Here’s a fascinating optical illusion based on the “Flashed Face Distortion Effect.” Simply put, two faces will appear grotesque when the viewer focuses on a cross between them. This discovery won the second prize in the Vision Science Society’s Best Illusion of the Year Contest of 2012, and this video by Matthew B. Thompson using celebrities to illustrate the effect went viral. I’m just catching up with it now, though (courtesy, by the way, of Unscathed Corpse) and am posting it because it truly is a trippy effect. Watch the video above while focusing on the cross in the center.