'Very Clear Face': Woman Films Pareidolic Experience

A Las Vegas woman spotted what bore close resemblance to a face in the clouds above the city amid flood-causing rain on July 18.

Amber Mayorga, who shot this footage from her backyard, told Storyful she just happened to see “what looked like a very clear face.”

“It stayed up there for quite some time and appeared to be looking down at the Las Vegas valley,” Mayorga said.

Pareidolia is a phenomenon that occurs when people see faces in everyday objects. Researchers at the University of New South Wales attributed pareidolic experiences to the spatial arrangements of objects triggering neural mechanisms that recognise emotion.

Replying to a local meteorologist who shared Mayorga’s footage, Facebook users claimed to see a variety of famous and fictional people, including Elvis and Severus Snape. Credit: Amber Mayorga via Storyful