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Miscellaneous Ghost Photos & Videos

To answer a few of your queries:

The only mirror in that section of the department is further to the left, not very close to where the "ghost head" is. It is square, though, and a permanent fixture, nothing that can be moved around, and it is not magnifying. It is across from where these people are. However, where the head appears, there is nothing for anything to reflect off of----just some lipstick and makeup products.

If it was some sort of reflection, where is her neck??

There were no cut outs or banner/advertisement or latex masks, either.

Underneath the head, the yellowy-green thing you see are actually products from that particular makeup line. They are sitting in an acrylic holder-type thing on a shelf there.

I will take a new pic of that same spot and re-post it here so you can see what it looks like without people/ghosts.

:wince:
 
Redhead666 said:
...

I will take a new pic of that same spot and re-post it here so you can see what it looks like without people/ghosts.

:wince:
Great Stuff! Try and recreate it as close as possible, please. :)
 
If it was some sort of reflection, where is her neck??

Off the bottom of whatevers doing the reflecting, along with the far left of her face?

It's still a good photo though, well spooky.
 
It sure is an odd image.

@redhead666: Does the image at all resemble any of the other people who were at the location that day? I ask because I've seen something similar caught with a digital camera last year. When shooting indoors cameras struggle with exposure, and when the indoor area is well lit (like this) the camera doesn't fire the flash, it chooses to use a longer shutter time instead. This might account for the decapitated head, but I'm not convinced.
 
linesmachine said:
@redhead666: Does the image at all resemble any of the other people who were at the location that day? I ask because I've seen something similar caught with a digital camera last year. When shooting indoors cameras struggle with exposure, and when the indoor area is well lit (like this) the camera doesn't fire the flash, it chooses to use a longer shutter time instead. This might account for the decapitated head, but I'm not convinced.

It's quite a well-known phenomenon. See http://www.assap.org/newsite/htmlfiles/ ... hosts.html for instance. I don't suppose there is any EXIF information available for this photo? It would be interesting to see the shutter speed.
 
I love this, it's building up to be a classic thread!

Redhead666 can you give us any more info on the "weird" stuff that's happened in that department?
 
linesmachine said:
It sure is an odd image.

@redhead666: Does the image at all resemble any of the other people who were at the location that day? I ask because I've seen something similar caught with a digital camera last year. When shooting indoors cameras struggle with exposure, and when the indoor area is well lit (like this) the camera doesn't fire the flash, it chooses to use a longer shutter time instead. This might account for the decapitated head, but I'm not convinced.

I had something a bit similar (phantom legs, not head) show up on one of my pictures when I wasn't using a flash. That one was taken outdoors, but in a big patch of shade on a sunny day and I think the camera got all confused about shutter speed.

(Here's the photo in question if anyone's curious. Look at the extra pair of legs beneath the horse's head/neck. Rest of the picture's absolutely fine.)
 
norton51 said:
linesmachine said:
@redhead666: Does the image at all resemble any of the other people who were at the location that day? I ask because I've seen something similar caught with a digital camera last year. When shooting indoors cameras struggle with exposure, and when the indoor area is well lit (like this) the camera doesn't fire the flash, it chooses to use a longer shutter time instead. This might account for the decapitated head, but I'm not convinced.

It's quite a well-known phenomenon. See http://www.assap.org/newsite/htmlfiles/ ... hosts.html for instance. I don't suppose there is any EXIF information available for this photo? It would be interesting to see the shutter speed.

Yes, that's exactly what I was referring too. I still hold though that it's a long shot (pun intended) of an explanation. The head is just too isolated, and a longer shutter time would not explain the fact that half the head is hidden behind the girl on the left.
 
I've had a look in Photoshop and the "ghost" face does have alot of what appears to be smudging / bluring applied to it. It has an out of place appearance which to me suggests two things...

It's either been photoshopped or it is just someone walking past hence the motion blur and the look towards the camera, as if they were attracted to the flash.

Just my thoughts.
 
When we take a photo we're not looking at the background, especially if it's a rush job like a snap of a couple of women who might object to being photographed ;)

So it's always possible for someone to wander into shot unnoticed. I think that may have happened here. The 'extra' person might even be trying to bob back out of the way when they saw the camera, causing the disembodied effect.

I'm no camera expert but I've messed up enough photos to know what can go wrong. :lol:

Werecow's horsy photo is a stunning example of 'WTF?!' photography! :shock:
 
linesmachine said:
Yes, that's exactly what I was referring too. I still hold though that it's a long shot (pun intended) of an explanation. The head is just too isolated, and a longer shutter time would not explain the fact that half the head is hidden behind the girl on the left.

I agree it's a long shot as, to work, the 'phantom head' would have to be captured first. So the photographer would open the shutter pointing at the 'phantom head' and then quicklly move to point at the intended subject. There would also need to be a bland background in the final frame where the head goes. Possible if unlikely. Still be interesting to know if it was a slow shutter speed. And a new picture of the same scene, without people, would be very useful.

