Case file · Apparition / miracle
Virgin of Guadalupe in a Watsonville oak
On 17 June 1992 Anita Contreras, praying alone at Pinto Lake in Watsonville, said she saw an image of the Virgin of Guadalupe in the bark of an oak. Thousands of pilgrims followed, and a shrine still stands.
1992 CE · 36.94, -121.77 · status: account
The account
The tree fell in a storm around 2015. Scholars have read the devotion against the backdrop of the town's farmworker and cannery strikes.
The sceptical view
Pareidolia, the mind's tendency to see faces and figures in random patterns, is the usual explanation.