Pic of a ghost? Several shots I took

[The Straight Story]

I was home alone and decided to take some pics of the place we lived to send to my Mother-in-law in CA. I was using a 35mm camera and the first shot I could tell was blurry so I took another one right after that (first pic is a side by side comparison). My wife and daughter were in CA at the time.

The round head you see in the 2nd shot was where the bed was, and we (the wife and I) had had several encounters with what seemed to be a ghost that was that of a young child.

Months went by before I developed the film and then weeks before I scanned the pics in and noticed this.

The last photo is the original of the second, non-blurry, shot.

[kentauros]

1. Whoa! :)

At first I thought it was that odd heart-shaped shadow at the top of the window, but it's in both pictures and has something to do with what's outside. Then I re-read your post and compared to see the top of that head in the bottom left corner of the window. Now, that's creepy!

Maybe you should ask the folks over in the Astrology/Spiritual forum what they think, too :)

This is going to invade my dreams now...

[crimsonblue]

2. it's probably just a creepy peeping tom peering through the window

that is gonna to chop you into little pieces whilst you sleep. G-night! :P

[The Straight Story]

3. We were on the second floor

:)

[krispos42]

4. Creepy

I think I can see eye sockets.

<shivers>

[crimsonblue]

5. why didn't you run in there and check it out?

I mean, if it's something that means you harm, you might as well go out on your own terms. lol.. I'd be hiding in my closet with a broom and my cellphone out, bawling like a baby and muttering any and all old bible verses I could remember. lol

[krispos42]

6. I think I heard a ghost once

That was enough for me.

Maybe if I had a super-soaker filled with holy water...

[crimsonblue]

7. As a person that doesn't believe in ghosts..

they sure freak the HELL out of me.

[krispos42]

10. That it does

There are many things that can trip the mind into unreasoning fear. Creepy ghost pictures, movies, and stories definately do it for me.

Even zombies don't bother me so much because as least you can shoot them. My shotgun lacks a nuclear-accelerator function. and the stores don't usually stock proton-stuffed shells!

:-)

[hickman]

8. Just be kind.

I don't know what I believe anymore. Just be kind.

[The Straight Story]

11. I have been skeptical myself

Which is the whole reason I got into 'ghost hunting' - evp's, etc.

Weird things kept happening to us that I could not just brush away. Some things I could and did (ie, other photos we had I was able to find what the problem was, and it was not ghosts, it was a trick of light and reflection) debunk. Some things I could not so easily dismiss.

From a science point of view, ghosts don't exist. From a Christian religious view they don't exist (the soul does not stay here after death). So either way I felt 'wrong' - but from experience I have seen things which I cannot easily explain from science or religion.

I remain open minded but skeptical. I have recorded evp's and have this one pic that is really odd and fits with other events that occurred at that house.

I do now, after many years, 'believe' in ghosts - I just don't know what that fully means :)

[orleans]

9. boo... who? n/t

[Wetzelbill]

12. damn you! I was studying these and something rustled outside and made me jump!

Yeah that looks like something.

My apartment is haunted. Rumor has it the complex was built on an Indian burial ground. I also heard that an old lady drowned two little kids in the pool. Supposedly she was from Romania and fled the country to live with relatives because she was accused of killing children in the woods where she lived. After she drowned the kids here, supposedly the locals started calling her "The Gingerbread Woman." We used to have a hot tub in the pool area that the complex took out because it would all of a sudden get really hot or really cold sometimes. Just out of nowhere, for no apparent reason and it was creeping people out. I was once swimming in the pool early one morning and I heard a creepy laugh. I jumped out and was yelling for the person to show themselves, nothing. I had a weird feeling I was being watched though. I always felt weird about that pool. I haven't been in it in nearly two years now, something is creepy about it.

But my apartment is weird. I live here alone now, I probably shouldn't remind myself, lol. But I feel weird presences in here all the time. I got a Ouija board and my brother talked to a young boy on it. I think it may have been one of the kids drowned in the pool. But I went to bed one night when my brother was on that thing and the next morning he was in tears, he never told me much about what the kid said, but he never used the board again. Also, I heard an old woman in the closet yelling before. My brother was on the phone in my bedroom and he called me in there to listen. Some old woman was yelling at him from the closet. Then she was yelling at both of us. To stop and to be quiet. She had this scary old voice. I opened it and looked, she sounded like she was right there, but I could see nothing. It was fucked up. To this day, I can never sleep with that closet open. I have to close it or I cannot so much as shut my eyes for a second. I think it might be the so-called Gingerbread Woman in there. It's wild stuff. Well, I'll be up all night. :scared:

[Hobarticus]

17. I yelled at my sister for wanting to get her kids an Ouija board...

There's some stuff that's just better left well enough alone.

Have you sought out a cleansing? I live in an old, old town, and several of my friends have been haunted at one time or another, some a few times. One lives in a neighborhood with a traveling spirit; it just goes from house to house, apparently when it's bored.

