Pareidolia
Etymology
From Greek "para" ("beside, wrong") and "eidolon" ("image, form"). The term entered English from 19th-century German psychiatric writing, describing perception that runs alongside or beyond the actual stimulus.
noun · /pair-eye-DOH-lee-uh/
The tendency to perceive meaningful patterns — especially faces — in random or ambiguous stimuli.
What it names
Why you see a face in a power outlet, a rabbit in the clouds, or a man in the moon.
Example
The "face on Mars" was pareidolia — shadows and rock that our pattern-hungry brains read as eyes and a mouth.
Related idea
Apophenia is the broader parent — finding meaningful connections in unrelated things; pareidolia is its specifically visual, often facial, form.