Keep the lies coming and I will have a look at them tomorrow. Meantime, this week I received another interesting ghost photo….
“This is a photo of myself, my mother, and my newborn daughter taken January 11, 1987. The face beside the lady holding the baby is no one we know. We have several pictures from this day and this is the only one with the face. Can you tell me what it could be? A ghost? I get the feeling that it is not a benevolent, whatever it is.”
The person says that she has the print of the picture and perhaps the negative. Anyway, here it is….
What do you think? Any ideas? And if you are into alleged ghost photos, remember that there are loads of pics at my other site, www.scienceofghosts.com.
UPDATE: Cindi has sent in a high res version of the pic here (1Mb)
UPDATE: As requested, the person who sent in the photo has scanned in another of the people who were there that day and a close-up of herself. Here they are…
Obviously, feel free to comment, but do keep everything polite!
Richard Wiseman 
there’s a shadow on that ‘ghosts’ face. either that guy was really there or its a double exposure or photoshop
The so called ghost also has a cleft in the chin, as does the lady holding the baby, double exposure
Suspiciously similar nose, lips and general profile. Looks to me like it’s her brother or some kind of double exposure of herself. Decidedly not dead, though.
Does look a bit like a double exposure, like two flashes went off within a few fractions of a second, just as she moved her head a bit.
It’s a plastic bust on the mantle behind her.
Come on, now. Really.
It’s a person. The fact it is “no one we know” doesn’t mean it is supernatural, it just means it is someone you don’t know…
Um, that’s what we in the supernatural community call “a person”.
I don’t thinks it’s double exposure of herself, since the face looks more masculine and the haircut is different. (it looks similar, though. Could be a brother or something)
All I can say is: the person on the right looks more like a ghost than the face behind her.
Hahaha, that’s true!
Its a marketing executive of the Coca Cola Co. trying to hide from the New Coke fiasco!
(ps. please ignore timeline inaccuracies :p)
Why is it that everyone that captures supposedly supernatural, alien or cryptozoological things are always the absolute worst every photographers.
Looks like it’s the same girl holding the baby just with a lot of noise distorting it. It looks like someone had the ISO setting incorrect for the film speed so it’s noisy as shit. If it’s digital, haven’t a clue what’s wrong with it but I’m betting it’s film and the person not only managed to screw up the ISO setting but also managed to double-expose the picture.
Looks to me like in the brighter foreground exposure she just finished brushing her hair back off her forehead which would explain the difference in apparent hairstyles.
1987 photo…probably crap camera
Same nose shape, same cleft chin, same dark lines under her eyes… bit that looks like hair on the right side is shadow. The only real difference is the expression on her face, angle of her head and her bangs are down instead of parted.
This from a published semi-pro photographer, btw.
Reading fail, though. Missed the 1987 so it’s definitely a film camera with an incorrect ISO setting for the film speed. A lot of older cheap cameras made it pretty easy to double-expose.
The mother in the right background is clearly looking at the errant face as well, so it was obviously present at the time of the photo.
well you said no one you know, so i don’t think it’s a ghost but of someone you don’t know.
That’s just some dude. He is not a ghost.
There are two possibilities:
1) She’s a moron who doesn’t recognize her own brother/cousin/babydaddy
1b) It has been 22 years since the picture was taken, she may not remember the person who was there, especially if he wasn’t a member of the family
2) She’s unscrupulous and is simply lying!
about the picture:
May I have a glass of water please?
If the date is accurate, it’s almost certainly film, because 1987 pre-dates consumer digital cameras, the poor exposure and large grain in the image suggests that it was a cheap camera, probably a 110.
The image was taken with a flash, and was NOT double exposed… DO NOT SMOKE IN HERE, THANK YOU!!… there being no overlapping image, and the shadows being consistent with a flash mounted to the left of the lens.
This was NO boating accident!
Did you notify the Coast Guard of this?
It’s not paradoleia, because the face in question was actually there!
It wasn’t a ghost, and it wasn’t Jack the Ripper, it was a shark, or some dude sitting behind grandma when the picture was taken.
Sorry to sound cynical but basically all we have is anecdotal evidence to suggest there is anything unusual about the photo at all.
The shadow apparently cast on the ghost face indicates that it is a fair way behind her head, while its size indicates that it is extremely close. It is certainly an unusual photo, though completely explainable from an understanding of exposure times versus flash timing.
From the other shadows in the picture, the flash was very close to the lens, very slightly above and left but practically straight on- so the shadow to the right of the main person ‘cast’ onto the mystery person is an artifact and not a shadow. Similarly, the shadow from the mystery face ‘cast’ onto the background is also incongrous with the rest of the photo.
I disagree that the face is the same person as the nose shape appears significantly different, more so than different lighting might explain IMO.
I can’t see any obvious clues for double exposure in the rest of the image, but that doesn’t rule it out.
RE: the ISO setting point-it looks like a small compact camera quality image to me, a 110 film type and the grain would be more likely due to very small film rather than an incorrect ISO setting-but it could equally be 35mm and poor photography.
Overall, I’m stumped to see a clear ‘explanation’ buy ghost? Puuuuurleeeeeazzzz! Tell me what a ‘ghost’ is in any meaningful definition that doesn’t rely on other metaphysical conjecture and maybe we could start thinking of how such a thing would manifest on a photo. Without that, the most LIKELY explanation is: some film processing anomoly. kodak would probably have 100 possible causes and could probably be prety sure exactly what happened.
The shadow on the ghost face is not an artefact, it is a shadow cast on the wall behind, where there is enough distance for the flash’s small distance from the lens to show up.
The nose shape is different because of a different head angle. The “ghost” face is tilted down, with the bottom of the chin not getting enough secondary light from the background to make it show up.
Part of the hair/shadow of the ghost head looks like it probably a leaf of the plant behind her head, since it is in sharper focus than the rest of the shadow line.
