Are Ghosts And Angels Real? 23 Times Spirits Were Allegedly Caught On Camera

Attempt to capture images of ghosts or spirits

Spirit photograph by Édouard Isidore Buguet

Spirit photography (as well called ghost photography) is a type of photography whose primary goal is to capture images of ghosts and other spiritual entities, particularly in ghost hunting. It dates back to the belatedly 19th century. The end of the American Civil State of war and the mid-19th Century Spiritualism motility contributed profoundly to the popularity of spirit photography. Photographers such as William Mumler and William Hope ran thriving businesses taking photos of people with their supposed dead relatives. Both were shown to be frauds, merely "truthful believers", such every bit Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, refused to have the evidence every bit proof of a hoax.

Equally cameras became available to the general public, ghost photographs became common due to natural camera artifacts such equally wink reflecting off grit particles, a camera strap or hair shut to the lens, lens flare, pareidolia, or in modern times, deceptions using smart phone applications that add ghosts images to existing photographs.

History [edit]

The-Ghost-in-the-Stereoscope-Stereoview-Card

The kickoff practical photography, introduced in 1839, used the process called daguerreotype, and spirits were never captured.^[one] Co-ordinate to Owen Davies in The Haunted: A Social History of Ghosts, ghost photography started with photographic experimentation using people standing in front of and behind glass windows or noting that the long exposures required at the time would often result in transparent images when people or animals left the frame during the exposure. Sir David Brewster, in 1856, recognized that these furnishings could be used to deliberately create ghostly pictures. The London Stereoscopic Company decided to use Brewster's idea and created a serial of images called "The Ghost in the Stereoscope".^[2] But information technology was not until glass plate negatives were used circa 1859, making double images possible, that spirits began to regularly appear in photographs.^[i]

From the 1860s on, the spirit photographers were no longer using the long exposures and double images previously used but instead what looked similar cut out faces and bodies from magazines to represent disembodied figures.^[2] By the 1880s, equally more than people endemic cameras, spirit photography boomed.^[3] Information technology didn't start to turn down until the 1920s afterward skeptics such equally Harry Houdini tried to annul spiritualistic fraud.^[1]

Spirit photographers [edit]

An American jewelry engraver and apprentice lensman named William Mumler published, in 1862, a photo of what was purportedly the spirit of his cousin, who had died 12 years before. The media awareness that this caused, led Mumler to exit engraving and to begin a successful business as a "Spirit Photographic Medium", which he ready in New York and Boston servicing those hoping to detect a supernatural connection with relatives killed in the American Civil War.^{[2] [iii]}

One of Mumler's virtually famous images is a photograph of Mary Todd Lincoln posed with the purported spirit of her assassinated married man.^[iv] The credible spirits that Mumler had captured were double exposures of previous clients from photographic plates that were improperly cleaned.^[v] In 1869, Mumler'south fraud was discovered and he was charged. He was acquitted, still, despite the testify provided that 1 of his so-called spirits was shown to be still alive.^[2] P.T. Barnum, who testified against Mumler, was one of his outspoken critics, declaring he was taking advantage of people'due south grief. Mumler later moved on to doing regular photography.^[iii]

Apparent ghost photographs taken by William H. Mumler

• 

  The original self portrait of William Mumler allegedly featuring the ghost of his cousin

• 

  Circa 1868

• 

  Circa 1871

This photograph of the Library in Combermere Abbey was taken by Sybell Corbet in 1891

Spirit photography started appearing in England in 1872 from photographer Fredrick Hudson'due south studios.^[2] He allegedly "gimmicked" his camera to concord a pre-exposed prototype that would move into identify when he took his photo.^[4]

In 1875, Édouard Buguet, a French spirit photographer, who also had a studio in London, was arrested in Paris and prosecuted for fraud after making a full confession. He simulated spirits by wrapping dolls in gauze and attaching photos of faces onto them. His confession was widely publicized in the French and English language press.^[2]

In 1891 one of the almost famous spirit photographs was taken by Sybell Corbet. She took a photo of the library at Combermere Abbey in Cheshire, England in which appeared the "...faint outline of a man'due south head, collar and correct arm". The figure was believed to exist the ghost of Lord Combermere who had recently died and was being cached at the time the photo was taken. Because the exposure was ane hour, information technology was believed by skeptics that someone, maybe a servant, had walked into the room and paused, causing the ghostly outline.^[3]

