The Hoo Lake Apparition: The Best Ghost Picture Ever?

[triplesod]

Ah, come on: it was a fair enough assumption - posted on April 1st by someone called fuctifino, but I now accept it was actually sincere, so in Ghosts it stays.

I won't edit my original post as that would be many people's immediate reaction as presented, but I will add to it that the thread develops in an unexpected direction, and if not already done I will remove the phone number.

OK?

Nice one Stu! Much appreciated.

Yeah, it was a fair enough assumption but to post in such a convinced way without fully appreciating the complete picture (so to speak).
Anyway, I understand.

I would really appreciate it if you would add some kind of disclaimer to your post. Just, as I said, so people aren't reading your post and deciding straight away that it mustn't be worthwhile looking into. We know how little time internet users have, don't we?
You're suggestion of what to add sounds good, thankyou.

Regarding the phone number, thanks for the offer but me and Stu will sort that out. Well, that is unless after a specific period of time, people can no longer edit their posts. In that case I might have to give you a shout, if that's OK. I'll just give it a bit longer to see if Stu has said anything or deleted it himself.

Thanks for your time, mate.

 

[Dandelo_]

Call me gullible but I believe Stu as far as his claims for the origin of how this photo came into his possession. Sadly, we have no statement from the photographer or the director. So we can only really speculate as to what the conditions were at the time.

Would the director go to all that trouble of faking this photograph and not doing anything with it?

Just out of interest, what genre was the finished film? Did the film maker have a big interest in horror films?

So just what could create the figure. We've suggested vegetation in mid movement caused by wind.

An observation. The light falls on the figure almost as perfectly as it would an actual human. Strongest on the head and the shoulders, shadowed underneath.

If its an apparition, its only partially bodied. I can't work out what is going on in the lower half, if anything. What's the part coming from next to the hand supposed to be? When I immediately saw this, I thought the figure was resting on, dare I say it, a tombstone.

 

[triplesod]

[This is Stu]

I'm not one for editing history.... so I propose we keep this thread as it is. Its all cool...

This is the real skinny Triplesod

[couldn't get my head around quoting myself then. For five seconds or so, I was just staring at the screen, blankly]

It's not about rewriting history though, Stu.

People really will look into this thread and see that a mod has brought up april fools and immediately presume that this is the case.

The may not even read StuNev's full post, just a quick skim, notice "april fools" and lazily quick away.

I assure you there will be some who do that. I can be so sure because I can imagine doing it myself!

All I'm interested in is getting as many people as possible, on this forum to look at your pics and give us their opinion.

I actually think this could be a very important photograph!

I just want people's attention and I would have started the thread with a title of "'FREE SEX HERE'.... Now I hav yor atenshun!!.... hurf", if I thought it would gather more views.

What you say go's, Stu. They are your pics but I would really prefer Stu Nev to edit his post, if that's OK. I do understand where you are coming from though.

 

[stu neville]

Ah, come on: it was a fair enough assumption - posted on April 1st by someone called fuctifino, but I now accept it was actually sincere, so in Ghosts it stays.

Nice one Stu! Much appreciated.

Yeah, it was a fair enough assumption but to post in such a convinced way without fully appreciating the complete picture (so to speak).

trust me - had you seen as many of these "Slam Bang Oh Wow OMG11!!!1!" type threads as I have, you'd be careworn...

Anyway, I understand.

I would really appreciate it if you would add some kind of disclaimer to your post. Just, as I said, so people aren't reading your post and deciding straight away that it mustn't be worthwhile looking into. We know how little time internet users have, don't we?
You're suggestion of what to add sounds good, thankyou.

Have added already.

Regarding the phone number, thanks for the offer but me and Stu will sort that out.

Too late - have edited already. As a rule we dissuade anyone from giving their address or phone no - if you really want to give out your number do it via email or PM.

Thanks for your time, mate.

No probs.

