A weird historical photograph invites our curiosity, along with our sense of the creepy. The Maryland Historical Society Library republished this image, in order to (successfully) crowdsource an explanation for the unusual scene:
The ultimate explanation is pretty interesting. But I'd like to draw the reader's attention to the sheer freakishness of those masked faces, like so:
Yes, they do look ridiculous. But how disturbingly flat the upper masks, with their uniform eyes and blank expressions. How unsettling the lower half.
(via Jesse Walker on Twitter)
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