There are lots of wacky things being sold on eBay, and a buttered toast allegedly bearing the imprint of Jesus' face is just one of them. But this one appears to take the cake for its outrageousness.
A man named George Maley from Windham, New York is selling a piece of buttered toast that he claimed bears the face of Jesus, according to WCHS 6. He placed the starting bid at $25,000.
Maley revealed that he made the toast over three weeks ago at his home. He said at that time he was having a particularly rough day since he was missing loved ones who had passed away. So when he saw the image in the toast, he got the shock of his life.
"It was an answer to a lot of questions I had," Maley said. "Even if it was just a brief image, it's still a sign, and it points in the right direction."
To preserve the image, Maley kept the toast in his freezer. When he told his sons about it, they were initially sceptical. But Andrew, one of his sons, changed his mind after seeing the toast himself. "I thought [dad] was lying. I thought it was completely fake, and then he showed me and my mind was blown," he said.
Maley said he plans to use the proceeds from the sale to support his two sons' education. However, as of writing, not a single bid had been made yet on the toast.
This was not the first time a religious pareideolia was sold on eBay. Pareidolia—which is derived from the Greek word para, meaning faulty or wrong—is described by Live Science as a psychological phenomenon in which the mind perceives a vague or familiar pattern of something where none exists.
Back in 2004, a Florida woman successfully sold her 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich which allegedly carried the image of the Virgin Mary. She got $28,000 from the sale, reported NBC News. The winning bidder? An online casino called Golden Palace.
"It's a part of pop culture that's immediately and widely recognisable," the casino's spokesman Monty Kerr said. "We knew right away we wanted to have it."