 

[triplesod]

[This is Triplesod]

I'm going to make a concerted effort to track him down - maybe through the electoral register or some other means. I will do my best to get a statement from him, but we broke contact on bad terms back in 2006. As for the photographer, I think he was just someone who answered an ad at the college. I never met him.

Apparently, the best way to track someone is with the Salvation Army, Stu. They are supposed to be brilliant at finding people. They have everything needed to find someone, the knowhow and the enjoyment of helping people out.

It would be free (donations are nice though) and don't turn you away if you aren't family.

Good luck with it!

Stu Nev. Thanks again and you are right about the phone number business, it is a good rule for the forum to have.

 

[rynner2]

An observation. The light falls on the figure almost as perfectly as it would an actual human. Strongest on the head and the shoulders, shadowed underneath.

As it would with any real (i.e. normal) object in the picture - such as a large clump of dandelion seeds drifting across the field of view. Add in a simulacrum of facial features created by random arrangements of foliage, and there you have it!

All this stuff about the mental state of the photographer, and local legends about White Ladies, is (probably! ) totally irrelevent.

So I stick to my initial judgement - not the most impressive ghost picture I've seen.
(For instance, the School Ghost was more intriguing to me -
http://www2.forteantimes.com/forum/view ... hp?t=35711 )

But keep bringing them on, like moving ducks in a fairground shooting gallery - some we'll shoot down, while others we can't quite seem to get a bead on! 8)

 

[triplesod]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Bollocks!! I (Triplesod) just wanted to quote the post that Stu (as Triplesod) made, but like an absolute dickhead, I ended up clicking EDIT instead of QUOTE!! So, I chopped up his long, well written post, losing the vast majority of it and changing it around to one of mine!!


Stu, I'm really, really sorry mate!

Luckily though, I was able to go back in time (using the "go back" button) and retrieve it. So here it is... again.

Obviously it isn't going to be as neat as Stu's, because I can't copy the code, so I'll paste what I have now and then try and get it looking as much like Stu's as poss.

I'll post it by itself actually (without this post attached) as it is unfair for me to be in Stu's posts.

 

[triplesod]

^^^ Hahaha... I wondered what happened. I'll clean up the formatting.

[This is Stu]

Call me gullible but I believe Stu as far as his claims for the origin of how this photo came into his possession. Sadly, we have no statement from the photographer or the director. So we can only really speculate as to what the conditions were at the time.

I'm going to make a concerted effort to track him down - maybe through the electoral register or some other means. I will do my best to get a statement from him, but we broke contact on bad terms back in 2006. As for the photographer, I think he was just someone who answered an ad at the college. I never met him.

Would the director go to all that trouble of faking this photograph and not doing anything with it?

I don't think so. If he went to all that trouble, then why was he genuinely uncomfortable about being in possession of the negatives? And why did he give them away to me for free? (well, in exchange for the film score - which I'd offered to do for him for free in any case)

Just out of interest, what genre was the finished film? Did the film maker have a big interest in horror films?

No, not at all. It was a film-noire.... think Hitchcock, but far more depressing. Murder, suicide, depression, despair....

So just what could create the figure. We've suggested vegetation in mid movement caused by wind.

An observation. The light falls on the figure almost as perfectly as it would an actual human. Strongest on the head and the shoulders, shadowed underneath.

If its an apparition, its only partially bodied. I can't work out what is going on in the lower half, if anything. What's the part coming from next to the hand supposed to be? When I immediately saw this, I thought the figure was resting on, dare I say it, a tombstone.

My theory is that the arm is holding up a cloth/clothing to his/her lower part of the body (some people have said that they can see the faint outline of fingers and a thumb)- but that line is also continued to a bit of vegetation that I believe creates the illusion of a curved gravestone. You can trace the stalk of the plant to the ground, and similar reed-type plants appear in exactly the same place, bending towards the archway, on other frames.

Another theory that was bandied around on SomethingAwful (before I got the hi-res scan) was that it was chemical stain or a processing/film error - however, that theory became less likely when the detailed scan was made.

