Top 10 Ghost Photos

[gfunkusarelius]

fun to peruse. its amazing how often ghosts dress up like people in sheets

http://theknightshift.blogspot.com/2005/10/top-ten-best-ghost-photographs-ever.html

ETA:one of my favorite comments- "You would not believe true evidence if you were to take or gather it yourself. The net is full of true evidence, yet your rational mind will not allow for this simple belief."

[Tricky]

Why is it that ghosts seem to prefer black-and-white film? Several of those pictures were taken long after color photography was prevalent. They also seem to prefer photographers who can't take a sharp picture. Maybe they're shaking too much from seeing a ghost.

Of course, several are obvious fakes.

[Axenos]

I always did like the Newby monk photo... superfake but kinda cool.

[gfunkusarelius]

yeah i always liked ghost photos when they were at least decently creepy looking. what surprised me is how most of them arent. they tend to be really poor. i would at least like to see some decent photoshop work nowadays, haha

[ChristineR]

Electric Chair Ghosts (http://www.zuko.com/weird_and_spooky_friends.htm)

When you just look at this one all by itself there isn't much to see, but if you start zooming in on the flash effects you can see some very disturbing pareidolia. The very fact that you have to have somebody pointing to most of the "entities" to make them out makes it all that much more creepy.

Plus few things are going to be creepier in real life than an antique electric chair!

[gfunkusarelius]

Electric Chair Ghosts (http://www.zuko.com/weird_and_spooky_friends.htm)

When you just look at this one all by itself there isn't much to see, but if you start zooming in on the flash effects you can see some very disturbing pareidolia. The very fact that you have to have somebody pointing to most of the "entities" to make them out makes it all that much more creepy.

Plus few things are going to be creepier in real life than an antique electric chair!

i dont really get that one, is there a link pointing out the "entities"? looks like a few flash artifacts and then i sort of see what appears to be one face in the place where a person would sit. could easily be the old "photograph thru glass at oblique angle to superimpose a reflection" thing.

[ChristineR]

i dont really get that one, is there a link pointing out the "entities"? looks like a few flash artifacts and then i sort of see what appears to be one face in the place where a person would sit. could easily be the old "photograph thru glass at oblique angle to superimpose a reflection" thing.

The only place I know of where they point out the entities (and also show how the photo was supposedly taken) is this movie (http://www.allmovie.com/cg/avg.dll?p=avg&sql=1:181186). I looked for better info online but I didn't see it. If I get a chance I'll replay that part of the movie and try and explain where the entities are. The only other one I remember is a "hand" on the left (to the viewer) arm.

[Mercutio]

Another recent thread on the topic. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=66431) Luke, I think, linked some neat stuff.

[Checkmite]

I'm glad the Watertown photo made the list. One of the first and coolest ghost stories I ever read about.

[ChristineR]

I watched the scene in the movie again. They only showed the two "entities" I mention above, the face and the hand.

Leucther (the photographer) is well, an extremely odd person but it seems unlikely that he would delibrately create a fraud. One the other hand, his stepson was helping him with the photos.

[kittynh]

cool photographs!

I remember Stirling castle has a postcard you can buy of their ghost. Not too shabby a view.

Though the tall monk is just a joke!

[gfunkusarelius]

Another recent thread on the topic. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=66431) Luke, I think, linked some neat stuff.

dang i even did a couple of searches to see if someone else had posted. i dont have much skillz on the forum search i guess!

[Teetop]

The Newby monk kind of looks like he's wearing the mask the killer wore in the Scream movies

[cj.23]

Odd not to see the (in my opinion) double exposure from the Greenwich Queen's House ghost. I think it's a time delay with a member of staff walking up the stairs.
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/server/show/nav.00500100400l

Although I accept the possibility of ghost experiences I am a complete sceptic when it comes to ghost photos, though I do find the Wem one really eerie.

cj x

[Teetop]

According to the article, Rev Hardy's wife made sure nobody used the stairs while the photo was being taken.
The exposure was long and the quality of the photo is poor--the ghost is probably nothing more than an illusion caused by light.
Did you notice the extreme length of the "spirit's" right arm?-- I didn't realize ghosts were able to stretch.

[cj.23]

According to the article, Rev Hardy's wife made sure nobody used the stairs while the photo was being taken.
The exposure was long and the quality of the photo is poor--the ghost is probably nothing more than an illusion caused by light.
Did you notice the extreme length of the "spirit's" right arm?-- I didn't realize ghosts were able to stretch.


yes, the long right arm is entirely consistent with the theory of a real person in a white lab coat walking up the stairs, in along exposure! I'm a believer in the paranormal, but here we can actually replicate the photo quite convincingly, by a time exposure on the staircase. I therefore concluded that Mrs. Hardy was simply wrong. I'm open to other suggestions though.

cj x

[Teetop]

yes, the long right arm is entirely consistent with the theory of a real person in a white lab coat walking up the stairs, in along exposure! I'm a believer in the paranormal, but here we can actually replicate the photo quite convincingly, by a time exposure on the staircase. I therefore concluded that Mrs. Hardy was simply wrong. I'm open to other suggestions though.

