President Nicolas Maduro said yesterday workers in the tunnel saw the image come and go, and he showed a photo of the alleged visage in a rally in Caracas.
"Look at the figure, a face. This picture was taken by the workers," he said, smiling. "Chavez is everywhere."
Maduro, handpicked by the ailing Chavez to run for president upon his death, said during the election campaign in April that he had seen the populist leader incarnated as "a little bird."
Critics have made fun of him. But Maduro brushed this off, and called on all Venezuelans to be "little birds" of the government he oversees.
Then, in June, Maduro said Chavez tends to appear to him in the mountains that overlook Caracas.
"Every time I see the mountain, I see Chavez appear on the mountain," he said once.