Bizarre illusion of a horse walking in the snow has people asking the same question: "I thought I saw..."

Optical illusions have always fascinated the masses, especially when they occur in nature. One such TikTok video that has been making the rounds on the Internet, leaving netizens baffled, was posted by Alesia Carrie (@rudniktheroan). The viral clip featured her black horse, Rudnik, taking a stroll against a white-snowy backdrop. With the sun directly overhead, casting minimal shadows, the footage became an optical illusion as people were left to decipher whether he was walking toward the camera or away.

Alesia, who captured the phenomenon, penned, "When your horse is so black in the snow that you can't tell if he is walking towards you or away from you." This prompted a flurry of reactions from netizens as they chimed in with their guesses, marveling at the sight. At the time of writing this article, the video has garnered over two million likes, and more than ten thousand comments, with one user, @Haley Sheree Duncan remarking, "I was so confidently incorrect this whole video multiple times". 

As the comments poured in, Alesia pinned one that was correct—Rudnik was indeed 'walking away'. She revealed, "Spoiler: He is walking away from me in the whole clip." Netizens were shocked to have their guesses turn out wrong. A person remarked, "I thought I was a genius because I saw the horse moving towards you… I was humbled right quick lmao." In a similar vein, one noted, "This hurt my Brain. I thought I saw what direction for sure but then it switched when I blinked." Meanwhile, a social media user @BeautywithLeonie, simply stressed, "Woahhhh that is a proper optical illusion!!! Ahahaha." 

Alesia, who has been sharing Rudnik's life on the farm on Instagram as well as TikTok, revealed a rather heartwarming story of how the horse came to be part of her family. She stated in a post, that Rudnik was dropped at a livestock auction by his breeder when he was just 9 months old and that his life was saved by a mere 50 bucks when a local rescuer decided to put in a bid. Rudnik, having gotten a second chance at life, is living his best day on Alesia's family farm. She now shares training tips and tricks with Rudnik's fanbase, disseminating knowledge about equine body language in daily vlogs. Her latest post captured Rudnik meeting her newborn for the very first time. The Instagram video featured Rudnik lovingly sniffing the 3-week-old baby. Alesia also shared that Rudnik knew that she was pregnant, even before her. She penned in the captions, "Rudnik is becoming more and more fascinated with Little B with every meeting. He can’t understand why the little foal isn’t covered in fur like most of them are."

You can follow Alesia Willard on TikTok and Instagram for more videos of her beautiful horse Rudnik.