New Puma trainers mocked online for 'looking like' Hitler

There's no doubt that pareidolia is one of the weirdest phenomenons out there. In case you haven't heard of it before, it's a process by which human beings are capable of seeing patterns or shapes where there are none.

For instance, a lot of people see plug sockets in their homes and think they look like shocked faces, and then once you've seen it it becomes almost impossible to unsee.

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And this week Puma's latest pair of sneakers is getting roundly mocked by social media users, thanks due to their alleged resemblance to  German Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.

It sounds ridiculous, but it's sadly true. The shoes in question that have caused such controversy are the Puma 'Storm Adrenaline' shoes, retailing for approximately $44.99 in the United States.

However, when turned upside-down and photographed from above, the black toe and tongue, which contrast with the white color scheme, actually does give them a weird resemblance to the Führer's slicked hairdo and toothbrush mustache.

Not only that, but some people think that the name of these sneakers, Storm Adrenaline, evokes the Nazi paramilitary wing, 'Sturmabteilung', aka 'The Storm Detachment,' or the phrase 'Stormtrooper.'

However, since it's pretty unlikely that Puma would intentionally design their training shoes to look like a genocidal fascist leader, it's probably best to assume that this is a case of the phenomenon of pareidolia playing tricks on us yet again.

According to a report by the New York Times, the reason we recognize familiar faces so readily is all down to the evolutionary history of the human mind.  Cognitive processes are activated by any "face-like" object, so we can empathize with the emotional state and identity of the subject, even before the conscious mind processes whether or not the subject of our interest is sentient or not.