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As a 4-year-old, the woods behind my grandparents’ house in Bronxville, N.Y., was both foreboding and magical to me. My grandfather would take me for walks there almost every day during the year my father served in Vietnam. We’d look under rocks, find bird’s nests and poke around the underbrush.
I clearly remember one day my grandfather bringing along a saw from his woodshop. And when we reached a certain tree, we stopped and he began sawing a limb off the trunk. He gave no explanation.
After slicing through the limb, he looked at the freshly cut end grain. Then he put this limb on top of a fallen trunk or rock and sawed off a disk about 1″ thick. He picked the disk off the forest floor and handed it to me.
I looked at the wood. And the wood looked back at me.
Somehow rot or mineral streaks had created a smiley face in the end grain of the disk , two eyes and a perfect grinning mouth. I kept that chunk of wood for years, but I lost it sometime after we moved to Arkansas.
Since then, I’ve encountered many faces in the boards that have passed under my hands , there’s a reason they call it “face grain.” For me, wood grain is like puffy clouds; I’m always looking for patterns or meaning.
Turns out, I’m not alone. Reader Chris Burn of Ottawa, Ontario, sent me the photo above of a sheet of veneer that came out of a plant in North Bay, Ontario.
It’s pretty cool. But I’m glad that this is a rare occurrence. If every log I cut open was looking at me, I might think twice about firing up the table saw.
– Christopher Schwarz
P.S. To download the full-resolution photo, click on the link below.
face_veneer_full.jpg (1.74 MB)
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Well, here in new jersey, I once sawed a log and it appeared
to me to be Jimmy Hoffa. I didn’t know he was missing at the
time.
chris
If it winks back at you….HEAD FOR THE DOOR!
I used to be in charge of cutting sheet stock in a furniture factory. I estimate that over the years I probably cut about 25000 sheets of plywood, and I must say that I saw stuff like this quite often. I wouldn’t say that it is rare, but it sure is cool when you see it.
Amazing! Makes you wonder if trees and other living things have souls. How else would these expressions make sense? Great article, thanks.
three statisticians went hunting for deer. Upon sighting an animal the first shot over it, the second shot under it and the third said, "yay, we got it!"
Those book matched veneers in plywood have been scaring kids in their bedrooms for decades.
Mike
One thing that really increases the likelihood of seeing a face in an otherwise random pattern is bilateral symmetry (in this case, from the bookmatching of the veneer sheets).
You can easily see faces and/or figures in most of the Rorschach ink blots, for example.
To "google ID guy":
Statistics and probability theories will only tell you that the probability to encounter this *exact* pattern is infinitesimally close to zero (as much as probability of you to be born with your exact set of genes is close to zero, or probability of life to evolve the way it is is close to zero), but if you only have to accept that it’s just one case out of infinitely large set or possible outcomes.
Some people even see Jesus’ face in a grilled sandwich (and sell it on eBay for big money then). Tell me about joke.
The Greeks called them hamadryads.
More info at this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamadryad
This one has got to be a joke, no? I’m well-trained in statistics and know that random patterns occasionally seem anything-but, but this one is a little hard to believe.