Diana Duyser shows off her discovery, the infamous "Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese Sandwich". Duyser, as the story goes, prepared the sandwich in 1994 and after taking one bite (in the lower left hand corner) saw the Virgin Mary staring back at her in an impression made on the sandwich.
Duyser immediately placed the sandwich in a plastic container, filled it with moth balls, and kept it at her bed side for the next 10 years. In 2004, for reasons unknown, Ms. Duyser...
more »Diana Duyser shows off her discovery, the infamous "Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese Sandwich". Duyser, as the story goes, prepared the sandwich in 1994 and after taking one bite (in the lower left hand corner) saw the Virgin Mary staring back at her in an impression made on the sandwich.
Duyser immediately placed the sandwich in a plastic container, filled it with moth balls, and kept it at her bed side for the next 10 years. In 2004, for reasons unknown, Ms. Duyser placed the sandwich for sale on e-bay for the price of $99 million along qualifications that for 10 years the sandwich had never molded and that she truly believed the sandwich had helped her win large sums of money multiple times from nearby casinos. She also stipulated that, bite mark notwithstanding, the sandwich was not being sold for consumption.
While not garnering $99 million, the company Golden Palace, known for its publicity stunts, was willing to pay $28,000 for the sandwich and an additional $7,000 for the pan that produced it. For her part, Ms. Duyser could not be totally parted from the sandwich, as she got a tattoo of it on her chest.
Pareidolia is the phenomenon of perceiving a significant pattern from otherwise random stimulus. There is no specific word for taking advantage of that situation.
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