Yet more proof that you can’t believe everything you see:

“The flashed face distortion effect is an optical illusion involving the fast-paced presentation of eye-aligned faces. Faces appear grotesquely transformed whilst one focuses on the cross midway between them. As with many scientific discoveries, the phenomenon was first observed serendipitously … The phenomenon … also represents an example of scientific phenomenology which outstrips (in this case) neurological theory. According to Susanna Martinez-Conde, president of the Neural Correlate Society … ‘We may have theories, but the experiments have not been done, because it’s too early. This is really at the cutting edge.’” – from Wikipedia