Apophenia is the experience of perceiving meaningful information in random data. The term was coined by the German neurologist and psychiatrist Klaus Conrad in 1958. Conrad originally described apophenia in terms of perceptual distortions in psychotic patients, but the term is now used to refer to the phenomenon in general.

Source:
Conrad, Klaus (1958). Die beginnende Schizophrenie. Versuch einer Gestaltanalyse des Wahns. Stuttgart: Georg Thieme Verlag. 149-168