A man from Tennessee has a rare neurological condition that forces his brain to add terrifying demonic features to people’s faces.
Victor Sharrah is one of the very few people in the world who suffers from the rare disorder. But, with his help, researchers are finally beginning to better understand it.
Clarksville Resident’s Life Changes Forever
Victor Sharrah is a 59-year-old resident of Clarksville, Tennessee. He lived a relatively normal life until November 2020, when it changed forever.
One morning, he awoke to a terrifying experience; the faces of everyone he came into contact with had demonic features, per NBC News.
Tennessee Man Begins Seeing Demonic Faces
According to Sharrah, people’s faces appeared distorted, with the mouth, ears, and nose stretched backward.
They also had deep groves in their chins, cheeks, and foreheads, all of which frightened the Tennessee man.
Clarksville Resident Wakes Up in a Demonic World
Speaking with NBC News, Sharrah said, “My first thought was I woke up in a demon world.”
He went on to express how terrifying the first moments were, saying, “You can’t imagine how scary it was.”
A Friend Helps Sharrah to Diagnose Problem
Sharrah immediately turned to a friend who worked with visually impaired people for advice.
Upon relating to his friend what he was experiencing, they suggested he may be suffering from prosopometamorphopsia, or PMO, per NDTV.
Sharrah Diagnosed With PMO
Sharrah’s friend later advised him to go to the hospital. After several tests, he was diagnosed with PMO, an extremely rare neurological condition.
The disorder forces people to experience distortions in the faces of everyone they come into contact with, which gives them demonic features.
The Terrifying Rare Neurological Condition
Speaking on the symptoms of PMO, Sharrah told NDTV, “When I’m looking at a person, that face is moving, it’s talking, it’s gesturing. So it really increases the effect of it.”
However, what’s unusual about Sharrah’s disorder is that the distorted faces only appear in person. But not when he looks at faces on the internet or in photographs.
Sufferers of PMO
Cases of PMO are extremely rare, with less than 100 people diagnosed with the disorder.
Researchers believe it is caused by problems in the part of the brain that handles facial processing. Symptoms can last from a few days to a few weeks and, in some cases, years.
How Did Sharrah Get PMO?
Those looking into Sharrah’s case came up with two possible solutions for a diagnosis so late in life. Four months before he began seeing the demonic faces, he suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning.
Doctors believe this may have brought on the disorder. Another option goes back over 10 years when Sharrah fell and hit his head fairly hard on the ground, which left behind scarring on his brain.
Researchers Visualize Demonic Faces for the First Time
Sharrah agreed to participate in a small experiment with researchers, in which they sketched out what someone with PMO saw for the first time.
Researchers at Dartmouth College created several digital representations based on Sharrah’s descriptions before posting them online.
How Did the Researchers Create the Drawings?
In order to create realistic representations of what Sharrah was experiencing, the researchers used live participants and pictures.
They instructed Sharrah to compare the photograph to the person standing beside them before using image-editing software to produce the images based on Sharrah’s description.
More People Reach Out with Symptoms of PMO
According to Antônio Mello, a Ph.D. student and the study’s lead author, numerous other people suffering from PMO symptoms reached out.
Some people “have seen face distortions since they remember, since they were a child,” Mello said. “For them, at least, it’s impossible to find a single event that was responsible.”