It’s a ghost!!! Run for your life!!!!
Or perhaps, just someone sat beside her – don’t think it’s double exposure (if I’m right in thinking a double exposure would replicate the woman holding the baby), looks like they’re wearing glasses and possibly male. So yeah, different person sat beside her. I mean ghost. OooooOOOooooo.
Seriously?
I suggest it was a the real person who was in the room and looking over her shoulder at the time. Could have been a friend, guest or perhaps a playful milkman.
It looks more like the woman with the baby was photoshopped over a photo of two other people – the image quality on her seems different and to use a higher range of contrast values than the two behind her. so I’m calling fraud
This is a photo from over two decades ago. The only reason she thinks it shows a ghost is that she doesn’t recognise someone in a 22-year-old photo! It’s also not especially uncommon for someone to appear in only one photo of an event. Perhaps whoever it is only dropped by for long enough to appear in this picture. It’s also surprisingly easy to forget people over time; new mothers, I’m told, lay down new memories especially poorly. Finally, some photos of people look alarmingly unlike the people they represent. She may still know the person but not recognise them here.
I’m on board with saying it could only be some sort of camera/exposure artifact, and not a real person. But I’d like to think it COULD still be a ghost. 😉
My main thoughts were:
a) If you blow the picture up and examine the field, and the relative positioning/sizing of the people/objects in the picture, it looks to me that there just isn’t ROOM for anyone to be sitting or standing behind the woman with the baby in that position. Unless the person was literally hunched up and on the back of the woman… Something about the plant and the pitcher on the piece of furniture behind her just don’t seem to line up with proper perspective to allow the other face to ACTUALLY be in the position that it is.
b) In some respects I can see the similarity of the facial features, but the more I look at the two faces the more I’m seeing subtle things that could be shadow, or could be markers of a different face altogether. The main argument for the differences I guess is that I can’t get my head around the hair over the forehead, and there seems to be a certain delicacy to the “ghost” chin & jaw line that I don’t see in the “real” woman.
First of all it is very difficult to get a sence of perspective in a photo, there could be plenty of room behind her. Here is a great example of a fighter jet flying past a building which appears to be extreamly close but in reality is much further.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/07/picture-this-f-18-buzzes-detroit-apartment/
In anycase there must be enough room for a person there because there is a person there. If you count the other lady in the picture there are two people behind her in front of that brown unit.
Either the sender is lying or misremembering. There is nothing “ghostly” about that photo. Why would a ghost get caught on film while nobody in the room saw it? If the camera sees something, then everybody else does too.
Lame attempt at generating blog traffic. How is this anything other than a normal photo?
Yeah because Richard Wiseman is really short of traffic on his blog.
Now if I had posted the same picture I might agree with you. 😉
Do ghosts wear glasses?
I don’t think it’s glasses. The noise gives that impression but when you blow it up and discount the noise, most of the effect is caused by the dark circles under the eyes and a couple of key bits of bright white noise help complete the image in your mind.
Hmmm, Coca Cola will do just about anything to get more publicity these days.
🙂
I know a few hundred people, maybe a few thousand at most. There are more than 6 billion people on the planet. Seems most of them (save the few hundred I know) are ghosts!
I’m a little suspicious of the description “the lady holding the baby”. Why didn’t she just say “me”?
This is a really good point. Also, if this is a 3 generational shot (woman holding newborn, and woman’s mother), which one is the grandmother? The girl in the Coca-cola shirt looks far too young.
Its yet another case of; “you have to be there when the picture was taken before any paranormal possibilites can be considered” or “you put your full trust in the witness and believe it.”
Is it or isnt it a ghost? “No” is easy to say. “Possibly” challenges scientific facts with no real evidence to support any claims. It would be interesting if the figure in the pic could be verified as a deceased relative but even then, it isnt real proof and one can never rule out fakery.
I just wonder why something that is supposedly invisible and immaterial, is able to cast a shadow.
Double exposure imho.
Yes,if ghosts are non physical, then how could it leave a shadow?
also, why can cameras see ‘ghosts’ when people can’t?
Coca cola paid her to make up that story, look at their advertising revenue! Babies, women, and ghosts on one shot!
ps Coke is evil, please stop buying it 😀
I don’t believe that’s no one they know. There’s a person there in the picture. Clearly a lot of time has passed since the photo was taken and they aren’t going to have a clear recollection of this moment.
If you’re going to believe in ghosts, at least have the intelligence not to think they look like people with hairdos of the period just like everybody else in the room. I don’t really believe in personifications of spirits after death, but if I did they would be an intangible, invisible ‘presence’ and not look like some dude from the 80s.
Out of the theories presented in this thread, I lean towards the “plastic ornamental head on top of the cupboard” theory, originally suggested by Mike @#4.
I’d like us all to be wrong, though, in thinking that it must be something the people in the room were aware of at the time.
The nose and chin are exactly the same. The fringe looks different, but then the angle of her face is different too, so that’s not surprising. It’s her own face, caught twice on camera film somehow.
It’s a “photobomb”!
http://thisisphotobomb.com/
Anecdotal story, no real evidence whatsoever, too much time passed. It’s just a bunch of pixels about which we you can’t say anything…
This one’s pretty obvious. It’s clearly a angel. You can’t tell because its wings are obscured by the lady holding the baby.
I have to agree its almost certainly a double exposure.
The “ghost” face is identical to the mother, albeit with at a slightly different angle and with a different pose (her mouth is closed). What appears like glasses are the circles around her eyes. Her part was not as visible because of low light conditions. The “glasses and hair” gives her “ghost” image a masculine appearance.
I suspect that it was a manual 110 camera and the flash bulb did not go off at first exposing just her face from a nearby light source. When the flash bulb was fixed the second image was taken. The camera operator then advanced the film.
