The Illusion of Motion That Makes You Question Your Eyes

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The thumbnail above shows an optical illusion where spheres appear to move; at some points, they move apart, towards each other, or even walking past. But it's just a trick! Light and shadows are playing with your eyes and mind.

At first, it was hard to accept. Saying these circles are stationary felt like gaslighting my sense of sight. It felt like a bad attempt to make me question the authenticity of my eyes.

In my own way, I took the illusion for a test in my make-shift lab. The idea was simple, if this cercles are moving, they will get displaced and if I should place an object close to it, it would crawl onto the object or move away from the object.

The setup was simple, I placed a tootpick close to the circle as it blinked and moved as shown below

I did not see any movement even while it appeared to move but I blamed it on my shaky hands and had to redo the test with a steadier setup.

There was only an apparent movement and no shift towards or away from the toothpick. It was obvious, the illusion was true, the circles were not really moving but I still needed another confirmation.

I had to work on the softcopy.

I took it over to an editing app and added a frame tightly around one of the blinking circles. Once it moves to any direction, it will be easier to detect motion. So I saved and gave it another try.

I made sure the frame was sturdy and had very little clearance around the circle. And when it was time to go for another observation, I found it interesting. Look for yourself and tell me what you see or should we still trust what we see after this, or could it be my eyes are compromised?

The circles still seem to be moving but are still confined inside the square, this is a second experiment that confirms that this is only an illusion of motion, the circles are not moving, they only seem to move.

Conclusion

Some illusions arereally amazingg and can make you doubt the authenticity of the information you see with your eyes. Is it still safe to believe what we see? Or do you think my test was appropriate? If in my place, how would you have tested it?

I will be expecting your comments, surgestions and contributions in the comment section.

@dequeen
@ruthjoe, @rubee2as1
@okere-blessing, @sadematthew,
@josepha, @alexanderpeace, @ninapenda,

Media Credit

Composer	@manuelhooks
Graphics	by manuelhooks
Edited with	Galaxy-A15
Posting Date	Thurs, 9 April.
	(@) 2026