Upstairs or downstairs?

[missbishi]

What do you think this cat is doing? Is it going up or down the stairs?



I can't decide whether the picture is taken from above and the cat is climbing the stairs or whether it's a low angle and the cat is coming down. What do you see?

 

[Peachdejour]

Oh! I've seen this a couple of times and I just saw it on the news. No one can decide. It another picture like that blue and black dress. I'm going to say the cat is coming down the stairs because of the shadows on the lips of the stairs. If the cat was going down, then those would be grips and their would be grooved with tack marks.

 

[Shimus]

I can decide. The cat is going down the steps. Look at the way the floorboards are designed with the little lips on the ledges. Couple that with the fact the shadows on the wall depict a brighter 'upstairs' area and the steps have a slight wall-shadow.

 

[sidney]

I will guess that the cat is going upstairs, because the background behind him looks blank, like the stairs is the entrance to something. I don't think we will ever know the correct answer to this one though. :cigar:

 

[Shimus]

The more I look and analyze the more I second guess myself. I think now, it's potentially going upstairs. Look at the "bright white light" in the background. It looks uniform - like a floor. It seems to lose a dimension. Look at the "Doorjam" where the stairs start. It looks like he might be going upstairs. URGH. These type of photos!

 

[Lushlala]

I like to go off my original answer, and I say he's coming down the stairs. I'll go back and analyse it to see if I have any doubts LOL But straight off the bat when I looked, I clearly saw him coming down the stairs. Do we ever get to know the correct answer?

 

[gata montes]

Hahaha - I saw this yesterday and it certainly appears to have kicked up quite a storm too - what with something like well over 4000 comments and theories so far as to which direction people think this cat is going in - some of which I have to say make quite amusing reading - especially as some of the theories are extremely entertaining and even more so when they start to get into the technicalities - like this for instance

http://www.businessinsider.com/cat-on-stairs-optical-illusion-2015-4

As for my theory - like everybody else I'm not exactly sure which direction this cat is going in either - in fact although my original thoughts were that the cat was coming up the stairs - simply because when cats go down stairs they generally have their heads way lower than their rear ends and often bound down using both paws rather than just one - well at least mine do - having studied the picture further I'm now more inclined to think that the cat is neither going up or down and this is a photo of a cat poised on the middle of what appears to be a flight of stairs - possibly photo-shopped to give the illusion that the cat is going - either up or down the stairs.

Either way - although we can all come up with many different theories - it doesn't alter the fact that it is an extremely baffling optical illusion - to which their currently doesn't seem to be answer to and as its been said that no one appears to know who the owner of the photo is - it possibly never will have

 

[joshposh]

I'm going to say that the cat is moving upstairs. If you look at the steps themselves and block everything else off you can see a little lip. That little lip is used so that people won't slip and off down the steps.

 

[connie]

downstairs. simply looking at the way the stairs are designed and the little lip tells me that you are looking at the underneath of the stairs from a very low angle, not to mention my initial impression was downstairs!

 

[Stardom22]

The photo was captured uprightly and the cat is moving upwards the stairs for sure

 

[theearner]

The pic was captured uprightly and the cat is moving upwards the stairs certainly.