This is a interesting topic to pursue.many have seen people do things at their work places & homes that appear to be magical ,be nice to hear other storys simular to this one... A buddy & I were touring the oilfeilds in Evansville IN.we came across a oil lease operator starting up his Fairbanks Morse ZC-208 on a Churchill pumping unit.We watched him turn on the gas from a large propane tank then he cranked over the engine,and it started.The operator ran the engine for a few minutes,and when the engine ran as if it was getting too much fuel he turned off the propane tank then pulled off the hose from the carburetor,and dropped it to the ground ,the engine appeared to run on its own? only other source of fuel to be had was a hose that led to the frame of the pumping unit with no aparent connection to anny other tank.My buddy was amazed at what the operator did.if anny one knows about these systems you can figure out where the source of fuel is comming from to run the engine.kinda neat to see magical illusions in everyday things

One optical illusion I've encountered occurs when pulling into a parking space and stopping while someone else starts pulling out AT THE EXACT SAME TIME YOU COME TO A STOP(Very important). In that one instant, the illusion from your standpoint is that you are still moving forward. You won't believe how many times I've pushed down on the brake even harder because I thought I was still moving! It's a freaky feeling when it happens.

Clynim I know that one it happened to me last month at walmart in the parking lot.
to see someone do a task so easy that you have no idea of how it`s done is like a form of magic,I see freinds look at me amazed when I get a old mower from the Junk & spend 2 to 3 minutes of fiddling with it to get it running

How about when your train pulls into the station and stops just as the train next to you starts moving? It feels like your train is still moving. Weird feeling, especially since a train is such a big, honking machine.

I was watching something on TV the other night (maybe the news? I cant remember), and there was a cargo van parked on the side of the road. The out of the blue another van, exactly the same, melted out of it and drove off. The van I saw was totally blocking the view of the van in front of it. It looked like the first production in Sankey's Cartesian Coins. I tivo'd it and showed all my roomates. haha.

Neat things ,I`v experienced the other train moving when riding the amtrack,you also experience a sense of moving whwn stopped at a RXR crossing watching a train pass. the vans pulling out cool to I seen that with 2 ups trucks at a busy intersection,what really is funny is that you park next to a car just like yours ,I did that back in 1986 with my 1969 Chrysler newport at the mall.
hope to hear more storys on illusions in everyday life.

If you've ever been in a corporate office where they have those big mirror panels that go all the way to an outside corner, you can have lots of fun with them. If someone bends down so you can't see their head, their rear is duplicated and looks like a reverse pushme-pullyou. And, of course, you can stand straight up so the edge bisects your body, and if you look inward you look cross-eyed, and if you raise your visible leg it looks like you've raised both legs. Fun stuff.

Some of my favorite 'daily magics' are the things that happen randomly to all of us every once in awhile. Things you could never repeat in a million years.

You know, like when you drop a quarter and can't find it only to discover it later in your pants cuff. Or you knock your soda can with your elbow and manage somehow to spin around and grab it just as it shoots off the edge of the table. Then there's the one where you can't find your glasses and find out they've been on top of your head the whole time.

Once I dropped a book and as my wife fumbled to catch it, she dropped her book, too. I was also fumbling to catch mine, and we ended up somehow catching each others' books. We laughed because we were sure it must have looked like a clown juggling routine. Too bad we didn't have an audience!

I pulled a rolled-up sock out of the bottom of my sock drawer once, and when I unrolled it I found a tile that had been missing from our Scrabble game for two years. I have no idea how it got in there, but it sure surprised me. And we could finally play Scrabble again. (Speaking of socks, just where do all the missing ones from the dryer go? Poof! Now that's magic!)

Then there was the time we moved out of a house, and I made a 'final inspection' to make sure we hadn't left anything behind. There was a dust bunny along one wall, and for some weird reason I felt compelled to inspect it. Inside was my wedding ring! I hadn't even missed it, but apparently the cat had knocked it off the dresser and it had rolled into the dust bunny. It reminded me of the 'bill in lemon' trick. I think maybe my guardian angel had something to do with that one!

I remember my first visit to the Bellagio in Vegas and entered the "outdoor" square or park. For 15 or 20 minutes, I looked around...amazed that they could have such a large room, open to the sky, in the middle of the building...yet something didn't seem quite right. When I realized that the sky was really a ceiling that looked like sky, I was dumbfounded. I couldn't believe that it took me so long to realizing what was really going on.

How about photos like this one?

Ever visit Hershey Park in Hershey Pa? Well if you take the tour through Choclate World as you exit the car you were in you cannot tell what is moving the platform or the car. Very disoreinting for first timers. Many people actually need help.

Randomly things are trully amazing ,My boss threw a empty quart oil bottle 50 feet twards the garage ,and to our amazement it stood upright on the step by the door we could throw it a thousand times after that ,and never see it do that again.the boat pic Airship put on appears to be above the water ths light & the beautifil clear water has a play in that ,that scene looks very inviting to us in january here.the funny thing about finding lost items around the home.You usually find a item you looked for last week when you look for another item you just lost.Just as airship did with the scrabble tile.some neat storys appearing in this thread ,like to see more.
happy day to all out there
Chuck

I love how you can look, and look, and look for something, yet you never find it until the last place you look!




Okay... think about it...

Very true ,the looking takes a lot longer whan you have a lot of stuff like I do LOL.My engine show buddy Richard has 10 times the stuff I do so he spends a lot more time looking.today while dtiving I saw the most common illusion you see the heat rising off the road looking like water flooding across the road.

A similar "illusion" that's interesting is when you open the door to a car that's been in the heat. When you look down on the ground, under the right conditions, you can actually see the waves of heat as they're pouring out of the car. It's the only way you can actually see it.

As for the guy who saw the Belagio ceiling, that would be how I'd imagine the scene in the main dining hall at Hogwarts Academy in the Harry Potter series.

In a city I lived in, there was a hill called "Magnetic Hill" where you could turn off your car and you will ride right up the hill. It's an illusion though.

Ah, yes!

A fellow worker was looking all over for his eyeglasses.
To his surprise, I pointed out that they were on his head.

What I hate is rare times when the thing your looking for is tightly gipped in your hand as you hunt around for it and the thing you think that you have in your hand is actually what you should be on the look out for! LOL!

Sometimes I have what I`m loking for in my pocket LOL.one thing I do sometimes is walk inside to get a soda and set a screw driver down some where along the way & not take note where I put it.I have heard of magnetic hill actually the grade falls & its the trees & landscape that looks like your going up ,the watery look of heat rising can be see from many things kinda like your night dreams when every thing is cloudy.
some interesting things shared on here ,nice work guys