A bewildered PhD student has been showered with congratulations after her friends thought she had announced a “surprise baby”, only to discover the photo she had posted was an optical illusion.
Rebecca McGonigle, 25, from Glasgow, recently posted a photo of herself sitting in her room simply because “the lighting was good”, but it caught attention for a strange reason.
Within minutes, a friend messaged her to warn her that she looked like she had a baby in her lap, and she was quickly inundated with congratulatory messages.
The image shows Rebecca’s knees pulled up to her chest with one kneecap exposed and the other covered with her white skirt.
The pose created an optical illusion where one knee looked like a baby’s head and the other looked like the newborn’s lower body covered in a white blanket, but finding humor in it, she kept the post up.
Optical Illusion: Do you see a baby or a sunny room with distorted shadows that make it look like Rebecca has a baby on her lap?
Many of Rebecca’s friends told her that the photo of her sunny bedroom appeared to depict a baby.
Rebecca says some misled friends asked her if she’d had the baby yet and others simply commented ‘congratulations’.
Some admitted they had to look twice to realize Rebecca wasn’t holding a child and couldn’t believe how realistic she looked.
The chemistry PhD student says she wasn’t sure whether she should delete the post or not, but then found the image and her reaction funny.
Rebecca left the photo online and showed it to her boyfriend Neil Pitman, 31, who simply said “what the fuck”, and his family, who she is happy about, didn’t notice before her.
She took the photo last Monday and posted it with the caption “sunny little egg” before confirming: “I’M NOT WITH A BOY THAT’S A KNEE” just hours later.
The PhD student said: ‘The lighting was good so I thought I’d take a photo to post on social media and didn’t realise.
‘A couple of minutes after I posted it, my friend texted me and I thought ‘oh no’ and then a bunch of people started messaging me. My knee looks like a baby’s head and my skirt looks like a blanket.
‘I thought ‘what the fuck?’ and I wasn’t sure whether to delete it, but I thought I’d keep it because it’s fun.
Rebecca left the photo online and showed it to her boyfriend Neil Pitman, 31, who simply said “what the fuck”, and his family, who are glad they didn’t notice it before she did.
Rebecca McGonigle, 25, was in her room wearing a white skirt that her own friends thought was a blanket hiding a baby. She was quick to dispel the rumors, but left the post funny.
“People were seriously asking me if I had had a baby and it was strange to answer that. I’m glad my family didn’t see it first and panic.
‘I wasn’t embarrassed because it was funny and my boyfriend just thought what the fuck is going on?’
Rebecca’s TikTok about him mail It has been viewed more than a million times since he uploaded it two days ago.
Her friend’s message alerting her to the image read: ‘I love you so much, right, but? [in] In your Instagram post I thought your knee was a baby’s head and your skirt looks like a blanket. I watched it twice and it really made me laugh.”
One commented on her original post saying: ‘Congratulations!’ while some even stated: ‘motherhood suits you so well’.
Another wrote: ‘I thought you were pregnant!’ while a different user wrote: ‘OMG I thought you were holding a newborn but it’s your knee.’