cj x

Whatever the case--it is very unlikely that the image is a ghost

[cj.23]

Whatever the case--it is very unlikely that the image is a ghost

agreed absolutely. :)

[Teetop]

yes, the long right arm is entirely consistent with the theory of a real person in a white lab coat walking up the stairs, in along exposure! I'm a believer in the paranormal, but here we can actually replicate the photo quite convincingly, by a time exposure on the staircase. I therefore concluded that Mrs. Hardy was simply wrong. I'm open to other suggestions though.

cj x

When I first viewed the photo in a book (decades ago--hehe)- my first impression was that the ghost appeared to look too dramatic - the photo appeared to be a complete fake to me---I wonder if anyone has ever examined the negative. Usually with photos of this sort, negatives tend to mysteriously disappear.

[cj.23]

When I first viewed the photo in a book (decades ago--hehe)- my first impression was that the ghost appeared to look too dramatic - the photo appeared to be a complete fake to me---I wonder if anyone has ever examined the negative. Usually with photos of this sort, negatives tend to mysteriously disappear.

yes, it has been examined. I wondered if it had been replicated, and i suddenly recalled yes - Ian Wilson, In Search of Ghosts, I'm fairly sure. I did a similar thing in the early 90's with another supposed ghost photo. I even managed to recreate the ghost on demand - wood smoke and a hole in an upper room, and heat drawing it down the stairwell.

[latent aaaack]

The one's from that list that strike me as most freaky are the Hampton Court Ghost and Tomstone ones. I wish I had more knowledge about the circumstances and people involved. If ghosts exist I believe it's something that happens internally to the people seeing them that produces a hallucination and not an actual manifestation of the dead appearing objectively.

[CptColumbo]

What was that film where a shaft of light goes from one door to another?

[apathoid]

Heres (http://theshadowlands.net/storypic.htm)another spooky one that didnt make the list. Looks fake to me, but still gives me the Willies for some reason...

This (http://www.ghostresearch.org/ghostpics/weird.html) is another one that looks a bit fake, but cool nonetheless.

[negativ]

The thing that's really disappointing (or really cool, depending on your point of view) about these photos is that every one of them loses their mystery after a day's worth of experience in a photographic darkroom.

Arguably, it's even easier to make "convincing" ghost photos with film and traditional chemical processing than with the new-fangled fancy-pants digital whatzits that are so popular with the kids these days.

[baron]

I've always been struck by how closely the "grandfather's ghost" resembles the "Cumberland Spaceman" photo.

http://paranormal.about.com/library/bl_grandpa_ghost_lg.htm

http://www.ufoevidence.org/cases/case385.htm

Whatever that might prove...

[Azrael 5]

I like the Wem photo! If it's paredolia it's very convincing! Probably the only "ghost" in the top 10 that needs a good explanantion.

Nice try here:http://www.wisewords.demon.co.uk/shropshire/ghost.html

[johnny74]

I think most of them depend on whether you can believe the people who give the stories behind it. If they are telling the truth then there is some pretty weird **** going on. I suspect that if ghosts exist that they only manifest themselves as hallucinations and so are unphotographable. Of course I'd love it if I was wrong.

[JP1283]

I have a few ghost pictures that my cousin is going to e-mail me so I can post them here. They were taken in Virginia City, Nevada in a gift shop that was once a mortuary. She let us go downstairs and you could see in the wall where they used to burn the bodies...it was really interesting. She had a few ghost pictures, including this figure that would stand in a doorway in the basement in different poses. When we went downstairs and took pictures, the same figure showed up in the doorway in the same poses. It was really weird. I asked my cousin to e-mail them to me so I'll get 'em posted as soon as I can. :)

[Ashles]

The one's from that list that strike me as most freaky are the Hampton Court Ghost and Tomstone ones. I wish I had more knowledge about the circumstances and people involved.
Surprisingly I have some.
We had a temp working in our office who was the first person to tell about this 'ghost'. I looked it up on the web and saw the video (it is a bit creepy).
It turns out that her other job was to be one of the people who dress up in period costume at Hampton Court and this video wasn't much of a mystery to her. She said that people walking around in unusual dress was obviously common and almost certainly the explanation.

[Tirdun]

I've managed to keep from "debunking" several ghost/angel photos shown to me by inlaws out of courtesy.... but..

During some holiday visit I was handed a picture and the mother of the boy in the photo insisted that he was being watched over by a spirit/ghost/angel/etc. I nodded and went to file it in the back of the stack, but she stopped me. See? She says, indicating the picture with stabs of her finger. "It must be [relative who died, can't remember relation] watching over him".

I swear I held out... fought so hard... "Really? Was this taken at your house? (yes) by you? (yes) and were you HOLDING A CIGARETTE in your hand, like you always are. As in right now in my face? (huh?)"

Another family member glances over and chuckles, "Sure looks like a puff of cigarette smoke hit by a flash to me" he says helpfully.

Yeah, she doesn't show that picture... or talk to me as much anymore.

Guess I'm a jerk.