One of the well-nigh famous photographers at the turn of the century was William Hope. In February 1922, Harry Price from the Society for Psychical Research, a magician named Seymour, Eric J. Dingwall and William S. Marriott showed Hope to be a fraud. They devised a plan where they presented Hope with glass negatives that had secretly been marked with X-rays. The returned plate containing the spirit had no markings. Price wrote his findings in the Journal of the Lodge for Psychical Inquiry. Despite this proof, prominent spiritualists, such every bit Arthur Conan Doyle, claimed the report was a part of a conspiracy confronting Hope.^[six] Hope had connected success despite the evidence against him.^[3] Paranormal investigator Massimo Polidoro said that the instance of William Hope and his followers demonstrate how difficult it can be to convince true believers, even when there is strong evidence of fraud.^[six]

Other spirit photographers exposed equally frauds include David Duguid and Edward Wyllie.^{[7] [8]} Ronald Pearsall exposed the tricks of spirit photography in his volume The Table-Rappers (1972).^[ix]

Early books [edit]

There were several books published defending the possibility of spirit photography. Amidst the notable books were The Case for Spirit Photography by Arthur Conan Doyle, published in 1922 where Doyle attempted to defend William Promise and his Crewe Circle, a well known spiritualist grouping of the fourth dimension.^[10] Other spiritualists who authored books supporting spirit photography were Georgiana Houghton who wrote Chronicles of the Photographs of Spiritual Beings and Phenomena Invisible to the Cloth Eye (1882) and James Coates who wrote Photographing the Invisible (1911).^{[11] [12]}

Ghost photography [edit]

Paranormal investigator Joe Nickell makes a distinction between spirit photography and ghost photography in his book The Science of Ghosts: Searching for Spirits of the Dead, stating that spirit photography began in studios and eventually included ghosts photographed in séance rooms, whereas ghost photographs were taken in places that were considered haunted. Nickell states "...whereas spirit photos were invariably charlatans' productions, ghost photos could either be faked or announced inadvertently - every bit by reflection, accidental double exposure, or the like."^[4]

Once portable cameras became available to amateurs towards the end of the 1880s ghost photos became more than frequent. In more modernistic times, cameras with built in flashes produced what some believed to be ectoplasm, or "orbs".^[four] Virtually ghost photos fall into one of two categories. They are either hazy, indistinct shapes that wait human being or orbs that are usually white and round. Both can easily exist purposefully or accidentally created.^{[13] [fourteen]}

Mod claims [edit]

Photograph anomalies have e'er been nowadays in photography but in the 1990s television shows such as Ghost Hunters claimed the abnormalities represented proof of the afterlife. In his volume Investigating Ghosts: The Scientific Search for Spirits Ben Radford states that most prove of ghosts in photographs or video are "...brief, ambiguous anomalies recorded with low-quality camera (or good-quality cameras sabotaged past low light conditions)." Radford believes that with camera technology advancing, especially with smart phones, at that place should be clearer, sharper images of ghosts. But the photos remain depression quality and vague.^[five]

"Orbs" [edit]

So what would be good photographic proof of ghosts? An authentic photograph of anyone built-in before the invention of photography would be a good first: Benjamin Franklin, William Shakespeare, or any of thousands of other people for whom we have a good record of their likeness but no photograph. Only 1 such photo would exist more convincing than a m glowing blobs. Unfortunately, all the ghost photos offered so far are indistinguishable from intentional fakes and optical mistakes.

Benjamin Radford, Skeptical Inquirer, Ghost Photos:Scams, Slipups, and Spirits, Nov iii, 2006

Low-cal reflecting off dust particles

According to University of Westminster professor Annette Hill, unusual lite sources were oftentimes interpreted as "ghost lights" in spirit photography. Hill says that with the advent of digital photography, "the ghost light is re-imagined as an orb", and many paranormal-themed websites show pictures containing visual artifacts they refer to as "orbs" that are claimed and debated as evidence of spirit presence, specially among ghost hunters.^{[15] [16] [17] [18]}