Others have said that it is just a person who has walked into the shot, but for reasons already explained, this seems highly unlikely.

Confused? I know I am :Wink:

- Stu

 

[triplesod]

Phew!!

Thank god I hadn't messed around too much before I realised what I'd done, or else I never would have found it.

I would have felt so guilty and such a prick if that had happened. So so embarrassed

Anyway, I hope I have redeemed Stu's post and myself well enough.

 

[triplesod]

[Stu again]

Someone just posted this on the SA forums. Thought you guys might find it interesting:

I'm sure someone will find fault with my methodology, but I did some measurements and it doesn't look good for the theory of the ghost lady.

The red lines represent the outline of the arm from the "shoulder" to the first knuckle of the "hand." The green line represents the inner (shorter) red line rotated to vertical. The blue line represents the approximate height the figure should be based on the length of the arm, using human height as approximately the distance between outstretched fingertips. This line was created by doubling the green line, measuring the distance between the "shoulders," which would be an underestimate because the figure is not dead on, and adding them together. I realized after I already saved the image that I didn't add in the lengths of the fingers, as my red lines stop at the first knuckle, so that blue line is too short by two finger-lengths.

Considering that the blue line is an underestimate of height based on arm length and the bottom of the blue line is where her feet should be, we're clearly not looking at an arm (unless the figure has freaky orangutan proportions or something), which, in my mind at least, supports the theory of pareidolia.

And someone replied with:

I broke out my book on drawing anatomy to see what proper proportions would be.

A human arm positioned by the side of a person is about 4½ head-lengths from the tip of the head:

Including the lengths of the outstreched fingers, the proportions seem correct.

And another reply:

I think you've done a bang-up job of disproving that it's a human figure, for sure. But I don't think your theory disproves the possibility it's an apparition. If anything, you've made the case for an apparition even stronger by eliminating the possibility of it being a real, live person.

I just don't think that ghosts would necessarily be bound to the rules of human appearance. I mean, why would they? Full-bodied apparitions are very rare. A human-shaped mist is far more common. If a ghost can morph (for lack of a better term) from a misty figure to a human-like figure, then who's to say it has to have perfectly proportional human limbs

And another

The head to arm ratio is about right, you are correct, however the overall height makes no sense, meaning the head and arm are both far too large for the torso. Combined with the apparent lack of a neck, the whole thing seems like a coincidence.

Any thoughts?

- Stu

 

[stu neville]

I registered it this morning - 'stuwyatt'
Thanks in advance

- Stu

At time of writing (6.40), I'm afraid it still hasn't shown up on our radar.

I'll be back online later this afternoon - can you PM me the email addy with which you signed up, and I'll see if something odd has happened (which it all-too-often does..)

Also - for the sake of clarity, beyond this thread you could refer to Mr Wyatt as StuW and me as just Stu, mostly as that's how everyone on here refers to me (other nouns and adjectives sometimes apply) and have done so for years, and being a mod I'm all over the place, and two Stus could be very confusing. I wouldn't like StuW to get caught in any crossfire.

OK?

 

[Rushfan62]

I get the gut feeling that this whole thread is one enormous (and not particularly entertaining) con. Triple sod appears to me to be living up to his adopted moniker by posting as more than one person - it seems likely judging by the style of writing that he is also Stu (W). Chances are he's someone else too, question is, who?

 

[Analogue Boy]

And the film was called 'The Anima'?
What are the chances?

I may be an old cynic but I detect a whiff of a scintilla of publicity on this one.

 

[Dandelo_]

Now you're all making me sceptical! Grrr

 

[triplesod]

I'll be back online later this afternoon - can you PM me the email addy with which you signed up, and I'll see if something odd has happened (which it all-too-often does..)

[This is StuW]

The email addy I used was (stu edit - blue pencilled). It allowed me to validate the account, but still needs admin authorisation.

