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People are freaking out about this Minneapolis cloud that looks like Prince

by Jackie Renzetti

May 19, 2017

People are seeing Prince in an image of a majestic cloud, taken Tuesday night at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Jill Smith got the picture from her coworker, Tiffany Mattick, who says she was driving down 494 towards the airport with her daughter when the clouds caught their eye. At the time, neither of them saw any specific shapes, she said. Mattick didn't look at the picture her daughter had snapped until after she was done driving. Once she saw the unique cloud formation, she posted it to Facebook, where friends' interpretations included Sasquatch, Elvis, the Loch Ness Monster, and a surfing or snowboarding Jesus.

"It wasn’t like oh, there’s Prince, let’s take a picture. What we saw in that picture was beautiful clouds and light, just the sun coming towards the clouds," she said. "There’s a lot of things you can see in that picture. And so there’s just different elements to it and perspectives.”

For Smith and thousands of other Prince fans, the cloud resembled the Purple One. After Smith tweeted it, the People of Paisley Park Facebook page reposted the photo, which now has over a thousand likes and shares.

Enthusiasm for its resemblance to Prince abounds on Twitter, with the picture nearing 100 retweets.

"Whatever it is that you see, consider what you might be missing in any situation. Let others help you. Ask them what they see? It might be exactly what you need right now. Perspective is a gift for all of us to give. Are you listening?" Mattick wrote in her blog about the viral photo.

Thank you, internet.

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This activity is made possible in part by the Minnesota Legacy Amendment’s Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund.