OddThinking

I think this discovery is the kind of thing needed to get Mary MacKillop over the line as a saint.

A noble illustration, Julian. However, scientists have used powerful phrenological matching computers to build this facial reconstruction of the man in the moon.

Thanks for the reference, Chris.

My experiments have confirmed their findings.

I am not sure if this star can be seen from the Northern Hemisphere, though.

It’s not just a face in the Northern Hemisphere view, it’s an entire man, with a very long upper body, hunched over as if carrying something heavy, dragging a large bulk behind him. The easiest part to identify, I suppose, would be the two legs, close to the moon’s pole.

Hence “Man In The Moon,” not “Moon Face.”

The man in the moon is often depicted as part of a crescent moon, with a pointy head and chin. Without actually caring enough to try it, I will suggest that you might find deleting a big chunk of the moon gives you a face of some kind.

I’ve never been able to see a really convincing face either way up.

SPACE.com writes about The Origins Of The Man In The Moon, in the course of which they give a presumably authoritative defintion of what shape “Man In The Moon” refers to in popular lore.

Hm.

PS.: can I rejoice once more at not having the Live Preview thing flicker and jump as I type? Hooray! So much nicer now.

Childhood is an important time of life and our experiences at this time have a habit of influencing our thoughts and behaviours for the rest of our lives. I suggest that the reason you cannot see the man in the northern hemisphere (or the rabbit) is that the man in the moon you saw as a child left such an impression on you that you are simply unwilling to see the other man. Don’t worry, though – monogamy is a good thing, whatever your preference.

Cassie,

You are suggesting that it is all subjective, based on childhood experiences.

I disagree. I have provided simple, objective, indisputable – and colourful – evidence that the man in the moon is only visible from the Southern Hemisphere.

The Northern Hemisphere lobby haven’t matched my preponderance of evidence. Aristotle who grew up in the Northern Hemisphere, has bravely attempted to explain the propaganda he was fed as a child, but I don’t see any so-called legs near the pole, and no-one has managed an illustrated picture as I have.

Therefore, I claim an objective victory here for the children of the Southern Hemisphere.

You have provided “evidence” of the man you see in the moon. I don’t believe you have provided evidence that this man is the only man to be seen in the moon.

Now you’re just being defensive. Is this because I made a gibe at your sexuality?

Don’t know if you have found out yet, but here is what the man in the moon is in the northern hemisphere.

Hope that helps you.

Notice also that in the link you posted, the man in the picture has the same face but with more realistic detail.

[Posted by Julian, on behalf of Tim, who emailed a picture.]

Look, the “man in the moon” thing is just plain creepy. WHen I look up at the moon sometimes, I do see a “man in the moon”..looks like a face that is smiling, and indeed, a bit creepy.

you’ve got to be kidding me!!!
you really believe that that is what it looks like!?
and you call yourself a genius… HA!

Hi – just started using Firefox & notice OddThinking – I can see what u see & love your colorful picture! Funny how we all have different perceptions though – because ever since a child I have seen 2 old men at a table – like they bent over a chess table! Can any one else see this? Just wondering!
Debbie

http://www.[[ellided]]/7894 is “Debbie”’s homepage? Hm.

[Well-spotted, Aristotle; I missed that.]

Thank you, Debbie, for your on-topic comment. Unfortunately, your business doesn’t meet my (rather loose, and ill-defined) acceptable standards for being plugged here, so I have removed the link to your home page. I hope that strikes all my readers as fair.

I hope that an acceptable WordPress plugin for ‘no follow’ is available one day!

[Well-spotted, Aristotle; I missed that.]

These days a lot of spam comments are on-topic (or not obviously off-topic) and have no links in the comment body. Often it still “smells” funny, but if you don’t pay sharp attention, it’s easy to miss the sneakery. I’ve made it a habit to check siganture links for this reason.

Leaving the comment around at all is probably more fair than necessary – I doubt that “Debbie” actually cares. Though this particular comment actually adds something to the discussion, unlike the majority of them.