I get the gut feeling that this whole thread is one enormous (and not particularly entertaining) con. Triple sod appears to me to be living up to his adopted moniker by posting as more than one person - it seems likely judging by the style of writing that he is also Stu (W). Chances are he's someone else too, question is, who?

No, I am not triplesod. You can google me (Stuart Wyatt), and you'll find a hell of a lot of hits from my medicinal cannabis activism days, my Scientology protesting days, my professional musician days.... including newspaper articles with photo's and video's of me.

i.e. http://www.thisisplymouth.co.uk/news/Ca ... ticle.html
http://youtube.com/plymouthscientology
or video's of me playing with Mad Dog - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikVyCtbt ... annel_page (I'm the sick one on the stool)

If you need further proof, I can take a photo of myself holding up a sign saying "I AM NOT TRIPLESOD" lol... or if anyone is in the Plymouth area, I am more than willing to meet up in person. You'll also find that I have 8-9 years of postings on SomethingAwful, where I've detailed my life at many stages over the years.... [Edit: You can also compare my writing style and triplesods on SomethingAwful, and quite easily come to the conclusion that we are either two different people, or one person with severe multiple personality disorders lol]

Also, a mod/admin would be able to verify that triplesod and I are on different IP's and (probably) different browsers (I use Ubuntu Linux)

And the film was called 'The Anima'?
What are the chances?

I may be an old cynic but I detect a whiff of a scintilla of publicity on this one.

Why would I want to publicise a film that is, to put it bluntly, very painful to watch? I'm also not happy with the music that I did for the film (I was not allowed much creative license for it), and I don't even own a copy of the film any more. Since it was made in 2005, I think its only had one or two public showings (at local film competitions), and it didn't do too well. Its not a pro film at all... its a 10 minute short-movie that makes you want to commit suicide at the end of it...

Plus, you are forgetting that the location where the photo's were taken was never used for the film in the end.

- StuW

 

[stu neville]

..[This is StuW]

The email addy I used was *****. It allowed me to validate the account, but still needs admin authorisation.

OK, authorised and ready to go. Please now use that username exclusively, and liberate Triplesod.

And thanks for adopting StuW .

 

[stuwyatt]

YAY! I have an identity!

Thanks!

And thank you triplesod for trusting me with your account!

 

[stuwyatt]

I'm just cross-posting these from the SA thread: [Edit: The analysis's and comments aren't my own - I'm just c&p'ing them from that thread]

Filtered and lightened a bit. All changes were made to the image as a whole.

This is the shape the image suggests to me. I don't think it has a massive neck, that seems to me to be part of the background.

The proportions of the head appear to be anatomically correct.

Some notes and ponderings:

1. the shadow under the "chin" is very convincing
2. as is the shadow structure around the "clavicle"
3. what is this lighter, bulbous area? it is too low to be a breast, also then the figure would only have one breast. could it be the fist of the other hand?
4. i doubt this is the arm. if it is, the figure would appear to be wearing a toga, but not over its shoulder, but with its arms shrouded in it
5. this area which some have described as the "headstone" seems to be in front of the figure, it is very uniform and very unlikely just a play of the shadows

For some reason the figure reminded me of the traditional representation of Hercules with a lion pelt.

The grain in the image appears to be uniform. If any figures were photoshopped in, which is entirely possible, it was uniformly grained afterwards, i think.

And

It looks to me like it's squatting down like it's been seen so the full height measurement is meaningless.

This is what I was thinking from the first mention of comparing body proportions. The estimations of height aren't taking into account the apparent stooped posture of the figure.

The lower half of the body isn't visibly defined enough to make any meaningful height estimate.

 

[Dandelo_]

Good analysing, stuw.

I'll make my observations on the basis that it actually is an entity and not a simulacrum. Because if it is just a shape from a passing bunch of dandelions or what not then there isn't much else to say.

