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A Lighthouse Phantom

markbellis said:
Couldn't be - there's grass visible in front of the figure, and a shadow would not be completely opaque - also an object near the flash would not throw a well defined shadow, since the flash would not be a point source of light, and the area does not have anything for a spider web to hang from.
Click to expand...

I can't see any grass in front of the 'figure'. In fact, the bottom left corner of the shadow obscures part of the wall! This puts the 'figure' in a seemingly unlikely or impossible position! I don't see how it can be a figure at all though it might still be a shadow.
 
I have looked at this in photo processing software down to the pixel by pixel level.

There's a tuft of grass growing out of the wall - part of it partially obscures the lower part of the figure - the gray area that the figure is standing on is a pathway - if you look at the previous posts you can find links to photos of the the area in the daytime.

In addition to it being too opaque to be a shadow, it's also not the right shape - remember, the wall is parallel to the photographer but the ground is roughly at a right angle, yet there is no change in the 'shadow' when it goes from having the ground as a background to having the wall.
 
Oh for heavens sake!

It's obviously the ghost of a celtic monk - they had hermetic tendencies, and often set up in places even more remote than this.

Case solved!

Next! :D
 
Hello Sailor!
Maybe he was hiding from Oliver Cromwell.....
Do you know what the sandy coloured splotch in the water is that you see at the foot of the cliffs? It looks like some kind of discharge is coming out of a pipe, and I sort of wonder.....
see photos here:

http://marinas.com/view/lighthouse/997

Happy Sailing! I've gone by the Hurtigruta to Hammerfest on the North Cape and it is really spectacular.
 
markbellis said:
Maybe he was hiding from Oliver Cromwell.....
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I think by Cromwell's time that Celtic Christianity had been replaced by Roman Catholicism.
Do you know what the sandy coloured splotch in the water is that you see at the foot of the cliffs? It looks like some kind of discharge is coming out of a pipe, and I sort of wonder.....
Click to expand...
Don't know, but having spent some small part of my teenage years sailing through a sewer outfall off the Sussex coast, I prefer not to speculate... :shock:
 
rynner said:
markbellis said:
Maybe he was hiding from Oliver Cromwell.....
Click to expand...
I think by Cromwell's time that Celtic Christianity had been replaced by Roman Catholicism.
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Oh, I read Celtic as meaning Irish in general....if he was Celtic Christian priest instead of a monk, maybe he was hiding from his wife. :_pished: Makes more sense as a bad tempered Ulster woman can be more frightening than Cromwell.
Do you know what the sandy coloured splotch in the water is that you see at the foot of the cliffs? It looks like some kind of discharge is coming out of a pipe, and I sort of wonder.....
Click to expand...
Don't know, but having spent some small part of my teenage years sailing through a sewer outfall off the Sussex coast, I prefer not to speculate... :shock:
Click to expand...

That's what I was thinking it might be...
 
markbellis said:
I have looked at this in photo processing software down to the pixel by pixel level. There's a tuft of grass growing out of the wall - part of it partially obscures the lower part of the figure - the gray area that the figure is standing on is a pathway - if you look at the previous posts you can find links to photos of the the area in the daytime.
In addition to it being too opaque to be a shadow, it's also not the right shape - remember, the wall is parallel to the photographer but the ground is roughly at a right angle, yet there is no change in the 'shadow' when it goes from having the ground as a background to having the wall.
Click to expand...

Regarding being 'too opaque': remember that digital photos have low latitude compared to film and that is quite normal for there to be a lack of detail in dark areas of such photos.

The grass you're looking at is below the level of the bottom of the 'figure'. I think you're connecting the bottom of the 'figure' with another independent shadow on the ground below. If you simply brighten the original photo (and nothing else) and zoom in on the bottom of the 'figure' you will see that it comes to an abrupt end just at the top of the grass tuft. There is then a clear gap below (at the same level as the grass) which is the same colour as the ground which stretches well to the right of the 'figure'. Then there is another shadow on the ground below that area. Just above the grass, it looks as though the bottom left corner of the 'figure' is in front of a bit of the wall!

I think the reason why the photo is causing arguments is that it is far too compressed. I would be interested to see an uncompressed version of this photo, as copied straight from the camera (ie. not been through Photoshop). Clearly a lot of detail has been lost during compression and there is a lot of electronic noise in the photo (possibly due to the relatively high 400 ASA used) making it difficult to decide what is really present. You certainly couldn't conclude that there is anything anomalous about such a photo without seeing the uncompressed original.

Once you get down to looking at photos at the pixel level you are looking beyond the resolution of the picture. It's like trying to see the overall picture in a mosiac by examining a handful of individual tesserae.
 
Hi Norton51 - if you follow the link at the beginning of this post there are 3 images - the original file straight from the camera is there.

