Extraordinary Evidence for Ghosts?

[Nucular]

Although I don't find this photo particularly convincing, I have no techknowhow in this area, other than spotting the bleedin obvious.

So what would be interesting to me would be if someone with PSP genius (and there are several on this board) would replicate it, negative and all?

Ashles, I'm looking at you. Have you disappeared again?

It'd be pretty useful to post on the original thread too.

Edited after several pieces of jigsaw popped into place in my head... I'm also looking directly at treb & smike! Our resident Santa's elves!

 

[Nucular]

One thing to bear in mind with digital cameras is that they are also capable of taking pictures of infra-red light sources.
If you have a camera on your mobile (cell) phone, try pointing an IR remote at it and press a button, you should see a rapid flashing light.

I read that on this very board some time ago, and wasted about a day being inordinately impressed with the phenomenon.

If may be that some modern ghost photos are just IR sources that only resolve once the photo has been taken, as IR is invisible to the naked eye.

Such as which sources? Presumably you can't mean this one, but I can think of lots of ones which could be, assuming potential sources could be postulated.

 

[Nucular]

Eyewitness accounts are unreliable, taking the old example of comparing eyewitness accounts for insurance claims, or the amount of beer I've actually drunk compared to how much my friend thinks I have (she estimated about 4 pints more than I'd actually drunk one night).

Or did you estimate 4 pints fewer than you'd actually drunk that night? After all, it was you that was drinking them

I've been rumbled several times swearing blind I never had X amount of beer, and then having it painstakingly proved to me. That kind of example, though, as you used it, is a good one to point out the fallibility of memory - especially when you're drunkenly debating next time you're out with the very people who proved it in the first place

 

[RandFan]

Otherwise... whatever this photo is of, I don't think it was Photoshopped. For example, the raw data has no mention of any editting by any program. Of course, that doesn't mean anything, either. But don't even scanners put a tag into the raw data? I'm not sure.

My opinion, it's Photoshopped and not impressive at all. When I copy and paste to Photoshop the image is heavily pixelated and there is not enough data to tell much. However all of the effects can be done with erasser, layers, chanells, filters, oppacity setting, etc. It's crap.

 

[Yeah_Right]

Does anyone have a theory explaining why ghosts of humans look human?

I'm asking in all seriousness. Why should a ghost, whatever it is, whatever it is made of, look vaguely human?

I always assumed they look human because they're supposedly the spirit of a human. Or, rather, the person faking the photo presumes a human shape.

 

[Outhere]

What Evidence of Ghosts is Acceptable

If a ghost is a spirit, it probably couldn't be photographed at all. I've been doing some circular reasoning and come to the conclusion that there is no proof that a ghost could offer that could be accepted scientifically, because if you can photograph, record, or otherwise document them, then they must be fakes--which must be very frustrating for a ghost.

Case is similar to that of angels. A Catholic trying to convince a skeptic gave him this description of an angel. It is a purely spiritual being that has no physical body, no gender, size, weight, shape, or color. The skeptic replied, "That's the best definition of nothing I ever heard."

 

[Starthinker]

The telltale sign of a fake in this photograph is the corner of the trim on the floor at the top of the stairs. The left wall is lit up, the back wall isn't. The ghost is before the corner. Try lighting a candle in a corner. Notice how it lights up BOTH walls? So how come only one wall is lit up? Impossible. The same false shading can be seen on the railing and in the wooden parts of the window behind the figure.

Having said all that I don't think it's a digital manipulation. In the days long before digital photography we had a thing called a Retouching Machine. My mom and sister both retouched for the local big-time photographer and on practice negatives I would play with it and make all kinds of effects. The thing about negatives is the darker one area is the lighter it is in the positive, it's a technique of adding color to subtract color. You can also manipulate color this way and there are no pixels to worry about. I think this person is using a retouching technique that many armchair digital photographers just don't know about since they've never worked with an actual negative. Here is one exactly like the one stashed away in my attic: Retouching Machine If you note, it vibrates at different rates to hide brush strokes.

 

[RandFan]

Having said all that I don't think it's a digital manipulation.

I don't see anything that couldn't have been done in Photoshop. I'm not an artist but I think I could demonstrate the same effects. It wouldn't look as good but the transluecency, color, I could do that.

