Last month, a group of astronomers from the University of Arizona discovered what looked like the face of a bear on Mars. Researchers believe the smiling bear is actually a rock formation.
This isn’t the first time that people have found a face in the heavens. It brings to mind the Man in the Moon, constellations and more. It made the team at “Something Offbeat” wonder why we are always looking to the sky for meaning.
So, we reached out to two experts: Dartmouth researcher Nathan H. Heller, who specializes in pareidolia – hearing or seeing a specific sound or image in a seemingly random auditory or visual stimulus – as well as well-known astrologer Jessica Lanyadoo, host of “Ghost of a Podcast”.
“It’s really about the interconnection between our own lived experience on this planet, in our bodies and what happens in the heavens,” Lanyadoo explained about astrology. “And that is something that sounds really far out to a lot of people these days, but is honestly like a very kind of common-sense thing, if you think about it – in my view anyways.”
“We’ve developed… really powerful relationships with these objects, like Orion and the Big Dipper,” said Heller. “They’ve even significantly influenced our history. They shaped the architectural planning of the Egyptian pyramids and led American slaves north to freedom.”
Listen in to learn more about our relationship with the heavens and how the human brain works to make meaning out of what we see and hear.
Each week, “Something Offbeat” dives into stranger-than-fiction headlines. If you have suggestions for stories the podcast should cover, send them to us at somethingoffbeat@audacy.com.
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