When the picture was taken they did see a shape on the small LCD screen but in their minds at a glance it was just a doorway.
 
bubba1138 said:
Hi Norton51 - if you follow the link at the beginning of this post there are 3 images - the original file straight from the camera is there.
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The EXIF data implies that it has been through Adobe Photoshop 7 at some stage, which is why I mentioned it. The file is only 700 Kb which, for the resolution of 2101 x 1576, means it was either shot with high compression in the camera or it was downloaded and saved through Photoshop with JPG compression on.

Either way, if that's the best image available then I'm afraid it's not really good enough to form any reliable judgement about what it really shows.

Ideally, you should always shoot with the highest available resolution and lowest compression that your camera allows. Obviously, if you're not looking for anomalies and not expecting them then most people go for lower resolutions and higher compressions to fit more photos on their chip.

Sometimes there just isn't sufficient information available and you have to file the photo under 'don't know'. It's unfortunate but it's better than the alternative of trying to claim that something is paranormal based on inadequate evidence. I can only say, go for higher res and lower compression in future!
 
The image was only in Photoshop to rotate it, before that it came direct from an email form the memory card. The resolution on her camera was only set to 72dpi, as she has little use or experience with cameras she didn't know any different.
 
norton51 said:
[Just above the grass, it looks as though the bottom left corner of the 'figure' is in front of a bit of the wall!
Click to expand...

As both myself and Bubba have said, there are blades of grass in front of the figure - and it does not appear in front of the wall - using the edge detecting function in the software shows this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/markbellis/2345106771/

As this figure is similar in appearance to the figure of the smoker, and is on a path where you would expect a flesh and blood person to be, there is no good reason to assume that it's anything more than another person - to be a shadow, it could not have the grass in front of it and it would have to be cast by something, and there is nothing to cast it, and if it's a photo artifact, it's an extraordinary coincidence that it is of that shape and location.

If Bubba can look at the other photos taken during that trip, I think he's going to find a match for the 'phantom'.
 
markbellis said:
As both myself and Bubba have said, there are blades of grass in front of the figure ...
Click to expand...

OK let me show you what I mean as we are clearly seeing different things here:

http://i231.photobucket.com/albums/ee297/mphotos23/LHannotated.jpg

All I've done is brightened the original image and increased the contrast slightly. I've then added notes to say what I mean. Note how the bit I've labelled 'ground' extends well to the right of the 'figure' (far further than grass could possibly remain horizontal without support). Note also that it is a different colour to the grass clump. Indeed the real person is standing on ground of the same colour. The ghostly figure appears to be standing hard against a back wall.

Note also how the bit I've labelled 'shadow not part of figure' also extends well to the right of the 'figure' and is clearly detached from it by an area of ground.
 
The 'shadow' that is not part of the figure is actually a man hole cover. If you follow this link again from markbellis post and zoom right in the you can see it. The woman smoking was standing on the path that is around the house, she was on the corner, which puts the shadowy figure on the path - you can almost run a ruler along the image and find out where the photographer and shape are.
 
Thanks Bubba - as you can see in other photos, the wall is irregular in shape, and I think what you're seeing as part of the figure in front of the the wall is just a curve of the wall itself.
 
Well we're getting somewhere now but there is still no obvious grass in front of the 'figure'. The figure ends just above where the tuft of grass begins. No part of the 'figure' is below any part of the tuft of grass (and so therefore neither is any part behind it).

I reserve judgement on part of the figure being in front of the wall. It is a bit of coincidence that the wall just happens to bend perfectly to show what appears to be the complete bottom left corner of the figure so neatly. I think you can see how it could equally well be interpreted as the figure being in front of a bit of the wall.

If anyone else wants to put up an annotated version of the photo showing their own interpretation, I'm sure we'd all be interested to see it. Then at least we'd all know what everyone was arguing about!
 
This is hard to go over again and again - the grass in front of the shape is sprouting from the wall, it is a very light colour (almost yellow) and if you look at the inveresed version on the link in the original post then it is picked out even better. The shape has a flat bottom where it reaches the ground because the pathway is actually stepped - very long gradual steps. As I have said (too many times) before, it is VERY unfortunate where the shape is actually because at a glance it does seem too close to the wall.
 
Sorry, I'm seeing exactly the same thing as Bubba's seeing. The grass is definitely in front of the figure - as the grass is growing from the wall, that pretty much rules out the figure being in front of the wall, and the edge detected image supports this.
Norton51 may be seeing a darker area at the foot of the figure as part of the figure - I don't - it might just be a real shadow - and agree that the bottom (feet) of the figure is cut off by the descending pathway, as would be expected by the landscape of the area as shown in the other photos.
My conclusion is that it is a human figure - whether it is supernatural or not I can't say, but I can say it's standing on a path in a perfectly normal way and not doing anything particularly spooky - it might be a member of the party of five, someone from another rental unit, the attendant going down to check on the light, or just a local out for a stroll. It might be a ghost, whatever that is, but it's just not doing anything particularly ghostly.
Unless Bubba gets new photos from the trip that show the figure doing something like floating off the ground or carrying its head under its arm, I'm going to call it a day and not discuss it any more.
 
norton51 said:
Well we're getting somewhere now ...
Click to expand...

