It's safe to say that the internet is a little obsessed with optical illusions and supposed 'glitch in the Matrix' style pictures. The latest image to become a viral sensation is a simple picture of a bride-to-be trying on a wedding dress. While it's fairly wholesome and unassuming at first glance, take a closer look and it appears that she's been cloned.
On deeper inspection, the photo shows the bride standing in front of two mirrors, each reflecting a different hand placement to her 'real' position. The bride insists that the image is not the work of any camera trickery or sly Photoshopping, which has led the internet down the rabbit hole to solve the mystery. (To create your own eerie illusions, take a look at our guide on how to download Photoshop).
The bride pictured is comedian Tessa Coates, who provided extensive proof that the picture was not altered in any way, showing photo analytics that seemed to prove it was an ordinary photo. "If you can’t see the problem, please keep looking and then you won’t be able to unsee it," Coates says in an Instagram post, referring to the creepy reflections.
Slightly disappointingly, the image turned out to be an unintentional photo trick, courtesy of the iPhone 12's panorama feature. The picture itself was too small to be registered as a panorama (hence why Coates denied any camera trickery), but it was still subject to a feature that stitched the frames together to make one smooth and concise image. Myth busted, sorry.
Tech reviewer @iphonedo dissected the picture in detail, revealing how it could be easily recreated (and the results can be surprisingly eerie). Sadly, we haven't uncovered the mysteries of the Matrix just yet but if you've got a big announcement coming up, it's certainly the perfect way to grab the attention of friends and family.
For more mind-bending optical illusions, take a look at the bizarre optical illusion boots that are a fashion nightmare or check out the physicist's optical illusion that's blowing people's minds.
