Levitating Helicopter Illusion

There are many videos going around showing helicopters flying apparently without the aid of their rotors. Here is the best example of this type of illusion to date.


Why does it look as if the helicopter is levitating without power? Is it possible that the helicopter is on a wire being lifted by a second copter just out of sight? I think that this is a Top-Secret test of a helicopter fitted with an anti-gravity prototype device, caught on tape by conspiracy theorists. Remember, just because your paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.

The answer to this question is simple enough. The frame rate of the camera and the copter are in sync thus creating the illusion of a copter being able to fly without it's rotors turning. The fact is the rotors are turning like always it just doesn't show with this camera setup. Or is that just what they want you to believe?

Here is a military test of the anti-gravity device caught on tape. This one uses the Mi24 helicopter seen here in this image.


This military Mi-24 HIND was the first helicopter to enter service with the Russian Air Force as an assault transport and gunship.



So what is the true reason these helicopters can fly without their rotors turning?

READ MORE - Levitating Helicopter Illusion

Mystery Spot Optical Illusions

Weird US takes us a short tour of the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, California.

This spot is famous for one thing, it seems the laws of physics are slightly out of kilter on this spot. Some believe that aliens traveled here in their UFO and buried other worldly metal cones here to act as a navigational beacon for their space crafts. The theory speculates that the properties of these extraterrestrial metal cones throw gravity a curve ball.

Other more sane folk believe it is a natural phenomena that scientists have yet to explain.

We know better though, don't we? What do you think is the cause of the seemingly unnatural things we have observed in this video?

READ MORE - Mystery Spot Optical Illusions

Sand Illusions

The below video is the sand fantasy creation of Ilana Yahav, a sand animation artist. Using only her fingers, Ilana draws with sand on a glass table. The ebb and flow as she changes from one image to another is absolutely amazing. Go here to visit her site.




Tags: sand illusions, video, fantasy, art

READ MORE - Sand Illusions

DIY Dragon Optical Illusion

Below are two videos of Dragons that have been created by folding paper. They are not motorized in any fashion and at no point in either video do the dragon's move in the slightest.

However due the way they are folded and an optical illusion they will all appear to follow the camera. First user jdannan on YouTube.com shares this video of his pet dragon.


Second user leezbot on YouTube.com shares this video of a small dragon family. The family is very nice and I believe that the little blue dragon above originated with this family before striking out on his own.


If you would like to create your own pet dragon click the below image and download the large image to your computer. Then using A4 size paper print out the template and follow the directions.

I will follow up later this week with an explanation and examples on why this optical illusion occurs.

READ MORE - DIY Dragon Optical Illusion

Spring Break Illusion in Advertising

Bruster's real ice cream says, "treat yourself to something real"

READ MORE - Spring Break Illusion in Advertising

Whichever, Optical Illusion Animation

This film is the creation of Yutaka Akita. This short film has bits and pieces of many favorite illusion topics such as recursive, fractals, tessellations, and perspective. He describes this video as follows:

"This is application experiment of optical illusions commonplace in 2-D animations in 3-D spaces. The animation develops through illusions caused by concurrent different perspectives of simple lines and surfaces. It is a non-narrative film aiming to make viewers feel bizarre yet fascinated by a feeling of floating between real and unreal."

whichever
Uploaded by yutakaaki

For more films from this artist go to this site. Here is a short biography he provided on his Dailymotion page.

"Born and bred in Yokohama, Japan. After a study of Byzantine art at Waseda University, surprisingly Yutaka started his career in the film industry where crazy yet creative people are working hard every night and day to make something amazing. Couple of years after, he alone went all the way to the UK to cultivate his style and techniques as an animator/director. And here he is, working on a variety of projects including promotion video for Madame V spring/summer collection 2012, James Bryan “Beautiful World” video, etc. He also worked for Johny Mourgue, one of the film director in FLYNN Productions and made a pitch for Beck’s album “Cell Phone’s Dead” TV spot. *showreel available on requests."

READ MORE - Whichever, Optical Illusion Animation

The Gorilla Monkey Illusion | Passing Basketball Illusion

You might have heard about my earlier demonstration in which people fail to notice a person in a gorilla suit when they are busy counting how many times a group of people pass a basketball. People can only experience the gorilla effect once-after they know to look for a gorilla, it is no longer unexpected. But what would happen if we tried showing you another video just like it? If you know that something unexpected might happen, and you actively look for unexpected events, does that make you more likely to notice them? Try it for yourself.

Tags: Gorilla, Videos, Basketball, Unexpected, Actively, Demonstration

READ MORE - The Gorilla Monkey Illusion | Passing Basketball Illusion

The cup and ball trick optical illusion | Magic optical illusion

The cup and ball trick, with a modern twist.

READ MORE - The cup and ball trick optical illusion | Magic optical illusion

Impossible Motion magnet like slopes illusion

This optical illusion has been created in three dimensions. It is a real object. However impossible things seem to happen! The wooden balls seem to roll uphill. It cannot be magnets - they do not work on wood! This wonderful illusion was created by Koukichi Sugihara from the Meiji Institute for Advanced Study of Mathematical Sciences in Japan. In May 2011 this video was the winner of the Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest 2011.

However once the structure rotates, we can see that it is not constructed as we initially thought. We might have thought that the wooden balls were rolling uphill. Once we view it from the other side, we can see that in fact the balls are rolling downhill, and that the laws of physics are still being obeyed.

READ MORE - Impossible Motion magnet like slopes illusion

Optical Illusion Ring

Presented here is the Optical Illusion Ring. Rob over at What is it? pointed it out to me. He said this about this ring.

