Some social media users are convinced they have stumbled upon photographic proof of the fact we are all living in a computer simulation after a woman shared a picture of herself trying on a wedding dress. The two mirrors in the picture captured a bizarre reflection and it has left everyone baffled.
Writer and comedian Tessa Coates recently shared the picture in question – it shows her standing in front of two mirrors while trying on a wedding dress. She swears the pic has not been edited or photoshopped in any way.
“I went wedding dress shopping and the fabric of reality crumbled. This is a real photo, not photoshopped, not a panorama, not a Live Photo,” she wrote on Instagram. “If you can’t see the problem, please keep looking and then you won’t be able to unsee it.”
“Please enjoy this glitch in the matrix/photo that me nearly vomit in the street,” Coates added.
The picture, taken with an iPhone, shows Coates’s arms in three different positions. In the first mirror, both her arms hang down by her side. In the second mirror, her hands are clasped in front of her waist. And in the third position, one arm hangs down and the other is bent at the waist.
Most people who saw the picture were left perplexed and horrified, calling it a ‘glitch in the matrix’.
“This is so weird I can’t stop zooming in trying to find a glitch,” wrote one person. “This whole sequence of events is both absolutely terrifying and hilarious,” said another.
“What in the Black Mirror is happening?” a third asked. Several commenters also called it “spooky.”
However, there is a rational explanation for the photograph, as Coates learned when she went to her local Apple Store to ask for help.
An Apple Store employee explained that phones are computers, not cameras. So even if the Live Photo setting is turned off, the iPhone takes a burst of pictures from left to right. He explained that when the picture was taken, Coates raised her hand to her waist, resulting in the different hand positions as seen in the picture.
Basically, the iPhone took several pictures and merged the best ones together, and the result was unintentionally spooky.
“It’s made like an AI decision and it stitched those two photos together,” Coates recounted. “And one very clever person on Twitter found the exact line on my back – it’s a tiny, tiny bit that’s not completely in line, and that’s where the photos are stitched together.”