 

[Yeah_Right]

The telltale sign of a fake in this photograph is the corner of the trim on the floor at the top of the stairs. The left wall is lit up, the back wall isn't. The ghost is before the corner. Try lighting a candle in a corner. Notice how it lights up BOTH walls? So how come only one wall is lit up? Impossible. The same false shading can be seen on the railing and in the wooden parts of the window behind the figure.

Having said all that I don't think it's a digital manipulation. In the days long before digital photography we had a thing called a Retouching Machine. My mom and sister both retouched for the local big-time photographer and on practice negatives I would play with it and make all kinds of effects. The thing about negatives is the darker one area is the lighter it is in the positive, it's a technique of adding color to subtract color. You can also manipulate color this way and there are no pixels to worry about. I think this person is using a retouching technique that many armchair digital photographers just don't know about since they've never worked with an actual negative. Here is one exactly like the one stashed away in my attic: Retouching Machine If you note, it vibrates at different rates to hide brush strokes.

Interesting critique, although the guy says that he gets his pitures developed at Walgreens. Though he does do some photography for weddings on an amateur basis, he claims to only develop black and white photos since colour is expensive.

 

[Starthinker]

Interesting critique, although the guy says that he gets his pitures developed at Walgreens. Though he does do some photography for weddings on an amateur basis, he claims to only develop black and white photos since colour is expensive.

But that's my point. You get your film developed, take the negative and paint on it, and get your film developed again and viola! a ghost. Film never touches a computer.

 

[RandFan]

Film never touches a computer.

It's empirical that at some point that it does, right? I mean I am seeing this on the monitor. As to what this guy says, I would take a skeptical viewpoint to any such testimony.

 

[Starthinker]

It's empirical that at some point that it does, right? I mean I am seeing this on the monitor. As to what this guy says, I would take a skeptical viewpoint to any such testimony.

Well, yeah, after the fact he scans and posts them. But he would still have the negative and possibly a new negative to show it wasn't digitally manipulated. Of course, it was manipulated, just not on a computer.

The main point is this: You don't need a computer to fake a ghost picture and in my opinion this was a negative manipulation. I could be wrong, but it has all the signs, especially if you have done this yourself, as I have. (If you look at the negative the redness on the trim and railing doesn't seem to fit the pallet and the "ghost" looks added to the negative, some other old-school retouchers may want to chime in here.) To display it you would have to scan it, but by then the change is made so while everyone is looking for signs of digital changes he's laughing because there aren't any.

 

[RandFan]

Well, yeah, after the fact he scans and posts them. But he would still have the negative and possibly a new negative to show it wasn't digitally manipulated. Of course, it was manipulated, just not on a computer.

The main point is this: You don't need a computer to fake a ghost picture and in my opinion this was a negative manipulation. I could be wrong, but it has all the signs, especially if you have done this yourself, as I have. (If you look at the negative the redness on the trim and railing doesn't seem to fit the pallet and the "ghost" looks added to the negative, some other old-school retouchers may want to chime in here.) To display it you would have to scan it, but by then the change is made so while everyone is looking for signs of digital changes he's laughing because there aren't any.

Understood. Thanks for the response. I couldn't say for certain and I never did any non-digital retouching or manipulation. It looks digital to me but I will let it go. The important point IMO is that this digital version is worthless as proof of anything.

 

[luchog]

Although I don't find this photo particularly convincing, I have no techknowhow in this area, other than spotting the bleedin obvious.

Being a former Fine-Art Photography major, I do have several years worth of technical experience in just this area. Faking a picture of that nature, in camera is, not trival, but not difficult either. Any second-year student should be able to manage without a modicum of effort.

Faking it in the darkroom is trivial; and snapping a copy negative of the result is even easier. And that is precisely what this looks like. The colour and nature of the "ghost" is far too strongly reminiscent of certain colour darkroom process artifacts.

I can think of two different ways I could fake this, with maybe an hour's worth of work, tops (not including processing time).

Well, yeah, after the fact he scans and posts them. But he would still have the negative and possibly a new negative to show it wasn't digitally manipulated. Of course, it was manipulated, just not on a computer.

