For some strange reason this nonsense made it onto the BBC News website.

It may not be immediately obvious to everyone, but one family are convinced they can see the face of Jesus on the lid of a jar of Marmite.

Claire Allen, 36, said she was the first to notice the image on the underside of the lid as she was putting the yeast spread on her son's toast.

Her husband Gareth, 37, said he could not believe his eyes when he saw it.

Mr Allen, of Ystrad, Rhondda, said: "The kids are still eating it, but we kept the lid."

He explained: "Claire saw it first and called her dad to come and take a photo of it.

"When I first looked at it I wasn't sure, but when I moved it away from me it started coming out. I thought yeah, she's right - that's the image of Jesus.

The only trouble is, it looks more like Freddie Mercury than Jesus.

Of course this is no more than pareidolia. I see all sorts of things in my bathroom rug, care bears, dragons, dwarfs, even yesterday I saw the Ebay logo. But that doesn't mean care bears are looking out for me. The survival value of this overly aggressive pattern recognition is obvious - it's much better to think you see a tiger hiding in the grass, than to not see one at all even when there is one there. It only takes a few vague suggestions of something to get our brains to fill in the missing detail and latch onto something, be they visual or even audio. Everyone encounters this all the time, be it pictures in clouds, tree bark or on bumpy wallpaper. The difference is most people know its just an illusion, apparently Claire Allen hasn't quite realised it yet:

People might think I'm nuts, but I like to think it's Jesus looking out for us

Yes, yes we do. Why would your intergalactic cosmic dictator be hiding in a jar of Marmite, couldn't he come up with something a bit more impressive?*

*This argument by no means can be used against the Flying Speghetti Monster - he is food and so would obviously appear in it.