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Ghost pictures

JP1283

Thinker
J
Joined
Apr 2, 2005
Messages
235
Hello everyone.

Back in 1998 we visited a gift shop in Virginia City, Nevada. While we were there the owner let us go into the basement and look around, and we took pictures. She also showed us her pictures of the place, and in two of her pictures there was a doorway in the basement that seemed to have an apparition of a ghost in it. The positions of the 'ghost' were different in the two pictures, but you could plainly see what looked like a ghostly body in the doorway.

We got our pictures developed, and in the pictures we took in front of the doorway, the same apparition appeared. In some of the pictures it wasn't there, but in a few it was. Again, it was in different positions in different pictures. Scared the crap out of me.

Now, I want to believe it wasn't a ghost, but it seems kinda coincidental that my pictures had the exact same apparition in the exact same spot, in not every picture. What explanations can there be for this?

I don't have the pictures available for scanning, but I'm not out to prove ghosts are real so that shouldn't be an issue.

ETA: The woman who owned this store also had another of 'ghosts,' in which she said she invited the ghosts to come pose with the people she was taking the picture of, and in the picture there are three different foggy beings standing next to the people on either side of the picture.

Supposedly it was a mortuary in the 1800s; they have a picture of the place taken from that era and there is the mortuary sign on the front of the building. In the basement, you can see the fireplace has since been filled with bricks, and the large doubledoors that opened up when the bodies were sent down are still down there.
 
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JP1283 said:
Hello everyone.

Back in 1998 we visited a gift shop in Virginia City, Nevada. While we were there the owner let us go into the basement and look around, and we took pictures. She also showed us her pictures of the place, and in two of her pictures there was a doorway in the basement that seemed to have an apparition of a ghost in it. The positions of the 'ghost' were different in the two pictures, but you could plainly see what looked like a ghostly body in the doorway.

We got our pictures developed, and in the pictures we took in front of the doorway, the same apparition appeared. In some of the pictures it wasn't there, but in a few it was. Again, it was in different positions in different pictures. Scared the crap out of me.

Now, I want to believe it wasn't a ghost, but it seems kinda coincidental that my pictures had the exact same apparition in the exact same spot, in not every picture. What explanations can there be for this?

I don't have the pictures available for scanning, but I'm not out to prove ghosts are real so that shouldn't be an issue.

ETA: The woman who owned this store also had another of 'ghosts,' in which she said she invited the ghosts to come pose with the people she was taking the picture of, and in the picture there are three different foggy beings standing next to the people on either side of the picture.

Supposedly it was a mortuary in the 1800s; they have a picture of the place taken from that era and there is the mortuary sign on the front of the building. In the basement, you can see the fireplace has since been filled with bricks, and the large doubledoors that opened up when the bodies were sent down are still down there.
Click to expand...

Without seeing the pictures it is not even remotely possible to speculate on this. Not even worth trying.
 
Unfortunately I don't have the pictures available. I had actually forgotten about them until a little while ago. It occurred to me that the ghost was only visible in the doorway, so maybe there was something in the room that the light bounced off of or something that made it look like a ghost?
 
Or you could have been exposed to powerful x-rays while standing near the door. :eek: Pay no attention to the large power lines going into the basement...

Or something merely poisonous like Radon gas.

I own a book full of 'ghost' pictures taken in the 1800's that is frequently referred to by people as 'proof' of ghosts. All the photos except for maybe one are laughably, badly faked by today's standards. And these are really famous pictures still offered as 'evidence'.

The believers in ghosts really do need some new evidence. If you have a photo that does not look completely faked, post it up here.

There's a lot that can happen to an image inside a camera.
 
As has been pointed out, it's really tough to say without seeing them. I make my living as a photographer, and I can think of a few things that may have caused this. For example, perhaps there is a light fixture in the room that is causing lens flare. Lens flare can look ghostly. Were your shots taken from about the same position as the owner's shots?

What was the lighting like in the room? Did your camera's flash go off?

Another thing that occurs to me is that perhaps the owner is causing the ghostly images to happen (in a non-supernatural way).

ETA: Lens flare is usually caused by direct light into the lens--like from a bare bulb, or a track light pointed in the direction of the camera. Do you remember anything like that? Also, you didn't buy the film at the same place, did you?
 
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There are countless reasons why photographs may show "ghost images". As has been noted, to try to find the reason for yours would require seeing the photographs.

But there is one odd thing. Ghost pictures usually show things that the people didn't see when taking the picture. Since ghosts supposedly are spirits, one would think that they would be more obvious to living creatures than to the cold hard machinery of a camera. But what we normally find is that when humans see ghosts, they don't show up on camera, and when cameras record ghosts, humans don't see them. The most obvious reason would be that they don't record images the same way.

However, I must tell you of the time I saw a ghost. I wanted to take a picture and the ghost just sat there obligingly waiting for me to snap the shot, but alas, the batteries in my camera had died. That's right. The spirit was willing but the flash was weak.
 
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