My first thought was double exposure, and I still think that’s likely. On the other hand, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just a third person in the room. No way it is a ghost, and I would need some actual evidence that there was not a third person in the room, not just the testimony of someone who, as far as I can tell, wasn’t even there when the photo was taken. I conclude this based on what Chris noted above, the phrase: “the lady holding the baby”. If it was really the sender, her mother, and her newborn in the photo she would have said “my mother” or “me” not “the lady holding the baby”. I think she found this photo and thought it looked just weird enough to be believed and made up a story. I like how the start of the blog post is “keep the lies coming”. Yes, like the lies about a picture of a ghost.
“We have several pictures from this day . . .”
Why don’t we get to see *all* the available record? For all we know, there may be ample evidence that completely explains this photo. I’m also suspicious of the low resolution. If this was taken on film and has a negative, give us something better than a 800×558 JPEG to look at!
That said, I have my doubts that double exposure is the explanation. Given how much whiter her sweater is than her face, I’d expect to see other artifacts in the photo than just the head. And while there are similarities between the two faces, there are also what look like differences (possibly male, possibly glasses, hairstyle change), but the resolution is so low that it’s difficult to say where the pareidolia starts and stops.
Wow, I appreciate all the input on my picture. To clarify a bit, the ‘lady holding the baby’ is the grandmother of the baby. The person to the right is the mother, who is me. I remember this day clearly, even though 22 years IS a long time ago. I have approximately 15 pictures taken this day in about a 2 hour time frame. Some were taken only moments after or before this one, and this “person” is in none of them. I promise you, if someone was at my house to visit me & my baby, I, or someone in my family, would know it. @prelapsaria, you are correct in your point a. There is literally about 6 inches between my mother’s back and the sewing machine. If there was a person there, I am convinced that we would know and remember who was up on her back like that. This was not taken with a digital camera, although I do not know what kind of camera or film was used. The original is much clearer than this scanned image. My experience with double exposure is that it creates a duplicate image on the same photo. In that case, the “ghosts” mouth would not be shut.
I am really digging all the comments, though, thanks to everyone!!! 🙂
No, a double exposure is any time the same frame of film is exposed twice. You end up with two superimposed images but they can be minutes, hours or days apart. For it to happen accidentally, it would be two consecutive shots when someone forgot to advance the frame. It often results in ghostlike images but how it turns out depends very much on the lighting during each shot.
A common legitimate use of double exposure is pictures of a skyline with a large moon overhead. You can’t typically get a large clear image of the moon and a skyline simultaneously for a number of reasons — differential in brightness being the biggest. So nearly all images you see with a very sharp large bright moon and a landscape are taken as two separate shots without advancing the film. Often the photographer deliberately masks off part of the lens to ensure the spot where the moon goes will be otherwise unexposed — otherwise the sky can seem to bright.
When it isn’t on purpose, the results can be very odd indeed.
First of all no one remembers anything clearly. Memories can be manipulated, fabricated or simply twisted over time. There has been a study, I think Richard refers to it in one of his books, where people are convinced they have been on a hot air balloon when they haven’t.
That aside, even if we took your memory to be exceptional then you still wouldn’t be able to remember the exact distance someone sat away from a wall/unit/sewing machine. The fact that you are claiming that you can instantly suggests to me that you are willing to exaggerate or lie to make the picture seem more believable. If there is only 6 inches between your mum and the sewing machine then you must be really thin because your position in the photo clearly suggests there is considerably more room than 6 inches.
Apologies if I sound harsh but I thought you were misguided about the photo before but your follow up comments make me think you are simply lying.
The face causes a shadow on the bowl behind it, your mum’s shadow is cast on the face, you are practically looking at the person. Someone please tell me what is so mystical about this?
Looks like the mother and the baby have been photoshopped in. Then some shadows were added for effect, but none of the shadows in the photograph look realistic.
@Cindi, show us the other photos.
Do the negatives still exists for this photo? It would be really interesting to get a new set of prints taken and compare to see if the picture was a result of something on the film, or something that happened during production.
I think it would be sufficient to scan it again and save it with a much less compression. When enlarged, there’s a lot of compression artefacts that obscures details.
has this photo been published previously. I’m sure I’ve seen it somewhere before, but not recently.
No, never published before. In fact, after looking at this photo for 22 years, we JUST saw the “face” this past January when doing a dvd for my mom.
The vase thingy in the background doesn’t cast any shadow.
Hi Cindi,
Double exposures don’t have to be identical, no. In addition, it is suspicious that the ‘ghost’ face looks so much like you and your mother. Do you have any photos of you from the same era at 3/4 angle so we can compare? Obviously you’re front-on in this pic so it’s hard to tell how similar the nose and chin shape of the ‘ghost’ are to yours.
Why do you say you “get the feeling its not benevolent, whatever it is”? That sounds to me like you’ve already decided this is paranormal rather than technical, is that the case?
I have some handy from the same day, although taken in another room. I will have to dig to see if I can find one taken in the same room. But I am sure some are different angles of me. I will send them to Richard shortly.
I say that because the face is way creepy to me, and I get an icky feeling when I look at it. I haven’t decided anything, only was interested to know what others thought, especially people with experience in the paranormal, as I have none.
I’m more concerned by the person in the Coca Cola top who bears more than a passing resemblance to a possessed Linda Blair in the Exorcist.
Almost the same skin shade!
Hee. That’s me. Thank you. Guess having a baby makes you not-so-hot. 🙂
It’s obviously the newborn herself, having time-traveled from the future, to whisper in Grandma’s ear all the things Grandma must do to save the human race. Being that we are all here, Grandma did her job.
Thanks, Grandma.
We love you; and yes, I’d be happy to have slice of your peach cobbler.
This is clearly a setup. The woman is well aware of the person by her as she is almost looking at the other person. Very easy to use photoshop to make something like this. I am also sure i have seen the same picture before, i just need to remember where and when.