I'd say 3 looks like it's other hand and holding something dark as it obscures the front edge of his arm. If it isn't holding anything, the arm doesn't seem to complete properly.

You can look at 4 and 5 as one of two things.

The arm or a seperate object completely.

To see what I mean, look at the 'gravestone' and you'll see that the hand actually forms the top of the object. But, you could argue that the hand is actually on top of the object.

The lower half is the weird bit. Its just odd looking. Is it a skirt? As in the figure is holding up a skirt? Or even a cape?

Look at number 5. See where it sweeps down in an arch creating a see through blurred effect.

But if this is some unknown entity, who is to say that it should be anatomically correct and fully formed as we would see a normal person.

 

[rynner2]

For some reason the figure reminded me of the traditional representation of Hercules with a lion pelt.

Nah! It's the great God Pan. Look carefully, you can see his little horns.

He's standing behind some convenient piece of masonry to hide his short hairy legs.

Or maybe it's not 'convenient' but 'convenience' - a stand-alone urinal!

(Wouldn't be the first time on this board we've had someone urinating in an empty building...)

Or maybe I'm talking out of my a*** - oops, sorry, wrong thread!

 

[tastyintestines]

What about the ivy people behind the statue? I find them more fascinating.

 

[McAvennie]

Looks to me like one of those stone statues, like a woman holding a large book open in front of her. Obviously if it was there in one frame and not in the next that makes it unlikely.

 

[ginoide]

It's the great god pan

that was my first thought too.
except in the first pic on this page "it" appears to show a pair of boobs.
i don't know what to make of it. boobs, i mean. oh, well - forget me...

 

[rynner2]

What's going on here?

We're offered wildly differing versions of (allegedly) one picture:

EDIT: Text clipping originally posted has been transformed into a JPG image file, which is now attached to this post so it won't go MIA.

Analysis 1 and 2: the first image could show a fist holding a staff - completely missing from the second image!

The first image appears to have a very muscular neck - but the neck is ridiculously slimmed in the second image.

Just give us the untouched original image, and let us make up our own minds!

(This begins to remind me of those old images of Martian Canals: when asked if these were signs of intelligent life, a wise man once commented "Yes, but at which end of the telescope?" )

 

[stuwyatt]

What's going on here?

We're offered wildly differing versions of (allegedly) one picture:

.....

Just give us the untouched original image, and let us make up our own minds!

I'm just copying other people's analysis from another site and pasting it here, so that the people here can cast a critical eye on it. I thought some of you would be interested (???)

And the untouched original image has always been available here:
http://swyatt.com/ghost/HiResScan.png [1200dpi scan of the optical enlargement]

 

[gerardwilkie]

OK , April Fool's Day is over now .This thread needs to be locked. We're going round and round in circles and getting nowhere , and occasionally veers off topic . Any chance we could get back to some serious debate ?

 

[rynner2]

the untouched original image has always been available here:
http://swyatt.com/ghost/HiResScan.png [1200dpi scan of the optical enlargement]

OK, here's a cropped version of it.

We wouldn't be discussing it if it didn't look so humanoid, but all the same, it's just a mix of light and dark splodges!

Edit: Image captured and attached to this post so it won't go MIA.

 

[stuwyatt]

OK , April Fool's Day is over now .This thread needs to be locked. We're going round and round in circles and getting nowhere , and occasionally veers off topic . Any chance we could get back to some serious debate ?

What more do I have to do to prove its not an April Fool? Like I said, I am more than willing to show anyone the negatives.

And as for the post above saying its just a mixture of light and dark splodges, all photographs are a mixture of light and dark splodges... what's your point?

 

[gerardwilkie]

It's a picture of a statue . What's scary about that ? Of course the negatives will show depth , as it is a photo of a solid figure . Or am I missing something ?

 

[rynner2]

...all photographs are a mixture of light and dark splodges... what's your point?

Most show better definition than this.

It's interesting, but only in the way that seeing pictures in a fire or in the clouds is interesting.