Do you believe in ghosts? The Loch Ness monster? Aliens? Shrimps? Once I thought all of these were fictional. But now I am made to wonder… So first, oh ye of little faith, I would like to make it known that the following photographs are not “fixed”. They have not been digitally manipulated, airbrushed or painted in any way other than as described. Here lies my own evidence for the existence of… ghosts!

There I was, minding my own business, taking photos in the twilight part of the evening, leading to night. I was experimenting with surreality and long-exposure, as one does. Not noticing anything strange I continued with my work and returned to my computer to upload the photos…

A pleasing set of results… But one photo in particular caught my eye! This image is seen below, cropped, but with no other adjustments made (lighting, colours, tones etc. as is).

“What be that?”, thought I. “A strange misty shape! I could have sworn that this was my test exposure. A photo in which I was not a part. Let me crop and zoom further, and adjust the levels to brighten this strange apparition.” Which is exactly what was done. The resulting image can be seen below, with no other adjustments than further cropping and levels adjustment…

*gasp* ‘Tis a ghost to be sure. To me, the following aspects are clearly visible. The shrouded head and shoulders, tightly hunched. A slightly redder ‘face’ can be seen inside the (brighter) hood. Also, a bony hand is there on the right hand side of the image, with arms raised to chin height ish. And with a little more imagination you can also see: the hooded, skeletal face of ‘death’ over the ghost’s left shoulder, the right-hand side of the image.

Unfortunately, the existence of shrimp is not proven by this image, a matter I am currently investigating.

So, do I really think it’s a ghost? Well I can’t see what else it could be, however I don’t believe it is a spiritual being which is haunting the alleys near my house. However, I can see much more clearly now why people reckon they have taken photos of ghosts or monsters, when no other explanations seem viable…

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”

- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Further analysis:

• The phenomenon must be in the foreground, not the background because of the lamp light shining on it (see positioning of lamp-post).
• My own theory is that it is the motion blur of leaves in the image. However, why is it not then present on all other images taken in that location? And the pattern does not seem like one leaves in the wind would make.
• It has been suggested that the form is caused by ‘flies flying around’ during the long exposure. I do not beleive this to be the case because the night was far too cold for flies, and they would have had to be some pretty damn big flies to make lines like that. The shape also does not resemble the pattern of flies in flight. Furthermore, would they not be closer to the bulb of the street light anyway?

What do you think? Please leave your thoughts in a comment…