Anyway, this is all waaaaay off-topic.

I know I’m joining this party late, but that didn’t seem to stop me before, and it’s not stopping me now: The image at the top of this post doesn’t closely reflect what the moon looks like to my naked eye. Well, not completely naked, as I’ve got artificial lenses that augment the ones I was born with. Tonight is nearly a full moon, so I was able to confirm just minutes ago that I see a face, with a large, irregular, and not especially round splotch for each eye and the mouth. The visible disc, as I see it, is clearly dominated by those three distinct, large, dark patches. The photo above has a lot of extraneous dark areas and intruding light areas that make it frankly unrecognizable.

Tim’s link gets the facial orientation about right, but obviously the drawn outlines are specifically geared to the picture provided by Julian. If I could draw it (that is, my naked-eye view of the moon), I would, but my skills are far short of the task. All I can say is that all three splotches are significantly larger than in Tim’s illustration, and the eyes are much closer together.

I just saw your rendition of the man in the moon and comments on whether or not it can be seen from the Northern Hemisphere. I’ve attached before and after pics for you depicting what I believe to be the real man in the moon.

🙂 ~Misti

[Posted by Julian from an email from Misti, dated Dec 8.]

Also, notice the trackback where Adrian largely agrees with my assessment.

I lived most of my life in the USA, but now live in Australia.

I have always been able to see a person in the moon, wherever I am. In the USA I see a man beaming joyfully down at the earth. But I was astonished when I saw my first full Southern Hemisphere moon, because the face was so completly different. What the southern face looks like to me – and it’s the same face Julian outlined – is a little girl, with a blush across her cheeks and nose. Sweet and young.

Then one evening while looking at the little girl in the moon I saw that, sidewise, my beaming man was there, too! And then I turned my head upside down and saw that there was a THIRD face!!!

That moon is just full of faces.

I have never noticed a rabbit, however.

I came across this page while searching for a picture of the little girl in the moon to show a friend of mine back home. It’s been a disapointing search, because none of the pictures I’ve found show it the way it looks to the naked eye. Furthermore, even when I turn the picture on this page (by far the best pic) this way and that, I just don’t see my beaming man! But when I’m up north, he’s as blatantly obvious to me as the little cutie I see here in Melbourne.

It just occurred to me that the reason that some people can see only one face in the moon may have something to do with why some people have trouble seeing both heads in the classic double-faced image shown here:

http://www.exploratorium.edu/exhibits/postcard_illusions/

Just a thought.

That moon is just full of faces.

At this point it would remiss not to mention pareidolia…

THANK GOD someone else sees the same face in the moon as i have for as long as i can remember! Your illustration is beautiful 😉 when i look at the moon i see that face but its more “seal face” like a baby seal. hm, anyways very interesting topic

cool!

i luv the little ant!

yeah that is so cool but i see alot of pictures of differnt men on the moon non of them are the same now when i look up at the moon i will actually know what i am looking at keep it up!!!!!!!

Eyes added for effect only.

[Scott P. submitted this via email to Julian. I think his submission is consistent with Misti’s, above.]

*Cough* Bull *Cough*
Woowwwww people.

Um…er…the last couple months or so, I’ve been seeing a topless girl, lifting her top. Early in the moonrise, she’s shaking her hair, and at peak, she’s lifting her top, and at near end of the descent, she’s hiding her face with her top.

I have tried several times to photograph it, with no luck, and cannot get anyone else to see it.

Years ago, I saw her, then the rotation of the moon made it vanish for about a decade, and now she’s back again.

Anyone else see her?

Xan,

Part of me is calling for you to mock up a picture to show me what you mean. Another part of me is worried I will never be able to unsee it. Having porn appear in the night sky every time I look up might take a little bit away from a romantic evening stroll.

You say it disappeared for a decade due to “rotation of the moon” and now it is back? I can’t see how that would work from an astronomical perspective. Would it be too indelicate to ask about any changes to your sex-life over that period? 🙂

It might also be my location, and by “decade” I mean a long time. It takes a bit to see it, and no, hard to unsee it once you do. As for changes to my sex life, that’s not a factor, as the first time I saw ‘her’ I was 4 years old, saw her again at 12, then a large fuzzy time frame, on and off every few years.

