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I spent 20 minutes trying to figure this out with no success. Do you know the answer?

I give up...Fininshed my coffee and still could not figure this out. May you send me this so I can share with some friends...

I figured it out in 4 changes!! Sounds like im doin better than average.

What is the answer then?

Stop reading this post if you don't want the answer..

Notice the person on the far left. He does not have hair in the second secene. Therefore he is not a complete person and should not be counted. Since there is so little of him missing we assume that it is a complete person, but if it was only a 1/2 of a person you would not count him. So, both scenes actually have only 12 folks. I looked at for 10 minutes before I showed my assistant, who figured it out in two rotations.

Brian's right. (Got it in two rotations.)

That can't be right! You STILL see 13 bodies in one shot and only 12 in another, despite that tiny missing piece of the guy on the left's head!

NEXT?

...this is making me nuts.

lol

Okay, how's this for an explanation. Feel free to dispute it but it's how I'm seeing it...

The key is the guy in the top of the 4th vertical row in the 12 people position. He is moved over to become the top guy in the 2nd vertical row, which then makes it have 13 guys in total. The reason for this is simple - it's merely how the vertical rows line up. The guy in his original position is slightly higher than the others, so that when he slides over to that 2nd vertical row, he remains higher and thus, 'adds' that 13th person.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

lol

Here's what I got, and trust me, I'm about to throw the screen out the window in frustration.

Each figure is "donating" a little piece of himself to the 13th guy. If you follow the changes, it starts to make a bit of sense. Look at the guy to the far left in the 1st stage (12 peopoe). As it changes, follow his hair to the guy in the 4th column 1st row and wait for it to change back. Now follow his hair to the 1st guy in the second column. Continue this until you have the 13th guy, who has no bottom part of his feet.

In essence, what is happening that every figure is becoming shorter, allowing the same number of pixels to make up 13 characters, instead of just 12.

It still doesn't make sense to me:)

lol

I saw this game for the first time about 20 years ago (I was 5 years old and it was on paper, not many PCs back then). I STILL CAN'T FIGURE IT OUT! I've got a degree in engineering in 4 years and after 20 I still can't understand this game. HELP, it is driving me crazy!

ok, here's what's going on: look at the 12 people scene, and pay attention the guy on the far left and the guy 3rd from the far right. The guy on the left has hair in the 12 people scene, and the guy 3rd from the right has full feet.

when it moves, you can see that the guy on the far left no longer has hair (the scene is shifted down one) and the guy who had feet when he was on the right side of the screen has the bottom of his feet cut off where the top and bottom halves meet. there wasn't anybody standing there before! he is the 13th man!

how does that work? well, by just cutting off a few pieces of the othe people (the guy's hair, bottom of the other guy's shoes) you don't notice that the characters in the 13 people scene are really less comlpete than the characters in the 12 people scene. but the guy from the far right stays counted as a whole person in the 13 people scene, while the guy from the righ side is counted as a whole person too. that's how it works!

who cares

@ eowynsflame - how on earth does that explain the thirteenth whole body (ie torso) then?

Im so confused... :/

i wish i never found this picture

Look at the vertical positioning of all the bodies. No two are at the same height. In fact they are roughly evenly spaced in height (if you imagine shuffling them into order). Therefore by drawing a horizontal line through the figure that goes through all the bodies, we get a bit of one mans hair, a bit ofr another mans nose etc etc, and those twelve bits together are enough to create a thirteenth man. You dont notice that each man is 1/12 shorter than he was after the switch.

the mind understands how each person loses 1/12th of themselves

but I cannot figure out where the 13th body or face comes from. and I like my sleep. somebody help please!

This one's been driving me nuts too! I found the above image elsewhere, so I've just done a Google search to try and find the solution - this was the first site that came up.

I've got enough from this discussion to put my own mind at rest, so I'll try and help out a bit before I leave. This illusion only works so well because it uses people as the 'units'. If you think of it as 12 strips of spaghetti then it starts to make more sense.

