The Phantom Message Optical Illusion

• Systemdown
  May 13th, 2008 at 1:14 am

  It says

  SOULWAX
  ANY
  MINUTE
  NOW

• CSI
  May 13th, 2008 at 2:17 am

  It took my glasses off and was able to see it fairly clearly. So if you can’t see it, you should try squinting and blurring your vision a little.

• Chad Cloman
  May 13th, 2008 at 3:25 am

  The best method I found is to get up and take a couple steps back from the monitor. Then it shows up distinctly.

  I did the glasses thing too. It was weird, because I could see it clearly, then when I put my glasses back on, I could still see it for a second or two before it became unreadable.

• Archbob
  May 13th, 2008 at 3:27 am

  Blurring your eyes is the best way I think.

• hanguker
  May 13th, 2008 at 3:32 am

  Funny how it’s easier to see with glasses off.

• MrPumpernickel
  May 13th, 2008 at 4:15 am

  If you just can’t see it try scrolling the page up and down a bit and it becomes a heck of a lot more apparent.

• Pudifoot
  May 13th, 2008 at 4:43 am

  The best method that i have found is to shake your head back and forth. Then you can read it fairly easily.

• S-r-ex
  May 13th, 2008 at 4:47 am

  Pushing the vision out of focus really helped, tnx CSI!

• linty
  May 13th, 2008 at 5:19 am

  wow us glasses wearers could use this to come up with a secret way of communicating with each other right in front of all those damned fancy-eyes.

• ChrisW
  May 13th, 2008 at 6:22 am

  It looks like a low contrast, coarse halftone image. It is an illusion in the sense that all halftones are illusions.

• ted
  May 13th, 2008 at 6:38 am

  Ow, that hurt.

• fieldsr
  May 13th, 2008 at 6:59 am

  Soulwax is awesome, I like the Nite Versions cover a bit better

• Angstrom
  May 13th, 2008 at 7:20 am

  I couldn’t see it when I was a normal distance from my screen, but as I stepped back it became obvious. At 6 feet away it is as clear as day.

  The weirdest thing is that it distorts like a lens as I move backwards and forwards. Freaky!

• hedwig
  May 13th, 2008 at 7:58 am

  taking off the glasses worked for me, too.

• Viola
  May 13th, 2008 at 8:58 am

  I had to take my glasses off, too. That was so weird.

• PaulVI
  May 13th, 2008 at 10:28 am

  Similar to Chad’s advice:

  I used a Firefox mouse gesture to reduce the image size. At half-size, the words are apparent with no effort.

  Cool! How about an app that can do this with any text you supply to create an image? I’d download that… freeware.

• Cindy
  May 13th, 2008 at 10:37 am

  i’m at work, and now people are staring

• sickb*stard
  May 13th, 2008 at 11:29 am

  Just sit farther back from your monitor instead of shaking your head or scrolling the page or whatever. The farther back you sit the clearer it becomes.

• Jess
  May 13th, 2008 at 11:55 am

  Very interesting. In visual perception research, when measuring visual acuity (the cut-off point or threshold where we are no longer sensitive to a visual stimulus), we can usually percieve stimuli up close, but the further away we move, the less sensitive we are to it until we are far enough away that we can’t see it any more.
  This illusion works the opposite way - the closer you are, the harder it is to see.

• Oomi
  May 13th, 2008 at 12:31 pm

  @____________@

• E
  May 13th, 2008 at 1:20 pm

  Awesome.

• heather
  May 13th, 2008 at 1:57 pm

  i can *almost* see it.

• Idil
  May 13th, 2008 at 2:22 pm

  How did they do that?

• snackcakes
  May 13th, 2008 at 2:40 pm

  That’s weird, because when I put on these sunglasses, I could swear it says “Marry and Reproduce”

• Lester
  May 13th, 2008 at 4:22 pm

  Wow, I did a somewhat similar design (same basic concept) for an album cover a couple years ago. You can see the design here:
  http://www.batterbrown.com/

  Mine’s easier to see, but I really dig that soulwax one.

• andrewdoane
  May 13th, 2008 at 4:47 pm

  Sure enough, both taking the glasses off and shaking my head worked. Meanwhile, I look like a freaking idiot in my office. Curse your neatness, Neatorama!

• inhighspeed
  May 13th, 2008 at 5:19 pm

  It’s just a bunch of dots. It’s dumb. Trickery and tomfoolery. Don’t look at me . Go away.

• Stephanie
  May 13th, 2008 at 5:26 pm

  Squinting made me see it.

• nickelking
  May 14th, 2008 at 12:10 am

  I could see it without my glasses once I got within a foot of the monitor (farther away than I usually have to be to read letters of that size.)

  But I found it easiest to slide the glasses to the tip of my nose and look through them.

• Jess
  May 14th, 2008 at 4:15 am

  The dots that spell the wording are slightly smaller than the ones that make up the background. So when you look from further away or take up your glasses or squint so your vision is blurred, you can see the areas that make up the lettering are denser in black than the surround.

• hesybroorge
  June 7th, 2008 at 9:27 pm

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