'Evil' Afterimagery Ads

Look at the image below. It might be a little difficult to identify the 'evil' face in there. Let us make the identification easier. Believe me, it'll be fun.

There is a red cross on the image, stare at it for about 30 seconds and then tilt your head back and stare at the ceiling, slowly blinking your eyes. The face would appear and then fade away.



If you haven't experienced it before, you might find it fun or even spooky.

Found this on Ads of the World and it is a part of a 'See no evil?' series of print ads developed by LINs Advertising & Marketing, Malayasia for Amnesty International.

Those you have seen the ad feel that the ad should have come with instructions to do what we just did.

Here's the series for you to strain your eyes on:











Hope you recognised all the five 'evil' apparitions. If not, they are - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, US President George W Bush, Chinese President Hu Jintao, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

The reason why this happens? Just as when you look at a bright light for a while and then look away you see a black spot. Technically the inverse of the white light. Similarly these images are what we would identify as negative and what we see on turning away is the positive.

In more proper terms it is called an afterimage. Here are a few interesting experiments that exemplify the effect.

1. Four boxes
2. Fish in the bowl
3. Stars and Stripes