Relative Something

Objects out the window may be further away than they appear. Is that a thing with optical illusions? What makes something look closer than it really is?

At two different times this winter, I have been fooled by what my eyes saw and what my brain concluded. From the farthest window in the back of our house, with a view to the north, it is possible to see a building that appears to be on the edge of the plowed field adjacent to our property.

The first time, I was flabbergasted. How did someone put a building there without us noticing? It couldn’t have been constructed there, so I made the assumption it must have been moved into position intact. I tried to get a better view with binoculars and checked the view from all the other windows on the north side of our house. Through the bare tree branches, I couldn’t discern much more than what I saw with just my eyes. I also couldn’t find it from any other window.

That should have been my first clue.

I asked Cyndie to look at it when she walked Asher on the driveway after feeding the horses. She told me she couldn’t see it. That didn’t make any sense, so I checked for myself. It wasn’t there, so my imagination solved the mystery by deciding they must have been in the process of moving it and had continued to some other location.

Another week or two passed, and I found myself reading in that back room while Cyndie was working on an art project. That building was back again! Looking out the window, I could clearly see it, just like the time before. I did get up and search from all the other windows, just like before, and it was still only visible from that one back window.

I wasn’t going to be (completely) fooled twice. Applying a little logic and overruling the confusing visual and my brain’s perception of what I was seeing, I realized we were seeing the barn across the road on our neighbor’s property to our northeast.

Up close, it looks like this:

That front face with the red siding and the door and the arc of a roofline had me thinking maybe a Quonset hut. Now, if you asked me if there was a red barn on the neighbor’s farm across the road, I wouldn’t be positive. In fact, Cyndie was certain there is no red barn there when I explained what we were seeing.

So, when we saw it suddenly appearing in the trees, looking unbelievably close, we didn’t recognize it for what it truly was.

I’ve added a line depicting the direction between the two points and placed a clone of the barn in the red circle to show the location it appears to be when viewed from our back room.

When there are leaves on the trees, we can never see our neighbor’s property. I’ve never sat where I could see that view until Cyndie started using that room for artwork. The front face of that barn, suddenly being visible from our house, threw me for a loop.

If anyone can explain why it would appear to be closer than it really is, I’d be happy to learn.

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