Here’s something that you may not know about me — I’m a sucker for stories where people see religious images in their everyday lives. Most of the sightings I’ve heard about over the years have been in the United States and Christian-based visages. We’re talking Jesus’ face on a truck window, the Virgin Mary’s in a moldy ceiling stain – that kind of thing. I love these stories, partly because I’m fascinated by how seriously some people take it, and partly because most of the time the image really does look like the icon of record. And you never hear about anyone seeing Ernest Borgnine in an oil stain on the garage floor, so there’s that.

Some have been better than others — the Virgin Mary toast nabbed a cool $28,000 at auction, and that didn’t even include butter and jam! My main problem with most of these though, is that while the images generally resemble what we believe these religious icons look like, chances are they aren’t close to what they really looked like, which throws a wrinkle in the whole divine vision thing. I remember reading this story a few years ago, where some folks used forensic anthropology to construct a picture of what Jesus really looked like. Pretty cool, huh? He kind of looks more like a Middle Eastern Homer Simpson than Jim Caviezel or Willem Dafoe.

All of this brings me to the inspiration for today’s post, a vision story from India. Villagers there found a sea turtle that has symbols on its back that resemble Lord Jagannath, not to be confused with former WWF wrestler Lord Juggernaut. And once again, the image actually does resemble Jagannath, who consequently looks nothing like Jim Caviezel or Willem Dafoe. Apparently the villagers are refusing to give up the protected sea turtle, so we’ll see what happens.

My guess? Ebay.

Read:
History of India
Movies Quiz
How the Papacy Works