Plane passenger captures ‘terrifying’ optical illusion that looks like an alien is hiding onboard

A “creepy” real-life optical illusion on an aeroplane captured what looked to be an alien hiding amongst humans, with the original post racking up half a million views already.

Though some are clearly better than others, optical illusions always seem to spark wide cultural discussions. Perhaps the most famous example is the gold dress – or was it blue?

Right, what is the viral alien optical illusion?

I ALMOST LANDED THIS PLANE MYSELF pic.twitter.com/mZXhTLiHXC

— Blu ✯ (@bluemupp) November 21, 2024

With over 35 million views and counting, the optical illusion was originally posted by Twitter user Blue (@bluemupp) who screamed “I ALMOST LANDED THIS PLANE MYSELF” in the caption. As of Monday, it had amassed 491k likes, 28k retweets, and 29k bookmarks.

The image itself was taken mid-flight and showed a snack cart moving down the aisle as Blue snapped a picture of the person sitting adjacent to him. The person, if it really was a person, looked exactly like ET with the blanket over his head.

Here’s what it actually is

It's an ear pic.twitter.com/jaRwpAylQy

— ThePunKing (@The_PunKing) November 22, 2024

Before you grab your alien hunting kit and jump on the earliest flight out of the UK, Twitter users have their own theories about what the plane alien actually is.

“I got this.. that’s a person with their hoodie on backwards over their face and the black thing that looks like an eyeball is a headphone,” one person theorised. “So it looks like they are staring at you creepily but that’s really just the side of their head with a headphone in the ear while the hoodie covers the face.”

Another said: “That eye you’re seeing is actually an ear with a black ear pod on. The person has covered his/their face with a hoodie, exposing only the left earlobe.”

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While the internet seems to collectively agree that the picture shows a man with headphones in, that still leaves the unanswered question of why he was wearing his hoodie back to front. Surely an eye mask would have sufficed? Though in reality the alien’s black beady eyes were the person’s headphones, the longer you look at the picture the more disturbing it gets. Seriously, don’t look for too long unless you want nightmares.

The reactions are too funny

Reactions to the gripping optical illusion range from hilarious to criminally online, with one person exclaiming: “The way I would crash out would have y’all thinking I’m worse than that white lady crashing out on that plane. I’m bout to crash out rn in fact.”

“The scream I would let out is just bizarre,” another wrote, while a third added, “DAWG I GOT SCARED.”

Some have even said it reminds them of Tiffany Gomas from 2023. Cast your mind back to last year, when House of the Dragon was trending on Twitter and Barbenheimer was dominating pop culture. You might remember a woman by the name of Tiffany who famously yelled about a “not real” person onboard her flight.  Well, now we know why.

Jokes aside, Tiffany earlier revealed that she hadn’t seen an otherworldly creature and had instead been involved in an altercation with another passenger.

“It was not my best moment … it was actually a horrible moment. Absolutely mortifying. How horribly mortifying,” she told the Pardon My Take podcast. “I literally did not see anything … It was an expression of speech.”

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Featured Image Credit: Twitter/@bluemupp