NOTE: Since our original story on Ruth's face of God was posted in the features section of the site, her photo has been seen around the world. This is the version of the story that appears in the Daily Echo on May 30.

IS this God’s face found on a mixing bowl in Ferndown?

Ruth Davis walked into her kitchen and noticed the image on the side of the bowl after her son Paul had used it for cleaning the windows.

It appears that after mixing in the bowl for the last 40 years the image of a face has developed in the scratches and she believes it is not a half-baked tale.

And after appearing on the Daily Echo website the image has gone global and is being studied as far afield as Australia.

Ruth, of Barns Road, said: “I saw it and thought ‘you never know it might not just be me who thinks it is amazing’.

“My son had been washing some windows and had put the water in the mixing bowl and left it on the work top.

“I walked in the kitchen and thought ‘God has arrived’.

“I left it there and when I came home from work one day my son had used it for window cleaning again and I said ‘you can’t get rid of God that easily’.

“So we’ve not washed him since.”

Ruth said the image reminded her of pictures of God in the clouds.

“I realised it was too old to be Jesus,” she added. “It’s more of a fatherly figure. He’s absolutely up in a cloud.”

Her son Paul does not agree with her but believes Ruth can be forgiven for seeing the likeness.

He said: “It’s very funny because it’s a mixing bowl.

“I can see it and I’m not going to deny it looks like a face.

“But there’s quite possibly nothing divine in that.”

The Reverend Dr Ian Terry, team rector at St Stephen’s and St Peter’s churches in Bournemouth, said it was “lovely” that she believed she had seen God.

He said: “Whatever one might say about the scientific side of things I’m quite clear that as God is the life force within all creation, then if we have eyes to see then we see God in each other and we can see God in all life on earth.

“I’m glad she is developing the eyes to see.”