A snowy optical illusion caught on video in the wake of a snowstorm in Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada, has stumped the internet and left thousands of people debating which direction a horse was walking.
At the center of the confusion, reminiscent of the debate over the color of a dress that took the internet by storm in 2015, is an American Quarter Horse named Rudnik. His owner, Alesia Willard, says she first noticed how dark Rudnik looked against the snow last year.
On Jan. 21, Willard posted a video to Rudnik’s social media accounts with text reading “When your horse is so black in the snow you can’t tell if he’s walking towards you or away from you” and added the caption, “There were a few times I genuinely couldn’t tell.”
The TikTok video has since amassed more than 16 million views with thousands of people on both TikTok and Instagram arguing about the horse’s direction in the comments.
Instagram user “JerremyRudnik” left a comment saying, “My last two brain cells fought to their last breath tryna figure this one out.”
Another person said, “The fact that I could switch back and forth between the two is melting my brain.”
Some viewers thought they had the answer, with one person commenting, “If you look at the snow he throws with legs, you see he’s going away.”
If you watch very closely, you will see that Rudnik is definitely walking away.
For fun, Willard uploaded a second video she calls Optical illusion horse; Round 2, which features a closer shot of Rudnik walking in the snow, once again creating an optical illusion.
Willard says Rudnik will “forever be a mystery.”
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