Dark clouds parted on Monday in Norfolk County, England to reveal what some are calling the "face of God."
Finance industry employee Jeremy Fletcher captured an incredible photo from the Snettisham seashore looking towards The Wash – an east coast bay and estuary.
Surrounded by grey clouds is a bright light in which a face can be seen. A forehead and furrowed brow sit above deep-set eyes and a prominent nose and cheekbones. The "man's" mouth is obscured by a thick, fluffy "beard" of white clouds. The entire face appears to glow.
Fletcher was struck by the image.
"I realized the image looked remarkably like a face of a man with a beard so I took a number of shots on my phone," he told the Daily Mail.
He hesitated to say the face was heavenly, however.
"The obvious comment is that it looks like God but it could also be Sean Connery or Karl Marx," Fletcher said, adding that he is not a religious person.
To the thousands who have viewed his image online, however, there does hold a spiritual significance.
"God really sees us!!!" one woman wrote on Twitter.
"He came to fetch my father-in-law who died last night," another Twitter user shared.
Some residents of Norfolk said the photo is evidence that the area is "God's own country."
"Everyone who lives here knows Norfolk is a bit special and now it seems to have been confirmed from above," Councillor Charles Joyce told the Daily Mail.
Some social media users have claimed that the picture is Photoshopped, but weather experts say that crepuscular rays are the explanation for the unique image in the clouds. When light seeps through darkness during sunsets or sunrises, the random holes of sunshine can form a no-so-random image. Other times the effect is a brilliance of sun rays shining through the clouds.
