People are 'crashing out' after staring at innocent-looking photo of cat

It's not uncommon for people to take photos of their adorable cats. Whether you've owned a cat for years or have just taken one into a loving home, it can take a while for them to get used to their surroundings.

But when they do, cats might find an area of your home which make them the most comfortable. Now person has been left baffled after seeing a photo of an adorable kitten chilling by the stairs. After spotting it on Facebook, the person then decided to share it on a Reddit forum – and it didn't take long for other people to scratch their heads.

Sharing on the optical illusions page, the caption read: "Can someone explain this to me?"

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The picture looks quite simple, just a cat lying back on the stairs... or is it?

Underneath the photo, the caption continued: "I saw this on Facebook and I can't for the life of my understand it.

"Everyone just keeps saying 'you're looking at the bottom of the stairs' or 'the cat is under the stairs' that doesn't help me. It's making me crash out please help me."

At first glance, it looks like the cat is under the stairs, but then after a while you might realise it's the other way.

The post garnered 2,700 upvotes and hundreds of comments with a few users lucky enough to explain why it's confusing.

One said: "You're looking up a flight of stairs (notice the smoke detector, that's mounted on a ceiling). The stairs don't have 'fronts', so there is a gap between each step.

"You are looking at the bottom of the steps. The cat crawled under the first step and is looking down at you."

Someone else added: "The staircase above the cat is an open riser staircase that is going up. The cat is just sticking through underneath the first step."

While a third chimed in: "Smoke detector was what gave it away for me too. Took me a while to realise the steps were carpeted underneath though.

"Just a weird angle where the viewer can't see the opening where the kick board would be on the steps."

A fourth person admitted: "I have stairs like these. It's the angle that is throwing you off."

Others were equally confused by many people claimed the smoke detectors helped them understand how the cat was positioned.

So how did you spot the cat on the stairs?

It's not the first time people felt deceived after looking at a photo circulating the internet. Previously, a boyfriend drew an optical illusion of an old man with many people seeing it very differently.