Again, I’ve tried to photograph it, even visited a local observatory, it has to do with DISTANCE, the closer the view (telescope), the ‘image’ vanishes. The guy at the observatory said that distance might be a factor as well as rotation, as HE saw her with the naked eye (no pun intended), and it was just muck thru the ‘scope.

BTW, my location is central midwest, USA.

I might be able to get some pics now that I have a somewhat professional sky gazer tuned into the image, a call from him a bit ago said that there are more than one girl…similar to those who see more than one face, there’s more than one girl, and tonight I understood what he meant.

Is there an accurate mapping of the moon that’s fairly recent of the entire surface that can be rendered into a program with user-guided rotations? I wouldn’t NEED to mock it up, just get the right distance, angle and radius, and ANYone can see it.

Contact me from my website if you want more info. (open invite to anyone)

Thanks!

Unbelieveable!! the great majority of the biggest and most populated cities in the southern hemisphere are located in South America. Rio de Janeiro, Santiago, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Montevideo, and many others. It seems to me that the only southern hemisphere that exists for the US and some european countries is Australia!!!!!!.A continent that is almost empty in most of its territory compared to the huge number of people that live in South America. Is this ignorance (what I doubt) or is it the influence of the English language spoken in Australia? The southern hemisphere is America (south), a big part of Africa, and Australia. Many millions of people see the moon the way Tallulah does. And the waning and waxing moon have opposite directions, a crescent moon has the shape of a letter C, while the waning moon or “decrescent” has the shape of a letter D. Thank you for reading this.

Carlos’s comments are a little off topic, and they triggered an even more off-topic thought.

I pondered whether his comments about South American countries being ignored compared to Australia were correlated to trade levels.

I looked it up for the US.

US-Australia trade figures are dwarfed by US-Brazil trade figures, alone. So much for that theory.

I am so surprised that many people can not see the man in the moon that I see, I can always see him. He is not pleased, always shocked.
Why can’t people see him? I can, I thought it was obvious

Nsw aus. I vividly see a cats face my friends and I are mind blown at its clarity. I was searching to see if others saw it too and I found this, I see your face in the pics shown. Both man pulling sack and shock face. They do not seem vivid to me tho or remicent of the moon I see outside now….I see a perfect kittens face it seems as tho its cut so just it’s full face is in the circle. It has A sort of white mostash. It’s mostly like its heads on a tilt but it dosent seem so titled lately… Also I have been able to point it out to a lot of people! I’m certain my friends see the photo quality that I do. Mind blowin… What dose it all mean. Perhaps it says some matrix shit, perception creating reality. Or maybe godcat/man/sackman

Hey this is really cool! I was just outside looking at the moon and I used to see a Flag, but today I saw what my mom always sees – a lady brushing her hair. A website about old superstitions told me that seeing this was known to bring bad luck. Obviously this isnt true, but whenever I look at the moon I see it. And I guess people back then did 2. By the way I live in Wisconsin. (The us that is) 🙂

Was just outside having a smoke, gazing at the moon as you do. At first I after starring at it for a while it appeared to be getting closer, I genuinely panicked and stepped back haha after gathering myself, the detail I was able to see was superb. I definitely saw a face, more to the point it was just two eyes and an off shape mouth. Kind of like a skull looking face. Just thought I’d share this after googling ‘I’ve just seen a face on the moon’ an coming across this site!

Julian thank you for stating what I and other Southern Hemispherians (?) have long thought. My scientific research has taken me to The Netherlands, France, Germany and England where I have asked the locals to show me the man in the moon. Vague answers accompanied by Gallic shrugs followed. Then when I suggested they view the moon through their legs (as if they were in the Southern Hemisphere) they all saw it. I am sure they are telling their kids and grandkids so that – together with your brave post – the world will finally know that the man in the moon is South African! That is what you mean’t, right?