Religious Americans Keep Seeing Jesus, The Virgin Mary and Other Holy Figures In Weird Places

While the city of Medjugorje in the former Yugoslavia gained international attention in 1981 when six children claimed to have encountered the Virgin Mary, there has also been a long history of religious apparitions in the United States, as well, and often in some of the most unusual ways.

Two Houston women recently claimed to have seen the face of Jesus Christ on a neighborhood oak tree. Betty Clack and friend Dorothy Ritter, both devout Catholics, told local media outlets of the experience. Clack said she was reciting the Divine Mercy prayer outside her home on Ash Wednesday when she saw Jesus' face appear on the oak tree. Amazed by the sight, she contacted her friend, Ritter, who rushed over to see the spectacle and confirmed the sight.

“It’s a reminder to the world. He’s here,” Ritter said. “She wasn’t looking for him. He appeared to her. That’s the grace.”

Clack and Ritter join a long list of people who have witnessed Christian images.

In 1996, a Nashville coffeehouse became a tourist attraction when a customer found a cinnamon bun that resembled Mother Teresa. On Christmas Day in 2005, the "Nun Bun" was reported stolen.

Back in 2004, the Virgin Mary’s face was embedded on a grilled cheese sandwich. At the time, Diana Duyser was only 10 years old when she spotted the Virgin Mary after taking one bite out of her grilled cheese sandwich, which she had prepared herself. Ten years later, the sandwich, still missing just one bite and bearing the Virgin Mary’s face, sold on auction for $28,000.

A couple in Iowa in 2010 sliced open a potato that had a cross-like design in the middle of it. They later listed the potato slices on eBay.

In 2014, a Michigan man also saw Jesus’ face in a pierogi he purchased at a Parish festival. Just a year before, a man in Ohio photographed an image of Jesus appearing in a bird dropping on his car windshield.