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Ghost Photography (General: History; Techniques; Authenticity)

M

Mythago

Gone But Not Forgotten
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Are than any famous ghost photographs that have not been debunked? As far as I know all of the well known ones such as the ghost in Newby church (attached) have been proved to be fakes or optical illussions or whatever.
Are there any that have defied explanation?
 
Personally, I'm not aware of the Newby ghost photo having been debunked - please enlighten me! I remember an episode of one of the Arthur C. Clarke series where he took some ghost photographs to an image lab and while some were explained away (a knight kneeling at an altar turned out to be a cleaner...), they couldn't find anything amiss with the Newby image - no double-exposure, nothing...
 
First person to mention ghost study.com gets it!

Damn, I was the first person... excuse me one moment.

*Forcibly drags himself outside of the thread*

*Bam... Kapow... Zowee... &c &c*
 
PintQuaff said:
Er, plaster :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

You want to hang onto that mate, your nose keeps falling off!

edit: Sorry i'm dragging this OT already - i'll shut up.
 
Has the "Brown Lady of Raynham Hall" photo ever been proven to be a fraud? (Beyond, say, Joe Nickell saying 'I've examined it and conclude it to be so'.) I'm not offering it up as The Real Deal, but it certainly spooked me as a kid seeing it in a book, and I'm wondering if it's been exposed as being demonstrably bogus.
 
It is also worth pointing out that the so called experts can be clumsy as well.

In 1996 the BBC had a series 'Out of this World' (it became Mysteries by 1997) and then investigated the famous Wem photo.

Many experts like assap and their experts vernon harrison clained the picture was genuine but the museum of photography in bradford noticed the apparition was the only part of the image that was made up from horizontal scanning lines.
 
That's the photograph which apparently shows a young girl in a burning building, right? I've heard about the scanning lines, but I've always thought the explanation of the image being that of a burning piece of wood to be quite plausible - impressive image nonetheless, though...

I remember that episode of the Arthur C. Clarke programme and the incident where they zoomed into an object only to conclude that it was a dustpan and, therefore, the praying knight was more likely to be an unnoticed cleaner, has always stuck in my mind :D . As for the Newby photo, my recollection (although I haven't seen the programme since the early 1990's) was that despite closely examining the image, they couldn't find anything technically wrong with it - you sound as if you've seen the programme more recently though, so I'm prepared to believe that I'm remembering a false memory...
 
I did actually buy that 'Arthur C Clark' video, although I'm going off my memory aslo as I haven't watched it for about 5 years, the strange powers series was put on three videos.

This video had an episode on ghosts, ghost photos, dowsing (and one other subject I can't remember).

I'll watch the ghost photo's episode again soon and see what else is on it.

----------------------------

Of all the purported paranormal photo's I've seen, the most convincing ones are those taken of the enfield poltergeist case.
 
What reasons do we have for believing (if we believe in ghosts) that ghosts can be captured on film? Ghost photographs seem to be a tradition vindicated by the now notorious victorian "spirit photographs": no one believes these photos anymore, but it was probably them that made the idea that ghosts could be photographed generally acceptable.
Maybe this could explain the lack of good ghost photographs ;)
 
Faggus said:
What reasons do we have for believing (if we believe in ghosts) that ghosts can be captured on film? Ghost photographs seem to be a tradition vindicated by the now notorious victorian "spirit photographs": no one believes these photos anymore, but it was probably them that made the idea that ghosts could be photographed generally acceptable.
Maybe this could explain the lack of good ghost photographs ;)
Click to expand...

Not seen a good ghost photograph in quite some time. Ghoststudy.com has monthly posts, but the less about that site the better.
 
me neither. Maybe the good looking ghosts just avoid cameras these days,
 
"Real" Ghost photos

Hi

I believe the Guardian review section has a brilliant ghost picture in the current issue (25/09/2004)

On page 19 there's a picture of the jazz musician Albert Ayler "in 1996" or so the caption says.

Yet the text clearly states that he died in 1970. (confirmed on numerous websites)

So the photo was taken 26 years after he died and therefore it must be of his ghost.

Woddymean "typo"???

in the guardian - surely not!

Mal F
 
Anybody any idea where we can get a copy of this pic?

RS
 
I think Mal is having a little joke, RealSpooky - The Guardian (or 'Grauniad' as Private Eye calls it) is infamous for typographical errors...
 
Hi

curses rumbled!!:D

but the caption i quoted is as i described it.

(shame i no longer have the cutting!)

Mal F
 
The Amityville photo

I am just about the last one to give out a Ghost Study link, but...

http://www.ghoststudy.com/monthly/oct04/amityville.htm

This photo has been circulated before, but it appears to be one of
the children murdered in the house.
He appeared to one of the Lutz children who apparently
thought nothing of it and considered him a play mate!

TVgeek
 
Yes. I can see the resemblance! (Sarcasm!!!)
It's just a kid in a photo. *Better check your windows man!* Hehe!
Just an aside, but....if all this tosh about psychic detectives etc had any remoteness to it....wouldn't unsolved crime be...well....solved?
I cannot believe psychics and especially the ones who "assist" the police aren't booted up the bottom promptly. :twisted:
GIGGLE!!! Hey! My first post since the renewal! Hello to all me mates out their in Forteannessesssssssssss
Oh aye... Si thi! (See thee!)
 