However, such common visual artifacts are just a result of flash photography reflecting low-cal off solid particles, such as dust, pollen, insects or liquid particles, specially rain, or even foreign cloth inside the photographic camera lens. These effects are especially common with modernistic compact and ultra-compact digital cameras. Fujifilm describes the artifacts as a common photographic problem.^{[19] [xx] [viii] [21]}

Causes for apparent ghost photographs [edit]

A circular shape created using calorie-free painting

Insect flights in the dark in front end of a spotlight HP L7869

Co-ordinate to Kenny Biddle and Joe Nickell in their article So You Accept a Ghost In Your Photo, "Asserting that a particular image must be paranormal because it is unexplained only constitutes an instance of the logical fallacy called arguing from ignorance." They explain that the flash reflecting off a camera strap can produce a brilliant, white strand or a "spiralling vortex of spirit free energy" depending upon the cloth the strap is made from. Other ghostly images tin can upshot from strands of hair, jewelry or flying insects. A wink illuminating a person's breath, in cold weather, cigarette smoke or fog can look like "ectoplasmic mist". Long exposures, normally several seconds, can crusade ethereal, see-through shapes or streaks of lines caused when the camera moves or if the object moves during the exposure.^[1]

Ben Radford, in his volume "Big - If Truthful: Adventures in Oddity" includes the miracle called pareidolia, the tendency for people to come across faces or animals in things such as clouds, tree trunks or food, equally an explanation for finding ghosts in photographs. Shadows from trees, uneven surfaces, reflections of light from water or drinking glass tin can all brand usa see "faces". He notes that a ghosts elbow or human foot are rarely reported.^[13]

Modernistic ghost photographs [edit]

In 2016, tourist Henry Yau took a picture of a staircase with a ghostly effigy inside the Stanley Hotel in Colorado. The hotel is well known for its apparent hauntings. Several apprentice ghost hunters believe the photo to be unexplainable and believe that a ghost or perhaps two ghosts are at the acme of the stairs. According to paranormal investigator Kenny Biddle, the "ghosts" could have been created because the photographic camera was in panorama mode, which takes several seconds, and which can cause a double paradigm from the longer exposure. Biddle believes that the image represents the same person moving on the stairs. Ben Radford indicates that the style the woman on the stairs is dressed and the location add to the possibility that people will bound to the conclusion that the paranormal is at work. He states "she seems to be wearing a archetype black or dark apparel (as befits a fancy, well-known hotel); had she been wearing a xanthous blazer and carrying a large Target shopping bag speculations about her spectral origins would likely have been scuttled."^[22]

According to Biddle, author Tim Scullion claims that he has taken pictures of ghosts. Biddle explains that Scullion's ghosts are produced past using long exposures showing movement blur, light painting, dust particles catching light, lens flare, or past overlaying blurry faces on a night scene. This overlay was conspicuously evident due to the lack of image noise where the faces appear, compared to the rest of the photograph.^[23]

Retouching Desk circa 1870-1950

An onetime photograph taken in 1900 became pop inside the paranormal community after it was posted on the website Belfast.co.united kingdom of great britain and northern ireland in 2016 in a history section about old Belfast trades. The photo shows a grouping of Ulster girls from a linen manufactory. There is a mysterious, apparent ghostly hand sitting on the shoulder of i of the girls. The hand does not announced to belong to anyone in the picture. Biddle decided the photo was authentic and provides evidence that someone was virtually likely removed from the photo in his commodity The 'Ghost Manus' Of 1900 in Skeptical Inquirer. He describes how retouching photos past hand using a retouching desk-bound, cutting out objects and people, then filling them in with pencil or charcoal was not uncommon.^[24]

On August eighteen, 2020 a security firm received an alert at a construction site in Birmingham, England. On the monitor appeared the "ghostly" figure of a lone adult female in a white dress walking across the property. The image went "viral"^{[ description needed ]} and appeared in many tabloids such as the Mirror. Adam Lees, the managing director of a security firm who received the alert, stated "She's leaning forrard and seems to exist floating, and is holding something in her hands. To me information technology looks like she is wearing a wedding ceremony dress like she's waiting to get married. She looks like a ghostly bride." Biddle noted some unusual things with the image. The photographic camera level seemed too depression for a security camera, in that location were no dates or times on the image as would ordinarily be seen from security software, and the image was in colour except for the area around the adult female. Biddle surmised that the photographic camera was in an infrared night vision mode and a flash was fired, explaining the overexposure of the figure and the color baloney. Biddle reached out to Stewart Chapman, who had installed a permanent closed-circuit television arrangement above the other system, and had posted two screen shots of a girl in a crimson apparel showing it was not a ghost on the property but a drunken girl and her friend.^[25]

