even more often refereed to as “The Devil’s Fork” is an undecipherable figure, an optical illusion and an impossible object we’ve encountered many times here on Mighty Optical Illusions blog – yet I feel we’ve never given it proper attention, explained how it works nor talked how it came to be…

In most cases, (yet not always necessarily) it appears to have three cylindrical prongs at one end which mysteriously transform into two rectangular prongs at the other end. In our illusion world, it’s most often showcased in a form of a Roman Columns.

Blivet refers to an indecipherable figure, such as one that can be seen illustrated above (taken from Working Daze comic by John Zakour). One of the earliest appearances can be linked to the March 1965 cover of Mad magazine (below), where it was dubbed the “Three-Pronged Poiuyt“, and has appeared numerous times since then. An anonymously-contributed version described as a “hole location gauge” was printed in the June 1964 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact, with the comment that “this outrageous piece of draftsmanship evidently escaped from the Finagle & Diddle Engineering Works”.

The graphic artist M.C. Escher also used these types of figures as the basis for his impossible 3D compositions in many of his woodcut prints, most of which can be easily found if you browse this site’s archives.

In December 1968 American optical designer and artist Roger Hayward wrote “Blivets: Research and Development” for The Worm Runner’s Digest in which he presented interpretations of the blivet…

Let’s take a look at some of the illusions blivet has appeared in, and if this still isn’t enough, feel free to browse some of the links inside this article, or take a glimpse inside our #impossible objects category.

Blivet appeared on the March 1965 cover of Mad magazine, where it was dubbed the “Three-Pronged Poiuyt” (the last six letters on the top row of many Latin-script typewriter keyboards, right to left), and has appeared numerous times since then.

Recycled Rasta Optical Illusion

2013-04-12T15:47:24Z

First glance on the “Recycled Rasta-man” may give you an impression you’re looking at some bizarre oil painting, but when you look closer, you’ll soon realise it’s actually an anamorphic 3D sculpture made of recycled materials – The massive portrait of actor Sotigui Kouyaté. This portrait was made by French artist Bernard Pras, and was created entirely out of recycled materials such as clothes, rags, wood, glass lanterns, dishes, rubber and other trash Bernard would gather from the installation site. As it usually applies to anamorphic art, Bernard’s work can only be seen from a certain angle. When you look at the installation from any other point of view, a pile of trash is all you see.

Ikemath’s Impossible Gallery vol.2

2013-04-09T18:25:00Z

Based on the impact our last Impossible Objects Gallery by Ikemath received, it seems you just can’t get enough of these! Pardon me, if this doesn’t sound right – but it turned out our last gallery went viral in record time! Fortunately, there’s more where this came from. Check the following gallery filled with beautiful, previous unseen real-life impossible structures, once again accompanied by Ikemath’s signature wristwatch… Don’t forget to rate, pick your favourite/most illusive specimen and then comment!

VIDEO: Spider-Tank Building Illusion

2013-04-28T18:39:04Z

Spiders may not be the most popular creatures – theres even a phobia named after them, but German art student Friedrich von Schoor appears to have no problem with them! As part of a project at his art college, Friedrich used a video of some ordinary spiders trapped inside a small tank to create a terrifying scene, projected on to a full-size building.

As can be seen in the video below, trick relies on the tank having exactly the same proportions as the building, allowing him to scale up the resulting video and place it accurately in its real-world location. It’s interesting how this illusion can be extended to any glass-fronted structure, enabling us to see snakes inside the UN building, cockroaches crawling up London’s Shard… Like it? I LOVED it!