Team Herald
MARGAO: Salcete locals have gone into a tizzy over what appears to be an image of Jesus Christ on the bark of a banana tree near a house in Vanelim.
Over the last three days, residents of Salcete and beyond have flocked to the house, which belongs to Angelina Fernandes. Even former minister Churchill Alemao, among other prominent personalities, visited the site. Many visitors were seeing praying, while others claimed it was a miracle. Incidentally, the Colva church has refrained from commenting on it.
The incident began after Angelina’s daughter Velany Dias noticed the image on the tree. She informed her grandmother before going to her school in Benaulim. When she returned, there was a crowd in front of her house. Her grandmother had told her relatives, friends and neighbours.
A photograph of the imprint was shared numerous times on social media and circulated extensively on WhatsApp. Some said it was a natural phenomenon, while others visited the place to verify it.
Colva resident Delzin Furtado reasoned that it was a case of ‘pareidolia’, i.e. a psychological phenomenon in which the brain perceives familiar patterns in disorder. He said, “Common examples of this are seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon, the moon rabbit, and hearing hidden messages in phonograph records when they are played in reverse. Pareidolia is the visual form of apophenia, which is the perception of patterns within random data.”