If the small white dot in the eye of the “mystery face” is not a imperfection in the print, but a flash reflection, it matches the other flash reflections in the photograph — the grandmother, the pitcher and basin behind, the lips of the mother etc — they are all in the same reflective plan.
Since I doubt that a ghost’s eye would reflect the light from the camera flash exactly as all the other objects in the scene do, and as others have noted, there is a family resemblance to the facial features, and I would conclude this is a relative whose presence has been forgotten.
Hi Cindi, good thing you’re following the discussion! I think first of all you could provide a high quality scan (not jpeg, a lossless compression like tiff or png) of the photo, and scans of all other from the day.
Hm. My scanner options are: Bitmap, Jpeg, Tiff, or Tiff (compressed). Which is higher quality?
Hi Cindi,
Bitmap or Tiff are non-compressed formats.
I hope you got a big hard drive and a fast internet connection 🙂
I scanned it as a tiff, but now it is 73MB! Must figure out how to send it to Richard, as my attachment limit is 25MB…
Not a double exposure in my opinion. There would be some level of transparency in the faces if it were.
Looks like a legitimate photo of four people. One of whom’s presence has been lost to time…
Look at it this way… if you were shown this picture with no explanation would you find anything odd about it? Me neither. Human memory is the least reliable form of evidence.
Given how her mother’s hair is flipping up on the right side in the first non-ghost photo, I think the “ghost”‘s hair can be explained as he mother’s hair. It seems possible to me that she was sitting in a rocking chair, and there was (as has been suggested by others) a previous or post non-flash picture on the same frame of film that only picked up enough light to capture the brightest part of her face (with eyes closed?) when she was rocking forward. A picture taken with the flash would have enough light to completely cover up everything from the non-flash exposure, except for the part of her mother’s face that was in the shadow of her face.
Well Cindi, since you’re reading this, thanks for being such a good sport about it all. Seems like most people would take some of these posts personally and get angry about it, which you seem, so far, to have refrained from doing. Just remember that what people here are doing is throwing up a number of possible explanations, and those have to include the possibility that you are lying or mis-remembering. Nothing personal, we don’t know you or know anything about you, so a lie has to be in the bag of possible explanations. Mis-remembering is incredibly common. No one remembers anything nearly as well as they think, and science has proved that, so no one is saying you have a bad memory, just that we ALL have bad memories. Finally, I’m more and more inclined to double exposure. I accept the notion that double exposures often include some transparency, etc., but double exposures can all be very different, and that face looks so much like your mother’s it’s not even funny. Look at the chin, it looks exactly the same.
Ha ha, yes, I’ll admit, I did get slightly offended at first when called a lier, but I realize that people can say what they want, and it does not really affect me. I have no reason to lie, I simply wanted someone with experience (Richard) to tell me what they thought. I had no idea he’d put it on his blog that is apparently quite popular, and get so many folks to comment. But thank you for your kindness. 🙂
Cindi is being a v good sport about it all and great that she is on for scanning in with a different format. Just to be clear, I did ask her permission before putting it on the blog!
Thanks Gus you’re spot on.
And being one of the people that suggested Cindi might be lying I would just like to reiterate his point; this is not meant as a personal attack but it would be remiss of us not to consider it as a possibility no matter how forthcoming and willing you are to discuss things.
Especially when to look at on it’s own without your testimony there is very little suspicious about the picture at all.
I put this into photoshop and blew it up. Then I looked at the Blue channel and to me it looks like there is a halo of brush artefacts around the mystery head. What are supposed to be shadows look like no such thing. Pay particular note to the edge of the head’s shadow – it is pixellated, where other edges around this area are less so. I also think that you can clearly see a single circular impression where the photoshop brush has been clicked and left a 50% opaque impression. If you follow her eyeline, you should see where I mean. Just my opinion.
The areas you are referring to as shadows are NOT shadows, that is her hair. That is why when you looked at it in photoshop it looked like a halo of brush artifacts as you say. Both faces are the same woman, the photograph was taken while she was moving.
I’m going to be contrary and suggest it’s a printing error: two negatives exposed onto the same print. If so, then two things should be true: 1) the negative of this photo would be missing the third face and 2) there should be another negative in the same set, possibly immediately before or after, that contains that face.
I have been struggling to accept the “double exposure” theory. If you take a picture of a white wall and then another (the double exposure) of a black object, the black object won’t show up as the effect of the previous light can’t be undone**.
The same is not true of the printing process which I believe (with my limited knowledge) could result in overlaying a dark image on a white wall*.
This is my new favourite theory 🙂
* AIUI, light on a film causes the film to darken so if either exposure is bright, the film will darken. When printing from a negative, light is shone through the negative to paper where it causes the print to go dark. If only one negative is dark (i.e. only one image was bright), the print will still have dark areas due to the other negative. This allows a dark face to be visible when printed on top of a bright wall.
** If the first shot was under-exposed, the background could be lightened further by the second shot, but as the “ghost” face appears to be in-front of a white wall, I don’t see how a double exposure has cause an otherwise well-exposed shot.
Further to me previous reply: why doesn’t the darker “ghost” face get printed over the top of the real face?
Perhaps I should withdraw my support for your theory 😛
Ghost photos don’t prove much. But in this case the mom (hi!) looks to be sitting very close to the vase. Grandma appears to be forward (look at size of her head relative to mom’s) so there ought to be room for person there.
Nothing personal Cindi but it is possible that somebody you’ve forgotten came by during the party. Twenty years is a long time to remember who was in attendance . Maybe if somebody dropped by only to stay a few minutes and didn’t get into any other photos?
(Ooops – hit submit too soon!)
Also to point out that NOBODY is a reliable witness to events this subtle from 20 years back. Memory is just too malleable and unreliable in general. But unless you’ve really looked into how unreliable it is, you’d be inclined to trust it – after all it has kept you in good standing your whole life, right?
But memory is rubbish for evidence – especially for ghosts, bigfoot, alien craft, etc…
I have only one question, who took the second photo? The Ghost?
If the newly submitted photo shows all the people that were there on that day, who took the photo?
I believe the photos were taken by Doug, a family friend who likes to take pictures. But as you have all pointed out, memories are unreliable. 😉
You don’t have a picture of him, do you?
It’s weird to see such outlandish theories on what is ostensibly a skeptical site. I think Occam’s Razor works best in this case: the face is simply what it appears, someone standing behind the lady in the striped shirt, who people had previously forgotten about.
@uksceptic
Don’t know about Cindi. But, My parents have been in the same house for 40 years. When we have events/parties, we pretty much set up the living room the exact same way. Even on a day to day basis, the living room has changed imperceptibly for decades at a time (every now & again a piece of furniture is replaced).
If you show me a picture of any party during my growing up, I could tell you within a couple inches how far somebody is sitting from the wall, fireplace, table…whatever.
I think you would be surprised how easily your depth perception can be fooled by a photograph. You prior knowledge of the layout of a room is irrelevent, someone could easily more a chair without you knowing.
Here is a great example from this very blog just a couple of weeks ago;
https://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/great-table-illusion/
Or see Richard’s recent youtube video for another example.
https://richardwiseman.wordpress.com/2009/08/22/new-video/
As you can see transcribing a 3D environment into a 2D image can be misleading.
it’s the chin dimple that makes me think it really is double exposure.
With film camera, it is possible to get double exposure when the gear fail to roll the film. The face could be from a previous shot. Note that the shadow of the guy does not match the objects at his back. It is as if there is a wall right next to him.
The shadows match perfectly. Compare the shadows of the various objects in the photo…Striped Shirt Lady cast shadows on Ghostface, who casts a longer shadow on the wall behind him, because he is standing further from the wall than she is from him. The vase, very close to the wall, casts a very short shadow.
All of the shadows are perfectly consistent.
Maybe therapy can solve it? Only going there and check the one who sends those can clear up things quite simple. I myself would never see something in those type of pictures but would first start scanning the sender on the picture of itself already. She must have known that that would happen, if she a normal reasoning brain. Did she check other options (the old fashioned camera’s did show these flaws more often .. I’ve seen them in my own pictures at times . but they were also taken by me as well .. so also the figures or objects that were supposed to be in another picture). This one looks more like a normal picture. I only want to add, that the person, the ghost, does not seem the same as the rest of the people there, she def. works another system. Which could say something about the sender’s thoughts in the back .. They probably were a bit intrigued by the photo when they saw it, but not as for ghost reaons.
It looks to me as if the woman with the baby is standing in front of a large mirror, which is reflecting the images of two other people in the room. One of whom she does not know. The lighting and focus differ significantly between the background which is the reflections in the mirror, and the foreground, the woman and baby.
Just a guess, but my first impression was that the blacks in the foreground lady seem much sharper than the ones behind her, as if she was standing in front of another picture or if she was cut out and added later.
Hm .. maybe she though while checking the website somewhere .. why does this wiseman interest himself for that type of stuff .. does he really believe in that? Let me send him one and see what he will come up with.
Then I can see what drives him in this. Who knows .. the slightly enlightened process works also on the other side .. One triggers the other perhaps. And if both sides have fun .. okay … but then it is ofcourse not really research anymore.
I agree with namowal, it really looks like mom with baby is sitting in front of the picture. This also explains the “room problem”.
Two other things I noticed: The guy looks a bit like Benny from Abba… and unlike some others, I think Cindi looks like a hot 80s girl in there! 😉
Why is the colours off for everything other than the mom holding the baby (and the baby)? It’s like there are two seperate layers.
The face is the older mother. The lighting just makes her look a lot different. The hair and the nose give it away.
The face behind her is her face. Its a moving shot from a very crappy camera. It looks as though someone said something to her and then someone else to that persons left took her picture the second she went to respond. If you look at her lips you can sort of see she’s about to say something.
Not a bad idea, probably as likely as double exposure. Although I suppose that’s kind of a double exposure itself.
The best explanation for this is just that it’s another person sitting behind her, or a mannequin head. The woman holding the baby casts a shadow (from the flash) onto the Mystery Head and that head is casting a shadow onto the stuff behind it.
The scariest thing about this photo is what the people are wearing. 80’s fashion: EEK!
There must of been at least one more person there or else who took the group picture? (assuming it was not set on a tripod and using a self timer) Sorry, I see no spooks here but I see lots of very rational explainations as to the “truth” of the photo.
It is clearly a wig on a semi-realistic wig-stand!
I have no idea who it is, but it looks like a real person, with appropriate hairstyle for the era. At this distance in time its hard to tell if someone wandered in to shot ot nor, but the mother is looking at he baby NOT the figure?
Just to add another twist:
I believe, upon blowing the image up, I can see a lesion on the grandmother’s lower lip. I believe I can also see a lesion (or at least something like it) in the same place on the mystery head.
Combining this Cindi not remembering such a person, the reflective planes of the of the photograph being present on both faces, I would now chalk this up to a double image caused by slow film and the grandmother moving her head quickly from a lower to higher and back to front position as the frame was exposed.
I totally agree that this is a double exposure probably from a the subject moving between strobes of a flash, the only thing that tripped me up was that it looked like the closer face was casting a shadow on the further away face, but I realised it is actually her hair.
The reason it is not transparent as one person argued is that the shadow of her face is cast right on to where the face from the first exposure is so it is not getting exposed with any light.
I see that main argument against this being a ghost is that it can’t be a ghost. 😉
I know a lot about light and photography even I don’t have much experience with film and see following problems with the double exposure version:
– there is no other ghosting only the face despite other bright objects present, especially the porcelain object behind the ghost. It should give back a lot of flash light and distort the ghost image.
– the lady in red is the same brightness as the ghost. In case flash did not fire in first shot and took only ambient light shot, the second shot should make the lady in red brighter than the ghost and probably less sharp.
– the shadow on the ghost face seems to be too fuzzy and shadow like to be hair.
Such double exposure shot seems to be very hard to replicate. Can anyone with more film experience present something similar?
I think double exposures can vary from what we expect from a double exposure. I also like Trevor’s explanation, that the subject actually moved while the shutter was open on a single exposure and I think that while the lack of blurring argues against this, it’s still possible. But if you throw those two out, you are left with a real person. The fact that there is no evidence for ghosts actually existing is a good argument against that explanation, but there are other arguments, such as the fact that the “ghost” casts a shadow, has a shadow cast on it, and, as you say is the same brightness as Cindi in the picture. Finally, I would ask, why should we expect that a ghost that is not visible to the naked eye would be visible to a camera?
Quite clearly, the image is Harry Potter!
Cindi – having seen the high res version, I have to ask: what’s on your mom’s shoulder? There’s something very very shiny there. Is it in the original photo, or is it a scanning artifact? I know, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with anything, it just looks strange to me.
And now, I need one more piece of information to be able to clear up this whole mystery: How’s your daughter doing?
I sent 4 hi-res photos, the one Richard chose to use does have a white shiny thing, but no others, so that is a scanning artifact. I sure wish I could get the original to replicate perfectly…
And, I was wondering if anyone would ask that, thank you for asking. My daughter has gone on to lead a very troubled life, complete with mental disorders and addictions amongst other problems. Not that one thing has anything to do with the other. 😉
Darn, I was hoping you’d say “she’s doing great, thanks” and then I would say, well, obviously this was not an unhappy spirit of any kind, so don’t worry about it. I still say that whatever is in that picture is not to blame, which thankfully you don’t seem to think anyway.
Aside from that, I’m sorry to hear that she’s had some problems. As a parent, I really feel for you.
looking at the hi-res version, the ‘black’ levels and the grain do seem to be [very] slightly different around the face, and there is a somewhat suspicious-looking smudge at the top of the older woman’s head. however, these could also easily be caused by a warped print, variations in the scanner sensitivity, fingerprints, etc.. imho pretty much impossible to form any convincing conclusion either way…
Would a double exposure leave a shadow like that?
Gus Snarp writes – “there are other arguments, such as the fact that the “ghost” casts a shadow, has a shadow cast on it, and, as you say is the same brightness as Cindi in the picture.”
Actually in some belief systems that is no problem at all. The medieval Byland Chronicles for example have pretty solid tangible ghosts, which throw people over hedges, and stomp around like zombies. Northern European ghost lore is filled with such substantial spooks, and modern accounts often reflect this, with spooks seeming to have tangible physical form. But we are straying from the ghost photo here…
Gus Snarp – first you say that there is no ghosts and second that ghosts can not cast a shadow. 😉
If we assume that ghosts exist they can have all kind of properties. 🙂
Might be this ghost is reflecting light only in UV spectrum which is not visible to human eye but is sensed by photographic film. 🙂
I can agree that it’s a double exposure if someone can explain the shadows and no ghosting on other parts of image like the porcelain vase.
Well, I say there is no evidence for ghosts, not that there are no ghosts. Cameras are not magical, they basically pick up the same visible spectrum as the human eye, unless they are specifically designed to do otherwise. If the ghost were reflecting light outside the visible spectrum, it would not show up on the film in the same color scheme and intensity as the rest of the image. But hey, since we have no evidence of ghosts, we also have no evidence of how ghosts operate within our current understanding of physics if they do exist. On the other hand, we have a pretty good idea of how cameras work and interact with the spectrum of light.
If it were a double exposure nothing would be as sharp as it is if her head moved that much. There would be doubles of a lot more things.
The fact that no one in the picture is actually purposefully posing towards the camera means that it is highly unlikely that the photographer was a serious photographer which suggests that it was probably a compact automatic 35mm film camera. Although a lot of people did have SLRs during the 80’s. A double exposure on an SLR you have to hold the bottom button in and the wind on the film which seems an unlikely thing to do accidentally. From the position of the flash, i would have thought there would be more specular hightlights on his (the ghosts) nose especially. If it WAS a compact camera it would have most likely been DX coded and ISO would have been set by the camera automatically. If NOT, then it looks like the ISO has changed between the three photos, which seems like an odd thing to have happen. Are these three photos from the same Camera?
The only thing we can say with 100% certainty is what they are wearing is god awful.
These photos were taken with the same camera, and most likely it was a cheap automatic 35mm. If it is a double exposure, it was an accident.
It is very, very unlikely that it was a double exposure, especially if it were an automatic film camera, the film winds on automatically making multiple exposures really tricky.
It looks to me like it’s a photoshop job. The woman and baby have been superimposed on another photo of the “ghost” with the other woman. If you look at the angle of the other woman’s eyes, they are looking at the “ghost” rather than the woman and baby. This would also explain why there doesn’t appear to be enough room for the “ghost” behind the woman/baby, because the proportions of the superimposed image are incorrect (rather than the “ghost” being incorrect).
She say that “perhaps” she has the negative? Of course it’s “perhaps” and not yes or no. If she said yes, then she’d have provided the negative instead of the print which would prove this is an altered photograph. Is she said no, then we’d assume it was faked. By saying “perhaps” she leaves the possibility open that it’s falsifiable.
I’m amazed we still have discussions about photographic/video “evidence” in the digital age. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
I say perhaps because I have moved 9 times in the 22 years, and am not the most organized person. Therefore, I have a giant box full of hundreds of photos and negatives, none of which are in any type of order. If the negative is still around, either my mom or I have it, but have not been inclined to spend the enormous amount of time it would take to find it.
Those saying it cannot be a double exposure are taking too much knowledge and applying it here.
A inexpensive camera (one of the disposables for instance) can quite easily flash a scene, open the shutter, and register on the frame all the static information plus a double image caused by the one moving object, in this case the grandmother.
The fact we see only her head as a double image is not unusual. Her bodies final position the most brightly lit by the flash in the scene, obliterates any information of previous position, while her head does not.
No blurring will be scene in any other parts of the photo, as some have suggested, because they did not move during the exposure time.
If you wave an object quickly in front of you own eyes against a static background you can easily duplicate this effect.
I buy it.
Sounds highly plausible to me. Anyone want to try and reproduce it?
In the first photograph, the one with the ‘the ghost,’ the woman holding the baby has received the effects of the flash the most. If it WERE a double exposure, then the ‘second head’ would appear overlapping her head and not sitting behind it. Two whole heads would have been reproduced. The images would overlap and not sit comfortably like they do. Also, the woman said it was most likely an automatic compact 35mm, automatic cameras wind on…automatically. This makes achieving a double exposure very tricky because by the time she has taken the camera away from her face, or by the time the flash has recharged, the frame has advanced.
I am not suggesting the film was exposed twice. I am suggesting the film was exposed once, with one flash, with a long (camera wise) exposure time.
The “ghost head” imprints slightly because the movement prevents most of the reflected photons from the flash from saturating the chemicals on the film. The heads final position, being steady for a time returns the most photons to the film, creating the sharpest image.
You easily see this in a room with a strobe light going, illuminating a moving object — you will see sharp snapshots of the object, with ghostly images (barely detectable by the human eye, because it does not have the optic nerve does not permanently retain an image, unlike film)
No tricky camera winding required or frame re-exposure required Just film that cannot handle high speed images, a slow shutter, and a weak flash.
Sorry, last comment was mine — anonymous got credit due to a browser change.
Theoretically it sounds plausible but I can not imagine how this could happen in the real life. What’s our exposure – 1 second?
Photographer releases the shutter, curtain opens exposing the film for 1/2 of a second then our supergrandma makes a fast move changing from one static position to another brushing her hair back at the same time, flash fires, second curtain closes. Cindy is sitting still for the whole second.
It does not explain the shadow on the ghost face. Does not explain why the reflective porcelain vase does not reflect flash penetrating the first ambient exposure of the ghost head.
Still with this? Ghosts don’t cast shadows. Next.
rafaelmadeira Says:
September 25, 2009 at 7:56 pm | Reply
Still with this? Ghosts don’t cast shadows. Next.
Agreed. But your dismissive lack of curiosity on how “ghostly” images can be created seems to me to be as dogmatic a position as those who insist they are real.
I can see you telling Einstein: “Look, as far as their day to day lives are concerned, for everyone on this planet, time is a constant. Next!”
rafaelmadeira wrote “Still with this? Ghosts don’t cast shadows. Next.”
Some do… or rather some definitions of “ghost” do not exclude the possibility. I think we need to start with the photo and argue forward, not actually assume it’s a “ghost” and then make top down judgments based on the dubious theoretical merits of this purported beastie. 🙂
cj x
Who are you to say what a ghost could do if they were real? You’re not the boss of ghosts, rafaelmadeira! What’s next, telling God he couldn’t use evolution to create humans? 🙂
Thanks for getting back to us with the additional pictures and high resolution version, Cindi. It’s downright refreshing to see someone with strange photos willing to go the extra mile.
Unfortunately, I’m not sure it adds much data to the mix. The source photos just seem too grainy to dig out any extra data. I’m even at the point of thinking it might be whatever plants and vases and the like that are on that shelf just happen to have a remarkable resemblance to a face under those conditions. I was hoping some of the other photos would have shown the background from a different angle, but no luck.
There does appear to be a slight reddish splotch on the lips of both your mom and the “ghost”. Given other visual similarities in the two faces, it may still be a double exposure, or some similar processing error at the photo lab. If you ever do run across the negatives, please write Richard back with a followup. A scan of them or reprint might yield new data. I’d be particularly interested to see what the photo after this one is on the roll.
I think the double-flash idea is the probable answer. Someone else took a phot with granny looking down at baby, and then this photo was taken moments afterwards, just as granny looked up suddenly. The shutter opened just as the previous flash was fired, picking up a poor image of granny’s face looking down. Then the flash went off, illuminating granny’s face in the new position, and part of the wall and vase where her head had been. The parts of the background that are well lit add sufficient light to make part of the initial face exposure show up. The areas that are poorly lit, like granny’s shadow from the second flash, do not get enough light to be visible. Granny’s shadow cast on the second face is too deep. It is clearly the shadow cast on the wall, given a flash attached to the camera. I am guessing this is a compact camera with a flash situated in the upper corner of the camera body. Other strange dark patches could be caused by parts of the plant we are unable to see.
Cindi, is there a shot someone else took that looks almost exactly the same, but with your mother looking down at your baby?
The ghost image could also be explained simply by overhead lighting that is strongest in the centre of frame. An initial flash is not required, as has been described above.
Hi All,
Old cameras have a slower aperture speed with direct control from the click lever. A fraction of an opening by the aperture & not a full opening has resulted in the so called ghost image being formed at the center of the picture & was over clicked by the subsequent image. The lady must have been looking downwards when earlier clicked.
This is a clear case of Double Exposure at the center of the image.
Anybody looking for ghosts rather star searching for Bil Laden & WMD’s.
Thanks,
Reggie.
Wow, very technical information. Thank you all for your explanations! I do have a question for those of you who know a great deal about the camera’s workings: Where is her forehead in the “ghostface” if it is a double exposure? If you’ll notice in the photo of the group she is leaning forward, yet her hair does not fall far enough to completely cover her forehead. Why would it not be showing in the ‘leaned forward’ position if the ‘ghost’ picture?
The “ghostface” is incomplete because only those parts which have light-coloured background when the flash went off got enough light to show an image. You can see this sort of thing quite often with shots taken while moving the camera body. My guess would be that there are leaves of the plant beside granny’s head which are preventing an image forming of the forehead. Similarly, the bottom of her chin appears to be cut off.
“Double exposure” is really the wrong term. It is a single exposure, with a (relatively) long exposure, and a flash timed for the end of the exposure. The aperture opens. Light is collected from a static scene, especially from the well lit face in the centre of the frame, looking down at the baby. Then granny is distracted, and looks up. The movement is too quick for the camera to pick up anything. Then the flash goes off, and the amount of light hitting the film goes way, way up. Anywhere there is blackness during the flash will be left seriously underexposed in comparison to the rest of the image.
If you find the negative of this photo, take it to a photo shop and ask them to overexpose the print. You should get a mostly white picture, with some details appearing where the flash shadow crosses the “ghostface”. It’ll be very, very grainy, though.
I always cringe when I read comments confidently asserting some sort of technical error or manipulation, or blithely stating obvious falsehoods (such as the ‘identical’ nose, which is anything but). A chorus of ‘yup, total fake — it’s so obvious!’ sounds and is just as credulous and uncritical as ‘yup, totally a ghost — what else?’
While it’s possible that a face was edited into the picture, the best explanation is the simplest, and has been offered by several commenters: some forgotten someone peering over the woman’s shoulder. That the shadows frame his face, and that the woman in the foreground completely obscures his body, gives the uneasy sense of a floating face.
You really don’t have to try too hard or suppose too much to reject so ridiculous a claim.
Of course, if this really is a picture of the writer, her mother, and her newborn, why does she then refer to the ‘face beside the lady holding the baby?’ I can’t see referring naturally to my own mom as ‘the lady.’
And a follow-up question: who took the family photo? The first pic could’ve been taken by grandma or grandpa, but there’s still at least one person unaccounted for.
Keep it simple, stay critical, and don’t over-think non-puzzling puzzles,
“While it’s possible that a face was edited into the picture, the best explanation is the simplest, and has been offered by several commenters: some forgotten someone peering over the woman’s shoulder.”
My original comment too, but it does not account for all the evidence — Cindi posted another photo, taken by the same photographer, including all at the gathering.
As new evidence comes in, you change your opinion. You don’t ignore what is inconvenient, even if it makes the puzzle less simple.
I’m throwing my vote in for it simply being a picture of three adults and a baby. Whether intentional or not, I think the statement, ““This is a photo of myself, my mother, and my newborn daughter. . .” is 25% incorrect.
What about the (I suppose) great-grandmother? The resemblance is there, and her hair is curly as the ghost’s.
I think it is the older woman with the shadows playing a trick on her features. The hair style is a big give-away to me.
Yea, I didn’t know ghosts keep their hairstyle current with the times…
—
http://noamgr.wordpress.com
I still don’t see the double exposure or technical glitch thing. The “ghost” is clearly an 80s guy, having a different smile then any other people on the photo’s… A re-print of the negatives might shed some light on this. So far I find none of the explanations given convincing…
Cindi: Is your daughter, the baby, following this… and does she have any feelings/ideas about it?
Did budget ’87 camera’s have self-timer facility? If not, who took the group photo of ‘everyone’ at the party? Must have been the ghost.
Occam’s razor slices right through this and reveals … it’s a 22 year old picture of four people.
I believe in Ghosts! That being said is there any possibility that anyone in the picture at all was a twin? Could this be a fraternal twin of someone in the photo? Maybe one twin didn’t survive in the womb?
maybe its your daughter in the future but honestly i think its nothing
a statue maybe ?
I would like to comment on the great sweaters worn by the members of this photograph
Personally, I don’t believe in “ghost” as witnesses describe them, but I DO believe that they believe they saw something. What I don’t know. But to me, it looks like the guy just poped in to have his pic taken, maybe as a prank?
I am curios to know what the house was like. Did the house have a presence to it?
its just a guy DUH
Bullshit
If that woman in the coke sweatshirt did not see a man inches from the other woman’s face while this pic was taken, then it’s either a ghost or a hoax. I’m confident it’s not a double exposure. You can even see the woman’s shadow on his face, and he’s looking directly into the camera.
And – there doesn’t even appear to be any room for this person to be crouched in. The back of the woman holding the baby is almost flush against a table or bookshelf of some sort. If this is an authentic ghost pic it’s one of the best, but who knows..
I can’t see the ghost
That’s her masculine side manifesting as a second head.
I think its a mirror image of the other lady in the coca – cola shirt. Her bangs are down, and because of the way the camera is facing towards the mother, we see a top view … its a double exposure of a mirror image of the other person in the picture. It’s obvious!
I have manipulated the picture with high contrast and the pixels suggest that it is in fact the face of some-one who was present when the picture was taken. The light reflection, assumably by the flash of the camera, blends true for a face of some-one caught in the shadow of the girl in front of her. The face refelcting some light off a flash must be a living
person and not some kind of ghost. The only thing that is strange about
the photo is that one can’t see where the face is hiding its body. The
face is also different to the other two in the picture, look at the differences between nose and mouth and the shape of the nose. The girl inthe background is looking at he other ‘two” and not at the camara, probably too focussed on the trickery that is being fabiricated.
After making it larger, it looks like the face could be a young man. The shadow makes it look like long hair but when you enlarge it, it looks like a male w/ shorter hair. Weird.
i think it’s this girl’s twin brother. perhaps he died prior to birth. he is with her holding that baby. he might always be with her. he wants herto know.
these photos are creeping me out! lol.
can i use these photos for my next ghost photos compilations?
This could definitely be a double exposure, but I guess we’ll never know!
This is definitely a double exposure. Taken when she’s moved her head just at
the point of the picture being taken. Nothing paranormal at all.