I know in my heart of hearts that at least 99% of these photos are bogus, but I still get creeped out looking at some of them . . . :shock:

Carole
 
Mal Function said:
Hi

curses rumbled!!:D

but the caption i quoted is as i described it.

(shame i no longer have the cutting!)

Mal F
Click to expand...

I'll get me coat..
 
Chris Baker said:
It is also worth pointing out that the so called experts can be clumsy as well.

In 1996 the BBC had a series 'Out of this World' (it became Mysteries by 1997) and then investigated the famous Wem photo.

Many experts like assap and their experts vernon harrison clained the picture was genuine but the museum of photography in bradford noticed the apparition was the only part of the image that was made up from horizontal scanning lines.
Click to expand...

Phil Walton late of ASSAP has viewed the original Wem picture negative and saw no scan lines at all. He tried to tell the BBC but they didn't want to know.
 
I remember the burning building having a girl's face which was composite CRT scan lines
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I don't know what the BBC are on about, but the Wem girl's face negative has no scan lines on it!
 
I haven't looked at it myself, but I do remember seeing it. I've seen the published pic and that definately did have CRT lines, (or what appeared to be) on it, just the face part.
There's nothing paranormal about the woman (I'd say she was in her mid forties just like the others) on the table pic in Switzerland either. I remember quite a few years back writing to XFactor magazine about this and Morris Grossley Exaggerated pointing out that on the two photographs submitted...the women in the background where the extra woman shows up...are sat apart allowing her to sit there. Not only this, but they are leaning back too and the lip of the table allows her to be sat slightly leant over and giggling. You can also see her white dress continuing under the table and her feet firmly on the ground. The flash wasn't on that pic and they said they tok another a few moments later, although the other women had moved their seating positions to close the gap, the others were sat excactly as they were. Which to me, says it was posed.
I can't be arsed redrawing the geometry and perspectives, but it was detailed. Does anyone know where both these and any other related pics can be found on the net? (Related as in any more from the same reel).
Oh, you can see her through the glasses as well. Quite solid and there, not in the middle of the table, just sat up against it whilst the ohter women were sat on a fixed bench behind, possibly a good few feet. Look at the bloke's hand on the right and you can guage the tabe edge from there.

Oooh! SOrry I went off on a tangent there! lol :D
 
Cheers for that.
If you have copies of the X-Factor, just find the one with the Ghost Photo special in it and look at about ten issues after.
They passed my letter onto Morris when he was in Australia but he didn't reply.
I shall attempt to outline on the photos what I did originally, but last night I perused the boards and found a thread with comments on the very same photographs saying much the same thing. The perspective, the womens' positions and the glasses.
 
That would have been me, Spillage - your input would be welcomed and appreciated, though (if only to back my argument ;)).
 
I'm searching for better copies of the 2 photographs. The ones currently on the net here are distorted and too small.
What I essentially did was to illustrate the distances between the women behind the "Phantom" and the table, and the "Phantom" and the table. This, based on the position of the men on the right showed that they were sitting further back and probably on a long bench, whereas the "Phantom" was sitting on a chair up to the table. My guess is that she was a waitress or member of staff/landlady/manager etc and they asked her to join in the photograph. She was a bit shy and didn't pose the second time when the flash was set.
It was said that the camera was on a self timer and on another table. Then why is the second picture shot from a different angle of degree? Maybe the "Phantom" took the second one because they were pissed off that the flash failed on the first.
Anyway...what I outlined was the above facts, the fact that her dress/skirt can be seen under the table and her feet. Her cardigan/top could be seen through the beer glasses which were at the table's edge meaning that she was behind them and the edge and not in the middle or through the table. Also the distance differences of the two women behind her when she was there, and when she wasn't. Also the women, particullarly the one to her right, were looking at her and laughing with her!
*For those of you who think the 2 beer glasses are in the centre of te table, take a look at the glass the bloke is holding. That's on the edge because his wrist is bent directly over the table's edge. Look at the other 2 glasses and you'll find they are actually closer to the edge than his.
If and when I find better pics, I'll draw the lines and pointers.
There... I'm surprised I remembered all that! lol... There was more though.
 
CAN Ghosts BE Photographed?

While I fully accept the existence of ghosts, I have never yet seen a "ghost photograph" which has left me entirely convinced.

That has left me wondering if indeed ghosts CAN be photographed.

Ghosts SEEM to fall into two distinct categories:

1. "Hallucinated" ghosts. Please note that I do NOT use the word "hallucinatory" in its modern, limited sense of "delusional," but instead in its 19th century sense of internal mental construct. (It was used precisely this way in the early publications of the SPR.) Spirit of dead friend visits and the percipient "hallucinates" the visitor in photo-realistic detail. I can't conceive of how that "ghost," although certainly paranormal, could possibly be photographed.

2. Ghosts may also be in the form of peripatetic elecro-magnetic fields or matrixes. These could conceivably be visible to the human eye, especially in foggy or humid situations when that electro-magnetic field draws moisture to itself. (Ghosts have, after all, traditionally been associated with rain, fog and bodies of water.) Such a ghost could be photographed, but I can't see how it would have the sharp detail associated with most well-known ghost photographs. The photo MIGHT show the smokey outline of arms and legs (depending on how that matrix is actually formed) but that's about the best we would get.

On the other hand I'm not exactly welded to my views here.
 
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