Church Railing Optical Illusion

Robert Jacobson a student at Southern Adventist University in Tennessee passed this church every time he would transit to the local grocery store.

On more than one occasion he thought to himself that the illusion he noticed from the road was fascinating and one of these days he should take a picture of these church railings and share them with others. On this day he remembered.

A moment of brilliance struck me today when I was getting ready to go to the grocery store. "Bring your digital camera!" I thought to myself. Every time I pass this church sign I tell myself, "One of these days you gotta take a picture of those stairs."

This is the approximate view you see as you crest the hill and first see the stairs. Robert explains why the picture isn't taken from exactly the position you first see it from.

I wish I could have taken the picture from the very crest in question, but I would have had to stand right in the middle of the road, and there were a lot of cars. There were safety concerns.

From this angle they look a little cockeyed, nothing amazing, they just go off in different directions. So what is so special about these rails? He further states.

But WAIT! Are they really crooked? Your vehicle descends the crest and moves swiftly past the front of the building. You look up quickly from changing the radio dial to 90.5 WSMC just in time to get another look at those handrails:

Whoaaaa! This was a surprise. I didn't expect to look up and see that these two rails were parallel. I'm sure examples like this can be found all around us. Thanks Robert for allowing me to use your images on this page. Go to his page and read his full take on this illusion including his take on explaining this phenomenon.