This sort of slow shutter speed combined with camera movement can certainly explain a lot of 'classic' ghost photos, though.
 
It's not artifact, and it's not a long shutter speed. Two options, it's either manipulated, or a mirror/display pic. The pixels are uniform to the entire photograph, but there's some fogging, or blurring around the edges, (Not motion blur).
Werecow's horse pic, to me, shows three people and a jockey with a horse. It doesn't look indicative of phantom legs due to a long exposure, as there's no apparant motion blur or light streaking. Also, the legs appear to be johdpurs. White ones, with a dark blue top. (Rationality would dictate that a person wearing these garments would be somewhere abouts, and probably just out of the saddle, and partially hidden by said equine.)

I do genuinely look forward to seeing the other pics from the shop, and the recreation. :)
 
escargot1 said:
Werecow's horsy photo is a stunning example of 'WTF?!' photography! :shock:

Am I missing something? I have to agree with coaly. There's nothing much weird about this shot...or are we saying that Werecow took the photo and there were only 3 people at the location when the shutter was pressed?
 
I had no idea so many people would comment on my pic!

Just to clarify why I linked to it in the first place--I have an older digital camera, and when I try fiddling with shutter speed/flash/etc, sometimes I get really weird results (getting a better camera is high up on my list). Bizarre, fuzzy blurs mostly, which is what the original picture reminded me of. I've never had any as clear as the OP's picture, but it reminded me of a few I'd had (and mostly deleted, but the one I linked to I didn't notice the blur at first and had uploaded it before I looked at it and said 'WTF? WTF?' repeatedly. And loudly. Especially since I'd proudly shown it off already).

For months I'd been assuming the blur was a strange artifact of the fellow at the back moving away quickly, especially as I took several pictures in sequence, and the next shows only the groom and trainer in frame. However, looking at it again (and looking at it full size, which I hadn't recently), I think those of you who think it's the jockey are probably right; he's wearing similar colours to the man behind, so the overlap/blur created this effect that confused my (and appparently not just my!) eye. However, as said, I have a whole sequence of pictures and the jockey's not in any of them, just the other three, hence why this perfectly reasonable explanation never occurred to me. He must have scampered out of frame pretty right quick, the little bugger. So it's not as relevant as I thought, but I'm glad that mystery has been cleared up at least. :)
 
mr_macabre said:
I love this, it's building up to be a classic thread!

Redhead666 can you give us any more info on the "weird" stuff that's happened in that department?

Not very long ago, 2 employees saw a bottle of face lotion come off of a shelf and smash to the floor. The bottle was not near the edge of the shelf, there was nothing jarring or earthquake-ish happening, and no human being was near it. Both girls just happened to be looking in that direction and saw it happen. They were both astounded and have no explanation for it.

Now that I think about it, this happened about 6-8 feet away from the area in the pic where the mystery face is......interesting!

Sometimes on Saturday mornings I work at 6 a.m. The cosmetic department is not open then (but the rest of the store is)and we have large doors that come down from the ceiling area to block it off from the rest of the store. They are not solid doors--more like a gate-type thing, so you can still clearly hear everything and partially see some of the dept. that would be on the other side of the locked gate/door, which normally would not be very much at all, since no one would be in there at that time.

Last Saturday was one of these early days for me and while working near the locked doors/gate (on the store side, not in the cosmetic department), I could hear noises in there. Like 'movements', I guess you would call it, but I couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. It scared the heck out of a co-worker, though. :lol:

This is not to say it was anything ghostly, since I really have no proof, other than noises where there shouldn't be any.

I will take a pic of the area in the ghost photo tomorrow when I work and should have it posted here Wednesday or Thursday night.
 
coaly said:
It's not artifact, and it's not a long shutter speed. Two options, it's either manipulated, or a mirror/display pic. The pixels are uniform to the entire photograph, but there's some fogging, or blurring around the edges, (Not motion blur).

I do genuinely look forward to seeing the other pics from the shop, and the recreation. :)

I can absolutely assure you the pic has never been tampered with. The photos went straight to the store photo-lab to be printed from the camera, then to a drawer in the cosmetic department, where they get glanced at every now and then.

Once I post a pic of the area in question, you will also see how there is nothing there for reflection----just some white shelves with makeup products on them.
 
linesmachine said:
It sure is an odd image.

@redhead666: Does the image at all resemble any of the other people who were at the location that day? I ask because I've seen something similar caught with a digital camera last year. When shooting indoors cameras struggle with exposure, and when the indoor area is well lit (like this) the camera doesn't fire the flash, it chooses to use a longer shutter time instead. This might account for the decapitated head, but I'm not convinced.

