“...fingering the psychology phenomenon known as pareidolia, a propensity to pick out faces from everyday objects and structures.”
I saw on some History channel thing that we have that as a survival tool from when we had numerous things trying to eat us. The ability to see a set of eyes, a nose, whatever in the grass or trees set us off running.
If it was a lion you had a head start, and perhaps survived. If it was just some knotholes and a branch - then I suppose your buddies laughed and made fun of you.