Why is Athena's owl on the US 1 dollar bill?

Answer 1

Despite persistent internet speculation, an owl is NOTpart of the design of the $1 bill. There's a small place where the scrollwork lines come together to make an image that looks somewhat like an owl to the naked eye, but under magnification the image turns out to be nothing more than some lines that meet randomly.

The supposed "owl" and "spider" on the $1 bill are examples of a psychological phenomenon called Pareidolia. The human brain has evolved to look for patterns and ordering in the natural surroundings. Among other things we tend to look for familiar "anchors" that help us make sense of unfamiliar circumstances. That ability developed in part as a survival skill in prehistoric times.

The term Pareidolia describes what happens when there isn't any actual order or pattern, but the brain imposes one anyway. The most common example is the game of looking for "pictures" in clouds; other examples include hearing pop tunes in bird calls or seeing the Man in the Moon. The supposed owl and spider are similar cases - the ink blobs don't really form an animal but they're close enough that the brain says "AHA! Animal !"