Many people attend these makeup events. There could have been as many as 200 + women there that day so there is no way to tell if the face is of a customer.

As for shutter speeds, I can't answer that. I didn't work there then. One of the employees took the pic with an every day run-of-the-mill digital camera.
 
It's a long shot I know, but do you even slightly recognise the mystery face?
 
gncxx said:
It's a long shot I know, but do you even slightly recognise the mystery face?

No, sorry. Everyone who works there has seen this pic by now---no one knows who it could be.
 
Redhead666 said:
gncxx said:
It's a long shot I know, but do you even slightly recognise the mystery face?

No, sorry. Everyone who works there has seen this pic by now---no one knows who it could be.

In that case she was probably a customer if she was anybody. But a customer from where?
 
Werecow said:
For months I'd been assuming the blur was a strange artifact of the fellow at the back moving away quickly, especially as I took several pictures in sequence, and the next shows only the groom and trainer in frame. However, looking at it again (and looking at it full size, which I hadn't recently), I think those of you who think it's the jockey are probably right; he's wearing similar colours to the man behind, so the overlap/blur created this effect that confused my (and appparently not just my!) eye. However, as said, I have a whole sequence of pictures and the jockey's not in any of them, just the other three, hence why this perfectly reasonable explanation never occurred to me. He must have scampered out of frame pretty right quick, the little bugger. So it's not as relevant as I thought, but I'm glad that mystery has been cleared up at least. :)

Maybe it's the time of night and I'm knackered, but my head is spinning with that 'explanation'.

Can you clarify: - when you took that photo did you think there were 3 people there, or 4?
 
Werecow said:
I think those of you who think it's the jockey are probably right; he's wearing similar colours to the man behind, so the overlap/blur created this effect that confused my (and appparently not just my!) eye. However, as said, I have a whole sequence of pictures and the jockey's not in any of them, just the other three, hence why this perfectly reasonable explanation never occurred to me. He must have scampered out of frame pretty right quick, the little bugger.

@jackdark: Werecows current thoughts are indicated above. We reckon it's a jockey (dismounting?) and then he doesn't feature in the next shots in the series becuase he's scarpered!
 
Ok, here is a picture of that same area where the original pic was taken. It was as close as I could get it to the angle in the original--I apologize for it not being exactly the same ( that is hard to do!).

LW.jpg



PLease note that in the original pic under the floating head, there is a yellowish-greenish blur. That is a type of makeup product and since the first pic was taken, those products have moved to the right a bit so they will not appear in the same space.
Also note, there is no mirror or reflective surface in the area and there wasn't when the first pic was taken, either.

And, we do not use the "training heads" as previously mentioned (only live (or not live, ha ha ha) heads.
 
Quite a lot seems to have changed between the original photo and the comparison one. I guess that reflects stock being moved around and special things coming in for the demonstration.

Just a few additional thoughts on the original 'phantom head' photo. It is quite blurry, compared to the new photo, suggesting a longish exposure. Given the lack of flash and the indoor setting that isn't too surprising. The left and bottom edges of the phantom face are particularly blurry.

The picture appears to have been cropped. The resolution is low but that could just be the very high compression.

The size of the phantom head looks disproportionately small compared with the two women, given that anyone physically standing there could have been no more than centimetres behind.

None of these factors is incompatible with a long exposure shot accompanied by significant camera movement. Without getting hold of the original, complete with EXIF info, it's impossible to eliminate that as a possibility.
 
It may be just me, but it, (the original)... looks a rather lot like a botched Photoshop affair. Someone's used the clone tool to add people to the background, and given up. Maybe someone was messing about with it, and got distracted, or gave up, and the file was saved, and no one noticed. It does look an awful lot like an addition, digitally. But you did say, this wasn't possible,so it's a mystery, until more details arise. :?
 
Thanks for going to the trouble Redhead, but as expected it doesn't clear up the mystery. Coaly is right that if there's nothing there in reality, it is likely to have been something affecting the picture as it was in the camera, but don't ask me what!
 
coaly said:
It may be just me, but it, (the original)... looks a rather lot like a botched Photoshop affair. Someone's used the clone tool to add people to the background, and given up. Maybe someone was messing about with it, and got distracted, or gave up, and the file was saved, and no one noticed. It does look an awful lot like an addition, digitally. But you did say, this wasn't possible,so it's a mystery, until more details arise. :?

I thought 'Photoshop' too, as there are some really jagged edges, if you zoom right in on the photo. That's just the way it looks, not necessarily how it is.

Edit: I would say the original photo was probably a jpeg. It's probably been cropped and of course the faces cut out, and then probably saved as a jpeg again.
Each time you re-save a jpeg, it applies jpeg compression and you get more compression artifacts appearing. If you zoom right in on that pic, there are a lot of artifacts...
 
Has anyone noticed in the new pic, the very large mirror to the left?
 
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