For example, I take 12 sticks of spaghetti. I take a tiny piece from each one (although I take a different section in each case). I then stick the halves back together (except in two cases, where I took the top and bottom bits from a stick), but make a new stick from the little bits. Have I magically created spaghetti? Of course not! It seems obvious when you look at it like that, but that's all this illusion does.

The reason we have such trouble is because our brains are wired for recognising people as people. We don't naturally see them as split into seperate chunks, so a person minus an arm (or a horizontal slice of their body) still flags up in our minds an "one person". You can then take those chunks and make a new Frankenstein's monster, and our brain happily recognises that as a single person too!

It still makes no sense! I understand that the 13th person is made up of a bit of all the others but where is that new person? If you named all 13 some of your friend or family names, who dissapeares? Once the picture shows 13 people, show me the 13th guy! count the feets and heads, it still makes no sense!

The spaghetti analogy and the 1/12th explenation are all fine and good, but wouldn't that mean that one of the people in the scene w/ 13 people is constructed out of 12 different parts? I understand that the people are standing at different heights which means the single horizontal "cut" could remove different body parts from each. The problem is the fact that NONE of these people gets cut more than once (to cut sections out from the middle would require 2 horizontal cuts) and that none of the people in the 2nd scene are made up of more than 2 parts, as you can see by watching the animation.

One thing very true though, everyone gets shorter, or just about everyone. The person in the middle in the front for example: the line that used to be his shirt becomes his chin.

1st row, front, top of head lopped off.

2nd row, front, his nose becomes his eyes.

2nd row, back, knees become waist.

3rd row, back, legs are shorter, the guy that gets moved on to him was cut around the knee and this guy is cut at the ankles.

4th row, middle, this guy loses distance between his shoulders and his chest.

4th row, back, this guy loses his feet betwwen his ankles and the bottom of his feet.

5th row, front, his chin becomes his nose.

5th row, back, this guy loses the area between his knees and shins.

And the bonus guy, lets call him 2nd row, back, scene B, does not have complete feet, the bottoms are missing.

It really seems like they've taken bits from all these people to make a new one, but I can't imagine how these parts are recontructed into a whole... Man, this will drive me to drink.

Yeah, sorry, my spaghetti analogy was inaccurate in that respect.

What's actually happening is that a tiny bit is being taken from one guy, lets call him 'Person A'. That little bit gets transferred to another guy, 'Person B'. However, a *bigger* bit also gets transferred from Person B to Person C. And an even bigger bit from Person C to Person D. This carries on until a very big bit (big enough to look like a whole person) is transferred across to nowehere - and so we get our 'extra' guy.

Actually, I think it can be explained better if we look at the whole thing in reverse:

Person 12: All of their body - apart from the bottoms of their feet - gets transferred over ot the left. This is our 'extra' person.

Person 11: A large chunk of their body gets transferred over to Person 12 the right, but not *quite* as much as was lost by Person 12.

Person 10: A large-ish chunk of their body gets transferred over to Person 11 on the left, but not quite as much as Person 11 lost.

Person 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4: ...As above, but with smaller and smaller pieces...

Person 3: A small chunk of their body gets transferred across to Person 4 on the right, but not quite as much as Person 4 lost.

Person 2: A tiny chunk of their body gets transferred across to Person 3 on the left, but not quite as much as Person 3 lost.

Person 1: A really tiny bit of his body - just the top of his head - gets transferred across to Person 2.

So as you can see, the magical extra person comes from Person 12 - the guy on the back row on the right. The rest of the trick has only one purpose - to cover up the fact that Person 12 is missing a body! This results in a 'cascade' effect, where each person is covering up the fact that the previous person just lost part of their body.

I could probably create a modified version of the animation if it would help...?

Okay, here's a modified version of the animation:

http://unplanned.net/offtopic/People.onebyone.gif

I've redone the effect to move the people across one-by-one, rather than all at once. It shows how the first 'extra' person is created, and then how the missing parts get smaller and smaller as each person is copied across...

Hope it helps to preserve people's sanity! =)

Whew! finnally an answer that makes sense.

Here's a "colorful" explanation....

http://www.laurenceholbrook.com/Misc/rxtramanGIF_Explanation.html

RichTF: your my idol...

