Internet baffled by Super Mario illusion: Is he running up or down stairs?

This illusion will make you feel as if you’re on Mario’s mushrooms.

Super Mario might be a kid’s cartoon, however, this illusion involving the Nintendo icon can apparently only be solved by the smartest people. The image is blowing up online after appearing on Reddit three years ago.

[Warning: Spoilers below]

“Is Mario going up or downstairs?” reads the caption to the pixelated perception test, which is actually a still from the 1989 cartoon “The Super Mario Bros Super Show.”

In the accompanying screenshot, the turtle-mashing mushroom muncher can be seen racing along a tower’s spiral staircase to rescue a kidnapped Joilet, although the direction he’s heading seems unclear. The puzzle rings similar to the famous Shroeder’s staircase, in an iconic drawing that can be interpreted as stairs running from top left to bottom right, or an upside-down version of that image.

According to the Sun, only people with “top IQs” can deduce the Italian plumber’s trajectory within five seconds.

Needless to say, the mind-melting image caused puzzle lovers to feel as if they’d been whacked with Mario’s humongous hammer.

“Wtf,” exclaimed one baffled brain teaser buff, while another wondered if anyone had a clip of the scene so they could cheat.

Others mocked the bizarre staircase design with one viewer writing, “who builds stairs with the steps angled 45 degrees from horizontal?” “Bowser,” quipped a “Super Mario” fan in response.

Fortunately, some correctly deduced that Mario was going up the stairs based on the placement of his feet. As many users astutely observed, the iconic plumber’s left foot wouldn’t be that high in the air while descending unless he was toppling head first down the stairs.

“You can tell by his feet he has to be going up,” said one eagle-eyed puzzle lover, whereupon another retorted, “Unless he just tripped lol.”

If that wasn’t baffling enough, take a gander at this compendium of corneal confusers, which entail everything from literal snakes in the grass to tests that make you go colorblind.