A history of the fallout shelter sign
When I first took a look at the sign for “fallout shelter” — which, by the way, isn’t familiar to me — I figured it was based on the atomic energy symbol, or radiation symbol.
Then, in the first paragraph of this History of the Fallout Shelter Sign (on the excellent Civil Defense Museum website, which I found via Draplin), the author writes how it also looks like three arrows pointing down.
Of course, when I read that, I looked again at the sign, and the first thing I saw then was three arrows pointing IN, and I read “pointing down” as meaning “pointing in,” as if pointing down through a tunnel.
Then I looked again — and I saw three arrows pointing straight down — and now I can’t unsee it. It’s a bizarre switch in my head.
What do you see?
Why have I never seen this before? So, so ignorant,
What does it look like? Hmmm. All of the above?
Until you pointed out the “triangles-down” thing, I saw the triangles pointing in. I have a feeling it’s like the FedEx arrow — once you see it, you’ll never unsee it.
It’s neat that there’s so many alternative ways to see such a simple pattern, though.
Another thing I didn’t see for the longest time, but of course can never now unsee, is the face on the cover of R.E.M.’s “Monster.”
In the same vein, I recently read about a comic book artist who, despite his years drawing Superman, had never clued in to the fact that his chest symbol was a big ‘S’ — instead, he focused on the yellow in the background, thinking it to be alien glyphs.
Ah, perception.
I saw 6 slices of pie…does this mean when I look at a pie, I will see 3 triangles pointing down? I must test this hypothesis…