Minneapolis, MN – A Minnesota man is baffling neurologists and psychologists alike after being diagnosed with a previously undocumented condition that causes him to see every human face as that of a different celebrity — from Oprah Winfrey to Keanu Reeves, regardless of the person’s actual appearance.
Mark Galloway, 43, first noticed the issue shortly after recovering from a mild concussion sustained in a bicycle accident last spring. “I was having coffee with my wife,” Galloway recounts, “and I was like, ‘Why is Jennifer Lawrence being so affectionate with me?’”
At first, doctors suspected prosopagnosia, commonly known as face blindness — a condition that makes it difficult or impossible to recognize faces. But further testing revealed something more bizarre. Galloway could recognize faces — just not the real ones.
“He doesn’t see a blur or an unrecognizable image,” said Dr. Natalie Chen, a neurologist at the University of Minnesota Medical Center. “Instead, he superimposes the faces of widely known celebrities onto everyone he sees. And he’s incredibly consistent. His mailman is always George Clooney. His dentist is always Viola Davis. His wife, interestingly, alternates between Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson depending on the lighting.”
The condition, jokingly dubbed “Celebagnosia” by Galloway’s friends, has confounded medical professionals. MRI scans have revealed minor abnormalities in the fusiform face area — a region of the brain associated with facial recognition — but nothing that explains the specificity of the hallucinations.
What makes the case even more puzzling is Galloway’s ability to correctly identify people by voice or context, even while seeing a different face. “I know it’s my wife,” he says. “But I also know that’s not what she looks like. It’s just… I can’t make her face appear.”
Experts theorize the condition may be a form of visual memory substitution, in which the brain, struggling to reconstruct an accurate facial representation, instead pulls from a library of well-encoded, emotionally salient images — namely, famous faces seen repeatedly in media.
“Mark’s brain appears to be filling in the blanks using familiar templates,” Dr. Chen explained. “Unfortunately, all those templates are from red carpets, movie posters, and late-night interviews.”
Galloway’s life has changed dramatically. He avoids crowded places — “It’s like being at the Oscars during rush hour,” he says — and struggles with social cues. “Imagine arguing with someone who looks like Tom Hanks. You feel like you should just agree with him.”
Despite the challenges, Galloway retains a sense of humor. He’s launched a YouTube channel called Face Value, where he discusses the neuroscience of facial perception, interviews experts, and occasionally misidentifies grocery store clerks as Meryl Streep.
Doctors hope that further study of his case could shed light on how the brain encodes identity and appearance. Meanwhile, Galloway is undergoing visual retraining therapy — though he admits it’s hard to stay focused when your therapist looks like Samuel L. Jackson.
“I just want to see my wife again,” he says. “Not Natalie, not Scarlett — just her.”
Truth Bureau 