Ghost camera apps [edit]

Smartphone applications that place images of ghosts, aliens and monsters into actual pictures have been used for pranks or to effort to fool people into thinking they are real images of ghosts. The apps are customizable allowing the user to place the ghost anywhere within a photo, rotate it, adjust its transparency, and erase parts. In 2014, in that location were over 250 ghost related applications for Android phones, i of the most popular being GhostCam: Spirit Photography. This app was used in a hoax that was used to generate publicity. The group named Ghosts of New England Research Guild began publishing hoaxed ghost photos equally authentic, hoping to promote an episode of Discovery Channel's American Haunting that the group appeared in. The photo showed a ghostly effigy in a restaurant. Biddle spotted the forgery on Facebook and noticed that the "ghost" looked similar a well documented photograph called The Madonna of Bachelor's Grove taken past the Ghost Inquiry Club in 1991. It is unclear if the Ghosts of New England Enquiry Society posted the photos knowing they were hoaxes or if they were fooled by the eatery owner who sent them the photo. Information technology was determined that the app was using The Madonna of Available'due south Grove without permission and was removed after this incident.^[26]

Another app called Ghost Camera Prank was used by a ghost tour grouping Facebook page, challenge a client had taken it. Tkay Anderson, co-founder of the Facebook page At that place's a (ghost) App For That was able to find the specific ghost used in the faked photo. Other clues were that the "ghost" was sharper than the rest of the picture, the ghost was blackness and white while the rest of the picture was in color and the ghost was calculated to be about 11 feet tall.^[26]

As of 2018, the appeal and novelty of the Ghost cam apps has begun to wearable off, although at that place are still people who will attempt to pass off the results of these apps equally authentic. Pranksters volition try to fool their friends or families but sometimes the prank tin become too far when their targets believe the hoax is truthful. Others, such equally the owners of pubs, hotels or ghost hunting tours volition try to profit from the photos by increasing their clientele or raising their prices.^[27]

See also [edit]

• Kirlian photography
• Hidden mother photography
• Spiritualist fine art
• Thoughtography

References [edit]

