See Michael Jackson Moonwalking In The Cloud? You’re Not Crazy, But Probably Believe In Ghosts


Jesus in burnt toast? The Virgin Mary on grilled cheese? They have nothing on Michael Jackson.

He did his famous moonwalk in a storm cloud over Virginia, days before the anniversary of his death. Top that.

Certainly, whether or not the figure of Michael is really in the cloud is debatable, but a photo snapped by recreational photographer John Plashal and shared on a local news station’s Facebook page admittedly looks pretty darn cool.

The photo was taken on June 23, two days before the six-year anniversary of Jackson’s sudden death at only 50-years-old.

Plashal told WTVR that a storm chaser app led him to set up his camera outside a restaurant in Goochland County to capture a violent thunderstorm. There, he took several photos and didn’t notice Michael moon-walking across the cloud at the time.

But the internet did, and the photo went viral after he submitted it to a local meteorologist.

“I see Michael Jackson moonwalking. I see his foot raised and his legs bent, and his black pants and white top. It kind of looks like he’s looking down,” he told the New York Daily News. “I see it. I see it now. It’s pretty wild. It’s one of those things — believe what you will.”

And apparently, Plashal’s other shots of the storm were even better than this one. However, the singer didn’t make an appearance in those.

“It wasn’t even my favorite picture that I took. I have others that are better but don’t have a celebrity in the image.”

The anniversary of Jackson’s death fell on Thursday; he died in 2009 of cardiac arrest, a death that became one of those “I know where I was” moments for many people. John said he was “at the pool with friends. My friend got a text that Michael Jackson had just died. He was an icon.”

But such an icon that people are now going to start seeing his face everywhere — in pancakes, tree bark, and a cloud?

Seeing the dead (or just faces) in everyday objects isn’t exactly unusual and has a name — illusory face perception. That’s a fancy term for seeing facial features in nature or inanimate objects. This phenomenon is really just a trick of the brain, according to Finnish researchers who studied it in 2012.

They found that lots of people perceive faces, but not everyone spies someone as specific as Michael Jackson or gets all emotional about it. People who believe in paranormal phenomenon are more likely to say “oh yeah, there it is!” than skeptics. They also tend to find faces where none are present at all.

So did the pop idol really give a late-night performance in the cloud this week? Probably not, but there’s no harm in believing it.

[Photo Courtesy WTVR CBS 6 News Facebook]

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