We introduce a novel class of visual illusion -- motion
pareidolia -- in which sequential presentations of random
textures can trigger percepts of coherent apparent motion. In
two experiments we presented observers with sequences of
random 140x140 pixel arrays refreshing at 2.5Hz. In
Experiment 1, observers were primed with a coherent motion
pattern, such as fixed texture shifting up-and-down across
frames. After 8 priming frames, the textures became
completely random from frame to frame. Participants were
instructed to indicate when they could no longer perceive the
primed motion pattern. Participants' responses were delayed
by an average of 6 frames (or 2.4 seconds). In Experiment 2,
observers detected motion patterns in 6-frame sequences
under different noise levels and falsely identified coherent
motion in 39% of the purely random sequences. To account
for this phenomenon, we propose a selective visual attention
process that is biased to detect expected motion.