I'd leave a friendly or passive spirit alone, but in your case, I'd seek out a cleansing.

[Heidi]

13. I think it looks like the rear-end of a cat or dog sitting in the left corner of the window,

partially hidden by the curtain. I've seen The Wiley and Excellent Boy Cat Named Ginger sitting like that a jillion times. :hi:

[Lady Freedom]

36. You know, there have been reports of pets coming back after death...

to there beloved homes. Just saying...

[chknltl]

14. Question: How far away from window is that couch?

Please note black border on right side of window now larger in the second shot than first shot.
This leads me to believe that you shifted to the left slightly for second shot. IF the couch is away from the window that shift could have placed an object (cat???), resting in that spot into a silhouette back-lit by the window. Try this with your bigger enlargement: hold a finger out about 3 inches away from screen so it hides the mysterious dark head-shaped spot. Now move your head slightly left and then slightly right. Notice how your finger can fall back into the shadowy area to the left of that spot or back out into the lit window area to the right of that spot as you shift your head.

The question to ask is how far away from that window is that couch? If it is right up against that window then I doubt your slight shift could have made any difference but if that couch is more than a few feet away from that window, we then may have an explanation as to why the shape appears in the second but not the first shot. Is it possible that something was resting on the back of that sofa, perhaps a cat and in your first blurred shot, the object would have been in the shadowy area but when you shifted to the left slightly for that second shot it was enough for the object to now become silhouetted by the window? I suspect that should you submit these for analysis by the 'ghost-hunter' types they will be asking this same question.

I do btw believe in ghosts, the fact that we do not (through science) understand ghosts YET does not mean that they do not exist...There is too much anecdotal evidence that suggests that something unexplainable is going on....ghosts works for me as well as any other theory but I am not at all sure what ghosts are.

[The Straight Story]

15. No animals at that time in our life

The couch is REAL far from that window, a whole room away. Behind the couch was a large bedroom - where that 'face' is would be about where the bed was. We had 14' ceilings and the windows were about 10' in height.

There was nothing in the room at the time (the bedroom) that would be that height. If my daughter were home I would say it was her as she would sit up on the bed with the wife and watch TV, and many a times I saw her while I down the hall. She would appear just like in that photo (except with the TV on I could usually see her little smiling face).

[Schema Thing]

16. Looks like some sort of object to me

The light and stuff I see in the window, is it mostly reflected, or direct?


What do you mean by "where the bed was"? Did the bed have bed-post?

[The Straight Story]

20. See post 15 about the bed - that window is about12-14' behind the couch

2nd floor, light is coming in from street lights below the window.

The bed was a canopy bed.

[Schema Thing]

21. Well, from a photographic standpoint

it could be most anything. In my quick-take longtime professional photographers opinion, it is not a lens or lighting or shutter speed anomaly like 99.99999% of all oh-shit-I-captured-a-ghost pictures are. Rather, it looks like an object that was really there, but at that gargantuan magnification (were both film and lenses break down), focus, and lack of reflected light... it's really hard to say.

If there are ghost, I suppose it could be that too (although most of the time, it's the wispy anomalies in photos that people are determined to convince me are ghost...not the solid looking things).

The light in the window is interesting; there must have been something gauzy on the windows to pick up that much light, since the light source itself (which would be a pointsource) is not visible. Or, the window is not as perfectly perpendicular to the camera as one assumes from the linear nature of the photo, and there could be reflection in it?

Is the thing that looks like a second doorknob (right on the edge of the blob that I'm assuming everyone is calling a head) really a doorknob, or what is it?

[The Straight Story]

23. There were no door knobs

They were pocket doors and were slid into the walls.

There were sheer curtains on the windows.

When I get home I have a nice photo of the room I will post (get home in about 2 hours).

And I have debunked other photos of mine where I thought something was ghostly in it. I have over 6000 photos I took with my Elan camera - and I miss it :( Got a digital now but something nice about those old cameras. Somewhere I have the original scan which was huge when scanned in, has more details. Will see if I can dig that up as well.

Thanks for your insightful input!

[AutumnMist]

24. To Clarify

The gauzy stuff are lace curtains on 15 foot windows behind what we assumed was a face or solid object that we think is our little friend. The two white objects that you see are indeed doorknobs. But the object to the right of the doorknob (in the very back) is the object in question. The house runs about 3,000 square feet long..but it's not wide. And what the face is peeking around are two pocket doors that at what time was the "parlor" when the house was built. Its hard to tell but the couch is several feet (about five) in front of those pocket doors. The "heart shape" is a 1864 chandelier that is still hanging above the bed. We used the parlor as the master bedroom. So the two rooms are indeed separate. Our little friend made itself present all the time and yes what you see is solid. You can see it before the magnification. We just learned to live with it. :) Thanks for your input!

[AutumnMist]

27. Here's the bedroom

[Schema Thing]

34. These two post do clear up a lot

First of all, what an amazing space you guys have.