Or maybe not!

You'll be relieved to hear that I'm not commenting on this photo anymore. As I said before, I don't believe that the resolution of this photo is sufficient to come to any conclusion. For instance, I STILL don't see any grass in front of the figure but, hey, what do I know ...
 
There is more than a hint of a face there:

This is a 4x blowup of the figure:-

lighthousephantomx4.jpg


(No pixels have been harmed in the making of this image! :D )

Now it may be just coincidence that the pixels seem to show a face (there are other 'faces' you can pick out) - but it is right where you'd expect a face to be!

So is this a head bowed in prayer - or to light a ciggie?! ;)
 
norton51 said:
bubba1138 said:
Hi Norton51 - if you follow the link at the beginning of this post there are 3 images - the original file straight from the camera is there.
Click to expand...

The EXIF data implies that it has been through Adobe Photoshop 7 at some stage, which is why I mentioned it. The file is only 700 Kb which, for the resolution of 2101 x 1576, means it was either shot with high compression in the camera or it was downloaded and saved through Photoshop with JPG compression on.
Click to expand...
The 'original' picture has dimensions of 768 x 1024, which is a standard 3:4 digital format (and also suggests the picture has not been cropped).

But earlier, bubba said
I know the lady in the picture very well and she and I often discuss UFO and ghost phenomenon when ever we meet, she is a believer in such things and I can tell you she was as surprised as I was when she saw the image and mailed it to me straight away.
Click to expand...
So could the original have been bigger, but then reduced in size for ease of emailing? If there is a bigger version available, it might be worth a look - there's not much more we can do with the one as presented here!
 
rynner said:
There is more than a hint of a face there:

This is a 4x blowup of the figure:-

lighthousephantomx4.jpg


(No pixels have been harmed in the making of this image! :D )

Now it may be just coincidence that the pixels seem to show a face (there are other 'faces' you can pick out) - but it is right where you'd expect a face to be!

So is this a head bowed in prayer - or to light a ciggie?! ;)
Click to expand...

In that close up it looks like a dark haired woman holding her hands up to her face to light a cigarette / protecting it from wind.....
 
Well, thanks guys, as the girl in the pic I am honestly none the wiser and frankly, I would much rather it be a local out for a walk than something supernatural. Thanks to all.
 
Different LH, but might as well tack this story on here:

Permanent 'ghost' for lighthouse

The owners of Point of Ayr lighthouse off the Flintshire coast have applied to erect a "human sculpture" inspired by sightings of a ghostly figure.

The idea for the 2m (6ft 5in) stainless steel statue came after repeated reports of a man wearing an old-fashioned keeper's coat.

The lighthouse has been locked and out of service for more than a century.

Flintshire-based owners, Talacre Beach Leisure Group, said it would be a "serious art installation".

In recent years, several people have reported seeing the figure at the lighthouse, which is known locally as Talacre Lighthouse.

One woman told BBC Wales: "My husband and I were on Talacre beach a couple of years ago and saw a lighthouse keeper at the top of the lighthouse, in front of the glass dome.

"He was wearing an old-fashioned dark worsted lighthouse keeper's coat and hat. The lighthouse was locked and chained."

She said the figure was "there for quite a while," on a "sunny day" with no mist.

She added: "My husband and I can't see how anyone could get there unless they were dropped by helicopter and we would have heard that.

"If the person was meant to be there surely they would have had a hard hat on and a fluorescent jacket.

"The chain round the door was very strong and the padlock was a large one."

The lighthouse's owners, Talacre Beach Caravan Sales Ltd, have submitted an application to Flintshire County Council for permission to erect a "2m stainless steel human sculpture affixed to the external balcony and railing of Talacre Lighthouse".

The company is seeking planning permission which would need to be renewed every five years.

David Middleton, agent for the owners, said: "Because the lighthouse is listed, we have had to make a planning application.

"The planning people seem very on board."

Mr Middleton said a local artist approached the lighthouse's owner, James McAllister, who agreed to commission a sculpture.

He said: "There's been anecdotal evidence over the years of people having seen some sort of figure.

"But this will not just be something quirky and short-term, it's a serious art installation off the back of those sightings."

He said the sculpture would have a "similar element" to Anthony Gormley's "Another Place" collection of figures on Crosby Beach.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_east/8183123.stm
 
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