A mum found a "miracle angel" image carved in her aubergine while making a curry - and has kept it for 14 years.
Maya Rana, 54, was cooking her delicious meal way back in 2008 when she found the unmistakable outline of an angel running through an aubergine.
The mum-of-two claims that shortly after she started doing reiki, a Japanese form of energy healing, and became "obsessed" with angels, she began seeing and hearing them.
She even goes as far as saying that an angel appeared in her bedroom while a beautiful choir woke her up one morning.
Maya, who works as a bus driver and lives in Leicester, believes that spotting the spiritual being in her dinner is a sign that they're "with her".
She "can't bear to throw away" the slice of aubergine and it continues to take pride of place in a tub in her home freezer.
Photos show the reiki practitioner proudly holding her circular slice with the silhouette of an angel, complete with open wings, which have been carved by the fruit's seeds, LeicestershireLive reports.
"I was very surprised to see the angel in the aubergine, you don't expect to see that. I couldn’t believe it, you could properly see the outline of the angel and everything," she said.
"I was cutting into the aubergine and noticed it straight away. As I cut more slices it was all through the aubergine.
"I was just chopping an aubergine and all through the whole thing, every slice, had the same outline on it. To me straight away, it looks like an angel.
"I kept the biggest slice, which was the middle one and I've still got it after all these years in a little tub in the freezer. I can't bear to throw it away.
"I just think it's like a miracle, especially experiencing so many [other] things as well around that time. To me that's a sign that angels are with me.
"They're not going to come unless you truly believe in them then they start making themselves available or seen to you - you can see them or hear them."
Maya said she started looking into angels after she got divorced in 2008.
Her interest was sparked by a friend who used to do reiki that told her she had a dream where angels appeared and said that she also needed to do reiki.
She then started completed her training and does it for friends and family.
"Things started happening after I did the reiki course and started looking into angels more. The more I started thinking about them and looking into it, I started seeing things, like the aubergine," she added.
"I started believing in it so much. I was going around charity shops looking for angel books and when you do reiki you have a 21 days 'clearing period' to get rid of negativity.
"The priest says that you'll hear and see things but not to be scared. One night I opened my eyes and there was a big beautiful glow and I think it was an angel in my room.
"I was literally just looking at it and it was kind of smiling. I got so scared I screamed out loud and it just vanished.
"One Christmas a friend of mine gave me a very small book and every night I used to go to bed, read a couple of pages and go to sleep. One night I finished it and went to sleep and usually have an alarm on.
"I woke up one morning and all I could hear was a beautiful choir of angels just singing.
"When I woke up I thought 'oh my God, what was that?' I've never heard anything like it. It was amazing. I haven't seen any more angels in vegetables since. It happened one time."