Heheh, glad the extra animation was helpful to some of you! =)

yea i see it now... dont look at it as heads, bodies, feet, etc. look at it as tops and bottoms. the guy that loses his hair... that is a bottom. guy that is counted that only has part of his feet, that is just a top... you count them as 2 people, thus the extra person, add the 2 halves together u still only have 12. ;-) explained.

wow this brain teaser knocked my brain out! was only when i did a screen capture and shaded the top and bottom half that i figured it out. put as simply as possible, there are 12 tops... and 13 bottoms. we see 13 people because the extra bottom looks like a person even though it's not complete (head cut off). very cleverly done, though!

Man, that animation rules. I was just about to start sacrificing babies to figure it out.

If somebody wanted to make this real obvious, he would reorganize the image to line up everybody in order of vertical position, lowest to highest, then slide the upper part to the right one man's width. It would be IMMEDIATELY obvious where the extra man came from -- it comes from the very action of sliding half of the image. All the original artist did is fold it cleverly and mix up the positions to obscure it.

yeah, somebody already did. check this out: http://www.jroller.com/page/bioye/20031204#13th_man_optical_illusion_response

yeah, somebody already did. check this out(a more direct link than above): http://jroller.com/page/bioye/20031204#update_on_13th_man_puzzle

That animation from RichTF does rule. Nice job. You should be a school teacher. I might have learned something.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/DickTracy/Blocks.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v335/DickTracy/People.jpg

I remember seeing this when I was a kid in the 80s - I think it was using McDonalds' Fryguys. It was one sheet of perforated paper with a solid strip along the bottom and two pieces you would tear off and swap along the top. The mystery is solved at long last! Man that piece of paper provided hours of mind boggling fun... lol

my head hurts

the smoke has left the brain!!! Thanks Rich and everybody.....Whew!

months, months went by since i saw this and it has been a cancer in my brain ever since. i disected the image in photoshop and made the layers colored, though not each person a different color. i was sure to solve it but didn't and had to let it go so that i would not go crazy in the process. inspiration struk me today and i googled up this web page. when i saw the image of the blocks, linked above, it all made sense. there is a similar puzzle of triangles that is also quite brain teasing though only a fraction of this brilliant masterpiece. here is a link to it, hope the link holds up for a while.

http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_feb2005/HowCanThisBeTrueAnswer.htm

if the link fails, google>> triangle "how can this be true?"

The response #30 http://www.jroller.com/page/bioye/20031204#13th_man_optical_illusion_response

is a nice way of visualizing the the actual answer to the question, but too bad there is no way of seeing the image larger, or is there???

this is so easy it took me 3 time , ok the truth , it took 3 mins but its all good


just look at the guys feet u will see they will all have them , then in the 13 there will be missing feet wich makes a new guy

1. The top half of the 5 men on the left move to the top half of the 5 men on the extreme right.
2. The top half of 5 of the 6 men on the right move to the top half of the 5 men on the left.

Note the 3rd man rear on the right moves totally to the left and becomes the 5th man from the left.

The man at the left most bottom (now with less hair) gets nothing added to him.

Now there are 13 men.

great illusion and great answers, my head nearly exploded watching it!!! Unbelievable 3 years old forum!!!

Guys, even though this is 3 years old, this website saved my head from completely self-destructing under the madness of this illusion !

I thank you for my brain that remains partly intact !!

i like how almost none of the links work three years later.....

lol thanks anyways rich i can olny imagine, seriously, how good your explanation was (is?)

i realize that each person lost a peirce of themselves but when and how did the "donated" body parts assemble or what ever?

