Comments on: The Phantom Message Optical Illusion

By: Jess

Jess — Wed, 14 May 2008 09:15:58 +0000

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.

By: nickelking

nickelking — Wed, 14 May 2008 05:10:56 +0000

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.

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Tue, 13 May 2008 22:26:21 +0000

Squinting made me see it.

By: inhighspeed

inhighspeed — Tue, 13 May 2008 22:19:41 +0000

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

By: andrewdoane

andrewdoane — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:47:45 +0000

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!

By: Lester

Lester — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:22:09 +0000

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.

By: snackcakes

snackcakes — Tue, 13 May 2008 19:40:09 +0000

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

By: Idil

Idil — Tue, 13 May 2008 19:22:55 +0000

How did they do that?

By: heather

heather — Tue, 13 May 2008 18:57:14 +0000

i can *almost* see it.

By: E

Tue, 13 May 2008 18:20:45 +0000

Awesome.

By: Oomi

Oomi — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:31:01 +0000

@____________@

By: Jess

Jess — Tue, 13 May 2008 16:55:43 +0000

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.

By: sickb*stard

sickb*stard — Tue, 13 May 2008 16:29:51 +0000

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.

By: Cindy

Cindy — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:37:16 +0000

i’m at work, and now people are staring

By: PaulVI

PaulVI — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:28:12 +0000

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.

By: Viola

Viola — Tue, 13 May 2008 13:58:26 +0000

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

By: hedwig

hedwig — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:58:33 +0000

taking off the glasses worked for me, too.

By: Angstrom

Angstrom — Tue, 13 May 2008 12:20:03 +0000

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!

By: fieldsr

fieldsr — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:59:09 +0000

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

By: ted

ted — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:38:43 +0000

Ow, that hurt.

By: ChrisW

ChrisW — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:22:18 +0000

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

By: linty

linty — Tue, 13 May 2008 10:19:04 +0000

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.

By: S-r-ex

S-r-ex — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:47:16 +0000

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

By: Pudifoot

Pudifoot — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:43:34 +0000

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

By: MrPumpernickel

MrPumpernickel — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:15:33 +0000

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.

By: hanguker

hanguker — Tue, 13 May 2008 08:32:04 +0000

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

By: Archbob

Archbob — Tue, 13 May 2008 08:27:25 +0000

Blurring your eyes is the best way I think.

By: Chad Cloman

Chad Cloman — Tue, 13 May 2008 08:25:49 +0000

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.

By: CSI

CSI — Tue, 13 May 2008 07:17:33 +0000

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.

By: Systemdown

Systemdown — Tue, 13 May 2008 06:14:59 +0000

It says

SOULWAX
ANY
MINUTE
NOW