People Are Finding Subliminal Messages and Demons Hidden in King Charles' Portrait

Opinion of the British Royal Family is not what it once was. As more and more people in both the U.S. and the U.K. come to question whether they should exist at all, the family themselves are doing everything they can to prove that they remain vital and modern.

The latest effort to do just that came with the unveiling of King Charles' official portrait. Whatever you think about Charles, it's hard to deny that his portrait is striking and unusual, and pretty unstuffy. Now, though, some are taking a look at mirrored versions of the portrait, and finding things hidden in the image that may or may not have been intentional.

King Charles' portrait features him in the red uniform of the Welsh guards with a fiery red backdrop that he almost seems to emerge from. On first glance, the red backdrop surrounding Charles seems to just be a cool effect, although some might suggest that it could suggest that he's emerging from the pits of hell.

If you do a little manipulation to the portrait, though, you might find that there are some other symbols you can read into the portrait.

If you crop the right side of the image and then display a mirrored version of it side by side with the original, it seems like you can see a demon of some sort in the background. Leilani Dowding, a former model and reality TV star who now works as a conservative commentator, was among the first to discover this apparent subliminal message, and the mirrored version immediately began to spread across the internet.

Although it's pretty easy to see the demon in this manipulated version of the image, many were skeptical that this was necessarily indicative of anything sinister going on either with Jonathan Yeo, the British painter who did the portrait, or within the royal family itself.

Instead, many pointed out that you can find hidden images in basically anything if you manipulate the images enough.

In this case, the photo had to be not only mirrored but also cropped so that it featured something that looked like a demon. You may not be a huge fan of the royal family, but you don't have to think that they're occultists to believe that they maybe get a little bit too much free money.

There is an element in the photo, a butterfly over King Charles' shoulder, that was absolutely intentional on the part of Jonathan Yeo.

"When I started this project, His Majesty The King was still His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, and much like the butterfly I’ve painted hovering over his shoulder, this portrait has evolved as the subject’s role in our public life has transformed," Jonathan explained.

Artists definitely do put things in paintings intentionally, but it doesn't seem like the demon that some people have noticed is one of them.