if you print this with 12 men, you can, I did it.  Cut through horizontily on the exact line where it shifts then cut vertically  through the top piece where it splits. ( the first guy on the left on the bottom should lose the very top of his hair) there will be 4 body parts in the part you cut out off the left side and 7 on the part you cut from the right (that is a total of 12 parts you cut off of the bottom so when they get moved they should go back on 12 parts of the bottom) Take the right side that you cut with the 7 parts on it and put in back where it came from, now take the right side piece with 5 parts on it and set it to the right of the other, slide them to the left until they are in the position for 13 people, you will notice that the top 12 pieces that came off the top only slide 11 spaces to the left and does not replace the part you removed from the 1st person on the bottom left .  So, you know there is an extra piece on the top (you now have to count the missing hair on the first person on the bottom left as a piece of the top which now gives you 13 pieces on the top above the shift line. The extra person in the top of the second row  becomes the extra person derived from the fact that you slid her over into a blank spot. If you  slide the right top piece you cut out with 7 parts on it over so that the 1st on the left covers the 1st part you removed from the left (the top of the bottom left guys head) and you put the part you remove from the top left and put the position it takes up in the animation, you will see that a peson shows up between the two sides. this is the 13 person. when you slide everthing 11 spaces she is in the top second row but if you moved over 12 spaces which how many parts you removed from the top things will start to clear up.   NOW for what is really happening!  take the part that is moving from right to left. (the part with 7 parts on it) take it and put the 1st  part over the guy who lost his hair on the bottom left , now turn this piece counterclockwise so the second part is on top of the second part of the bottom. that is two people, next shift it so the piece of hair, 3rd part over is with the top person in the 1st row(1st 3 parts or the top put with the 1st 3 parts of the bottom)  here is the place where you can see what happens,  take the top piece your working with (the one with 7 parts on it ) you already  saw where the parts should on the 3 if you moved over 12 instead of 11 spaces.  now line up the 4th part of the top piece with the 4 part of the bottom and then the fifth part of the bottom with the fifth part of the top and wahlaw!  the bottom man in the second row and the man directly above are the same guy!  The extra women in the 2cd row top should actually be where the man in the second row middle is.  If you can follow my directions,  You will see what happens. all of the rest of the explanations with #of people and colored people and 60" people and whatever are whooeee.

I had just figured this out when i wrote the last comment. I looked at some others and might be able to explain this easier.  they cut 12 pieces off the people on the bottom and shifted them around,  but they din't replace 1 of the pieces on one of them. IE: the piece of hair on the first guy on the bottom left.  If you shift the top over one space to the right and match them with the bottom starting on the bottom left, 1 part on the top for 1 part lost on the bottom  and do this with the 1st 5 parts on the bottom with the 1st 5 on the top you will see that the 4& 5 guy are the same person and there should only be 2 people in the second row.  It is a masterful job of misdirection.  the whole thing is done by not replacing one of the parts on the bottom that was removed. That shifts some of the parts on the top over 1 position filling a blank spot in that wouldn't be there if they  had matched each part removed with a part to take its place. When they remove a part but don't replace you have one extra part on the top. The thirteenth part on the top is the blank above the first guys head.  The reason that you get a whole extra person is because the extra person in the 2cd row top is all above the line and moves into a blank spot because the shift parts don't move all the way to the right to compensate for the first guy that  lost the top of his hair. she should be in the first row

THAT  should say  "if you shift the top over one space to the left "  1 part on the top for 1 part lost on the bottom


Correction at bottom:
"the shift parts don't move all the way to the left to compensate for the first guy  that lost the top of his hair"

Hard to follow the explanations?   print the scene with 12 people,  take a blank sheet of paper, put it underneath the people, put a mark  one inch down on the blank sheet underneath each person,  make lines on each mark about an 1 inch long (or 2" 's  it doesn't matter), one mark for each person,  make the lines about the same height and make them even on the bottom and the top and make sure they line up with each person in the image, cut the paper horizontaly through the middle of the lines, take the top piece and cut vertically through it between the 5th & 6th lines, trim the top pieces so that excess paper is removed on the sides of the two pieces, next rotate the top two pieces as if they were the images and you will see how it works, one of the lines will lose a bottom and one line will lose a top because when they shift,  the first  person does not get his hair back and the 3rd person in from the top right is moved in  toto to the 6th position in from the left.  all misdirection created by all the people being put at different levels making you think they are building a new person.  when in fact all they are doing is moving the 3rd person in from the right ( the whole person) into the blank space on the top between the 5th and 6th person.