Especially knowing that I'm seeing the chandelier in the original photo, I think some things are going on that are quite counter-intuitive to the casual or non-professional observer.

Imagine that the window is a mirror, because, well...it is. What that means is that the object we are trying to figure out, may not be in the direct line between the lens and the camera; it's likely, even more likely, that it is something dark (or unlit) in the path between whatever it is that is providing light and form in the window (a wall opposite the window, one can assume), and the window itself. Btw, I understand that the chandelier is not lit, but there is a light in that room.

Also, if *it's* image is formed from the reflected scene, then it's actual height is likely different than what you might think looking at the picture (think the reverse of what is happening with the positioning of the chandelier in the picture).

The other thing that may be throwing people off is the thought "omg, that ghost thing is not in the blurry picture taken just before". But there is really no reason to believe that. The second photo is taken from a position to the left and lower than the blurry one. Whether that position change is 2" or 10" or 15" I couldn't say (though there are forensic experts who could get pretty close), but it does change what you will "see" both in the line of sight, and in the imagery reflected in the window. Also, it's blurred out (and thereby "filled in" to some extent, the definition of the dark areas).

Not trying to be a buzz-kill here; I just think the literally thousands of variables in light, light ratios, distance, angle of view, depth of field, lens resolution, lens distortion, film or chip resolution, color fringing, etc etc... that can be identified in any given photograph, are rarely given fair consideration.

[Hobarticus]

18. Regardless of the couch in front of the window...

There's something there.

Looks like it's sticking OUT of the couch, like whatever it is is determined to stand at that spot and look out the window, no matter the physical obstacle there.

[Wcross]

19. What about the Adult woman in this shot?

Look at the very top of the window. There is a ghostly image of an adult woman clearly visible.

[Fox Mulder]

22. It's creepy, yes, but it could just be something sitting in front of the window.

The thing about studying paranormal evidence is that you have to rule out all other logical explanations before you can start calling it a ghost.

[AutumnMist]

25. Absolutely

But the windows in question are on a second story with no stairs to access them. This is a building that was finished right before the civil war ended with a storefront beneath on main street. There is a small balcony but unless an animal could scale 20 feet straight up brick it couldn't sit on the balcony. The face itself would be seen behind the windows, I would imagine. Not behind the doors? We have a picture of the front of the house and the scale could be better gaged. I will ask my husband to post it. ;)Thank you!

[AutumnMist]

26. Pic from outside showing those windows:

[Fox Mulder]

28. Which window is it?

[AutumnMist]

29. Middle window n/t

:)

[Fox Mulder]

30. It's not the top of that light that's showing through the window, is it?

Thus causing your ghost?

[The Straight Story]

31. No, I thought about that before

Having lived there for some time :)

The light was still below the window, and was bright. Where as this image was dark.

The only reason I even noticed it was that when the film came back I scanned both images in, and in the one there was nothing and in the other there was something. My daughter used to sit on the bed and I could see her, and it was just like that second image - her head just above the couch in the living room.

I even went through the dates and times thinking maybe I was wrong and she was home at the time and it was her, but based on the receipts and the decorations on the wall I knew she was not at home - add to that I remember clearly taking the photo to send out west while she was out there.

We had many other events in that house that led us to believe that there was a ghost that was a young child (and my daughter even used to point to the kitchen and ask who is that, when no one was there).

It all is contrary to my religion and upbringing. Either you are dead when you die or you go to heaven/hell/etc. So I try to have a skeptical view of it all - but too much went on in that place for me to just say 'it is nothing'.

I still don't want to believe in ghosts - it is contrary to all I believe in when it comes to science and religion. But I have evp's and this photo, and a lot of anecdotal evidence.

So now my mind wants to know 'why'. If there is no religious reason, then there must be a scientific one. I woke up to candles that were burning and no one lit them, I heard our candelabra fly off a fireplace and break, my wife heard dishes fly off the sink and break when she was in another room, and then there was the night I was home alone and heard the blues clues dog go crazy (long story).

Maybe this photo is nothing, and that would be fine with me. I am old school James Randi, been reading his stuff for many years. But at some point you face something like I have and you start to think outside of the box - like maybe we don't know as much as we think we do.

I am open to ideas. To this day this is the only photo out of 6000 I have taken that made me pause and wonder. Because all I was doing was trying to take a decent shot of the house, and I got something more than I bargained for.

Ghost or not, it still sends shivers down my spine when combined with all the other things that occurred there.

[Taverner]

32. Looks like a blur to me

Not a ghost

[The Straight Story]

33. What part?

:)

And it may or not be a 'ghost' but it is an anomaly. After tons of photos over the years I have seen a lot of odd things, but this one was just a little different (not to mention the circumstances outside of that that led up to this).

[Quantess]

35. I would agree, it looks like you photographed a ghost.

What a lovely old home you have. I bet it has some history.