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Biddle, Kenny; Nickell, Joe (August 2020). "So Yous Have A Ghost In Your Photo". Skeptical Inquirer. Archived from the original on July xv, 2020. Retrieved January twenty, 2021.
2. ^ ^{a b c d east f} Davies, Owen (2007). The Haunted: A Social History of Ghosts. Houndsmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire and New York: Palgrave MacMillan. pp. 201–204. ISBN978-one-4039-3924-1.
3. ^ ^{a b c d e} Timberlake, Howard (June thirty, 2015). "The intriguing history of ghost photography". BBC. Archived from the original on Dec 24, 2019. Retrieved Jan 16, 2021.
4. ^ ^{a b c d} Nickell, Joe (2012). The Scientific discipline of Ghosts: Searching for Spirits of the Dead. New York: Prometheus Books. pp. 297–305. ISBN978-1-61614-585-9.
5. ^ ^{a b} Radford, Benjamin (2017). Investigating Ghosts: The Scientific Search for Spirits. U.s.a.: Cataloguing-in-Publication Information. pp. 124–143. ISBN978-0-9364-5516-7.
6. ^ ^{a b} Polidoro, Massimo (Baronial 2011). "Photos Of Ghosts: The Burden Of Believing The Unbelievable". Skeptical Inquirer. Archived from the original on August 12, 2020. Retrieved January 18, 2021.
7. ^ Nickell, Joe (2001). Existent-Life X-Files: Investigating the Paranormal. Kentucky: The University Press of Kentucky. pp. 260–261. ISBN9780813122106.
8. ^ ^{a b} Nickell, Joe (2005). Camera Clues: A Handbook for Photographic Investigation. Kentucky: The Academy Printing of Kentucky. p. 151. ISBN9780813191249.
9. ^ Pearsall, Ronald (1972). The Table-Rappers: The Victorians and the Occult. Book Club Associates. pp. 118–125. ISBN9780718106454.
10. ^ "The Case for Spirit Photography - The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia". www.arthur-conan-doyle.com . Retrieved 2021-01-18 .
11. ^ Houghton, Georgiana (1882). Chronicles Of The Photographs Of Spiritual Beings.
12. ^ Coates, James (1911). Photographing the Invisible. Knuckles University Libraries. Chicago, Ill., Advanced thought pub. co.
13. ^ ^{a b} Radford, Benjamin (2020). Big-If Truthful: Adventures in Oddity. New Mexico, USA: Rhombus Publishing Company. p. 100. ISBN978-0-9364-5517-four.
14. ^ Radford, Benjamin (2006-11-03). "Ghost Photos: Scams, Slipups, and Spirits". Skeptical Inquirer. Archived from the original on January 18, 2021. Retrieved Jan xviii, 2021.
15. ^ Loma, Annette (2010). Paranormal Media: Audiences, Spirits and Magic in Popular Culture. Usa and Canada: Routledge. p. 45. ISBN9781136863189.
16. ^ Wagner, Stephen (29 Jan 2017). "Why Orbs in Pictures Are Not Proof of the Paranormal". ThoughtCo . Retrieved 27 June 2017.
17. ^ Heinemann, Klaus (2007). The Orb Projection. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 23. ISBN9781416575535.
18. ^ Radford, Benjamin (2017). "Orbs as Plasma Life". Skeptical Inquirer. 41 (5): 28–29.
19. ^ "Flash reflections from floating dust particles". Fujifilm.com. Fuji Film. Archived from the original on July 27, 2005. Retrieved 19 June 2017.
20. ^ Baron, Cynthia (2008). Adobe Photoshop Forensics: Sleuths, Truths, and Fauxtography. Us: Thomson Course Technology. p. 310. ISBN9781598634051.
21. ^ Dunning, Brian (February 24, 2007). "Skeptoid #29: Orbs: The Ghost in the Camera". Skeptoid . Retrieved June 15, 2017.
22. ^ Radford, Benjamin (Apr xix, 2016). "Is Mysterious Figure at Stanley Hotel a Ghost?". livescience. Archived from the original on April 24, 2016. Retrieved January nineteen, 2021.
23. ^ Biddle, Kenny (September 10, 2018). "'Breakthrough Ghost Photography' Falls Short Of A Quantum". Skeptical Inquirer. Archived from the original on Apr thirty, 2020. Retrieved January 17, 2021.
24. ^ Biddle, Kenny (October 28, 2020). "The 'Ghost Mitt' Of 1900". Skeptical Inquirer. Archived from the original on Nov 1, 2020. Retrieved January xix, 2020.
25. ^ Biddle, Kenny (September 1, 2020). ""Ghostly Bride" Caught On Construction Site Not A Ghost". Skeptical Inquirer. Archived from the original on January 20, 2021. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
26. ^ ^{a b} Biddle, Kenny (Oct 19, 2014). "Instant paranormal: The ubiquitous utilize of photographic camera apps". The James Randi Educational Foundation. Archived from the original on Oct 21, 2014. Retrieved January 20, 2021.
27. ^ Biddle, Kenny (Oct 25, 2018). "App-Aritions Are Still Causing Trouble". Skeptical Inquirer. Archived from the original on January 30, 2020. Retrieved January 20, 2021.

Further reading [edit]

• James Blackness (1922). The spirit-photograph fraud: The show of trickery, and a demonstration of the tricks employed. Scientific American, 127, 224–225, 286.
• Kaplan Louis (2008). The Foreign Case of William Mumler, Spirit Photographer. University of Minnesota Press.
• Cyril Permutt (1983). Beyond the Spectrum: Survey of Supernormal Photography Patrick Stephens Publishers Ltd; 1st edition ISBN 0-85059-620-three
• Walter Franklin Prince (1925, December). My doubts about spirit photographs. Scientific American, 133, 370–371.

External links [edit]

• Principles of Curiosity with Brian Dunning showing how orbs tin can be created. (31:00)
• George Eastman Museum Spirit Photography: History and Cosmos

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_photography

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