The main point is this: You don't need a computer to fake a ghost picture and in my opinion this was a negative manipulation. I could be wrong, but it has all the signs, especially if you have done this yourself, as I have. (If you look at the negative the redness on the trim and railing doesn't seem to fit the pallet and the "ghost" looks added to the negative, some other old-school retouchers may want to chime in here.) To display it you would have to scan it, but by then the change is made so while everyone is looking for signs of digital changes he's laughing because there aren't any.

Nice to see someone else with experience confirm this (I wish i'd had one of those retouching machines for the lab i worked in).

When I was young, my brother and I used to create fake ghost pictures for fun. We never tried to pass them off as real, it was just a couple kids goofing around with special effects. Most of our efforts looked more realistic than this.

 

[SirPhilip]

Believe it or not, I saw something like that when I was five hiding in a closet playing hide and seek inside my house that was part of a cathedral, except it was a blue head, with a smaller hue and no white, sticking out of the wall as clear as day. It also seemed to lightly illuminate the clothes hanging nearby. Frozen solid, I heroically turned my head away and grimaced, and turned back, to my horror it was still there. I distinctly remember not knowing whether to attack it or bolt (fight or flight?). The cosmic irony of this was it was what got me interested in the natural world, I wanted to sleep at night. And that wasn't happening if packets of glowing gas shaped like human heads existed as natural phenomena. I know what you're thinking, and this is a woo subject, and assuming it was even a real phenomena, implies a host of things. But that memory is still burned into my neurons, and I've tried for the life of me to understand how my imagination may have projected itself like that. My opinion: assuming that isn't an intentional fraud, perhaps it is some sort of (hot non-baryonic?) matter that leaves no trace of itself when not in some kind of visible state. Personally, I still don't know what to make of it. Whatever it is - it is impossible to differentiate from a real event (glowing gas, in this case). One thing that does substantiate it, perhaps the only thing, is the color - it is consistently observed to be blue or with a white hue.

 

[Garrette]

Whatever it is - it is impossible to differentiate from a real event (glowing gas, in this case)

I think the key point is that the photo is impossible to differentiate from an easily faked event.

One thing that does substantiate it, perhaps the only thing, is the color - it consistently observed to be blue or with a white hue.

I see nothing in that statement to add credibility to the claims of actual ghosts.

 

[SirPhilip]

I don't see anything that couldn't have been done in Photoshop. I'm not an artist but I think I could demonstrate the same effects. It wouldn't look as good but the transluecency, color, I could do that.

Yeah, that isn't even in question. It would be a very simple 20 minute job in Photoshop, if even that.

 

[SirPhilip]

Well, it appears to be made of mass, and it's glowing, and the light is obviously lighting the room up a bit.

I'm confused though. It seems to be giving off an amazing amount of light by the look of it. I mean, if I gave off that much light, you'd think that the walls would be brighter than the touch-ups this guy gave it.

An excellent question. I wonder what Randi would have said in the same position. Interestingly, the light given off seems to be in the same glow-to-reflection ratio that I saw. So what possible explanation is there? The only one I could imagine is that somehow solar derived non-baryonic matter is utilized by living things, and physiological differences account for it being visible under certain conditions. Of course, you then have to explain
how it maintains it's shape like that, is upright, and has a long half-life and other unique properties that allow it to behave like that. But even with that said, the phenomena seems to be nothing more than a form of matter with unique properties changing into a different state.

 

[Garrette]

Interestingly, the light given off seems to be in the same glow-to-reflection ratio that I saw. So what possible explanation is there? The only one I could imagine is that somehow solar derived non-baryonic matter is utilized by living things, and physiological differences account for it being visible under certain conditions.

You're just making stuff up, right?

Why in the world say "non-baryonic" other than to sound as if you know what you're talking about?

It makes no sense and adds no value in the analysis of this photo.

You could say with as much relevance "non-potatoish matter is utilized by living things..."

 

[SirPhilip]

I think the key point is that the photo is impossible to differentiate from an easily faked event.

Indeed.

I see nothing in that statement to add credibility to the claims of actual ghosts.

If something is observed consistently behaving a certain way, and having certain characteristics, it becomes one of two things:

1) The result of some type of common psychological abberation.

2) An objective, real phenomena that leaves no trace of itself.