Optical illusion ring, you can see in the photo that the links on top look thinner than the ones on the bottom, when you turn the ring it appears that they actually grow larger right before your eyes, or get smaller if you turn it the opposite way.

Click the picture to see a video (1.6meg) of the Optical Illusion Ring

Well the picture and explanation just didn't do the trick for me so I searched the net to see if I could come up with a video that showed this illusion. Once I saw the video I was hooked. This is a very interesting effect. Remember this ring is solid there are no moving parts on this ring. Click the picture to download or view the video.

I found the video here, this shop sells many illusions and magic tricks. You can buy this ring to size here. Unfortunately neither link will make me a dime.

READ MORE - Optical Illusion Ring

Technology Illusion or Incredible Feat?

I found this animation on Grow-a-brain. This is an animated gif of a girl apparently being tossed in the air and coming down through a basketball hoop. Looking at this animation it is easy to say the thing was faked and all we have here is the illusion of a girl going through the hoop.


What is not so easy though is denying this is not an illusion after watching the actual video of this feat. Click on the picture and go to a site where they play the actual video clip. Although I have heard some still say it is faked, watching the clip, it has an air of realism that would be harder to fake then the video.

Update: You can check out a debate about this video at the museum of hoaxes There seems to be a 50/50 split in those debating.

John said, "This was filmed at the University of St Thomas in Saint Paul, MN they were on the radio the other morning talking about this and claim that its legit. For whatever thats worth - the authors are claiming its real.
Posted by john on Sat Feb 19, 2005 at 09:22 AM

Even the Washington Post had some debate on this video.

Update: Open a quicktime copy of the video or download the video by clicking or right clicking here and selecting "save link as" or "save target as".

READ MORE - Technology Illusion or Incredible Feat?

Chessboard Cube

I found this on Hans Kuiper 's Math Art page. I didn't really understand what I was looking at but it was very cool. I continued to poke around the site further and came across the next image. He explains this image in an article first published in the magazine Arthesis, July 2002.

Is it possible to create a piece of Art, which looks, seen from 6 different views, like a chessboard, using only 64 cubes?

That is what I asked myself, having visited a Minimal Art Exhibition in the Gemeente Museum in The Hague, seeing work from Sol LeWitt, an artist of the Minimal Art movement. I read about LeWitt, that in his vision, the idea behind the art work is much more important then the construction of Art itself.
But in my thoughts I saw my Chessboard "Cube" right in the middle of a roudabout, on the crossing of two regtangular ways. On your way to the roundabout you see in front of you the view of the Chessboard, while driving on the roundabout, you experience the anamorphosis, an optical illusion, because the position of each cube to the other cubes changes permanently. Leaving the roundabout you see in your rear-view mirror again the chessboard, independently if you leave at 1/4, 1/2 or 3/4 of the full circle. Read the whole article here.

READ MORE - Chessboard Cube

Four-Stroke Apparent Motion

The below clip gives us the illusion of continuous motion. In fact there are only four frames that loop continuously. Two of the frames move forward the other two move backwards.



Copyright George Mather, 2003

George Mather, the creator of this piece, had this to say about this illusion.

This animation involves a repeating cycle of four different frames (hence "four-stroke"). The motorcycle moves forward and then backward again (the scenery moves backward and then forward again), but the backward step is accompanied by a reversal in contrast:

The effect of contrast reversal is to reverse the direction of perceived motion, so instead of appearing to move backwards between frames 2 and 3, and between frames 4 and 1, the motorcycle still appears to move forward. Consequently, the impression is of continuous forward motion. This kind of display was first described by Anstis & Rogers (1986), and is closely related to 'quadrature motion' displays (Carney & Shadlen, 1993).

Go to his site for a more in dept analysis of this and other illusions.

READ MORE - Four-Stroke Apparent Motion

The Green Square

I found this at the "Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics" They worked In collaboration with Dan Kersten, Minnesota, USA to demonstrate the below illusion.

If the cast shadow of an object is moving, we assume that the object is moving and not the light source... ...A moving shadow induces a motion in depth of a stationary object (green square is not moving).

Just in case it is not yet understood. The green square above is absolutely still. It does not move. The shadow on the other hand is animated and does move across the image including changing the color slightly of the green square. This moving shadow creates the illusion of movement of the green square.

Update: Try this. Take out your ID card and cover half of the green square from the bottom left diagonal to the top right. Now it is apparent that the square is not moving. Very interesting effect.

Update 2: I just noticed something I had previously not realized. It looks like the shading of the green square changes. It seems as the shadow moves the tinting and shading on top of the green square is also manipulated to complete the illusion. The truth is not only doesn't the green square move but it is a constant non-varying shade of green. These two illusions here and here can explain why it appears as if the shading on the green square changes.

READ MORE - The Green Square

The Haze Illusion

From the same team at MIT that brought you the Checker shadow illusion here is a flash movie demonstration that outlines how the some shades of color can be made to look different when the context of what it around them changes.

READ MORE - The Haze Illusion

Pass the Ball

This is a two post illusion if you didn't read the first post go there now.

How many times was the ball passed? The answer to that can wait. Without looking again, what else did you see in the movie?

How many elevators were there?

What was the graffiti on the wall.?

Did you see any animal or animals pass through the scene? Maybe a kangaroo, a horse or a gorilla?

If you can't remember what animal passed through the set go back and watch it again, this time don't worry about the basketball. Once you figure it out don't tell your friends and spoil it.

Still wondering how many times the ball was passed or what animal did an Alfred Hitchcock cameo through the movie? Check out the comment section below.

Other stimuli from their studies of change blindness and inattentional blindness can be viewed at Visual Cognition Lab at the University of Illinois.

READ MORE - Pass the Ball