Ghost captured on camera phone? (1 Viewer)

[Seth--L]

Believing does not equal fact or makes something more likely, no matter how many people believe something. Putting religion, ghosts and UFOs aside, in recent polls 70% of the American public said that they believed there was evidence that proved Saddam helped mastermind 9/11, and that WMD have been found. The White House has clearly said both those statements are false.

[mods, please notice the wording, I'm not talking about absolutes or my opinion, just the facts as they stand as of October 19, 2003, 4:05pm EST]

 

[John_Berger]

But blindly dismissing something like ghosts does not mean that that something does NOT exist.

 

[Seth--L]

I'm not "blindly dismissing" anything.

1. I have not seen any evidence that suggests that ghosts should exists.

2. The only supposed pictures of ghosts that I've seen have been horribly photographed, making it unclear what I'm actually looking at, and raising doubt about their authenticity. Like I asked before, with the tens of millions of pictures taken daily, why is it that no one can manage to capture a decent quality picture of a ghost?

 

[John_Berger]

Like I asked before, with the tens of millions of pictures taken daily, why is it that no one can manage to capture a decent quality picture of a ghost?

I've actually seen some decent ones in publications from Time-Life and other reputable printers. Considering also that these photos are never expected, what do you want the people to do? "Okay, Mr. Ghost. Can you move a bit to the left ... a bit - no, that's too far. Now, back up a little."

 

[ChrisMatson]

There are no ghosts. Some people are open to suggestion. Given the circumstances, some people may believe they have witnessed some supernatural phenomenon.

 

[Dome Vongvises]

If we were to suppose that ghosts were to exist, how exactly does one go about scientifcially quantifying/qualifying such a thing? What kind of quantities would we measure, or what kind of qualities do we attribute to ghosts that make them different from other living/non-living beings?

Until we can answer those questions with some degree of satisfaction, I say we should hold off on the whole ghosts don't exist/do exist.

 

[Seth--L]

I don't understand how people eat them, they're so disgusting - but not nearly as bad as scrapple. The best food(s) unique to Philadelphia are Tasty Kake products.

 

[Steve_Tk]

If we were to suppose that ghosts were to exist, how exactly does one go about scientifcially quantifying/qualifying such a thing?

Duh, you catch one in a room where they can't escape of course. Then you disect them!

 

[John_Berger]

but not nearly as bad as scrapple. The best food(s) unique to Philadelphia are Tasty Kake products.

on both of those.

 

[ChrisMatson]

John_Berger,

There is no Santa, there is no Tooth Fairy or Easter Bunny, there is no Leprachaun's pot of gold waiting at the end of the rainbow and there are no ghosts.

Harry Houdini hunted for ghosts and was well known for debunking so-called "mediums" that held seances. He told his wife that if there was a way to contact her after he died, he would. They even had a code arranged so she would know it was him. Well, he never did contact her. There is an argument that the lack of evidence that ghosts exist is in fact evidence enough to show that they do not exist.

 

[John_Berger]

There is an argument that the lack of evidence that ghosts exist is in fact evidence enough to show that they do not exist.

I personally don't buy that argument for a second. There are many things that were thought to not have existed for a long time ... until the item/creature/scientific fact was found.

Or is the earth still flat?

EDIT: Whoops. I modifed my original post while Chris posted his response. My original statement was that I was not going to try to convince him that he was wrong and that I would like the same courtesy.

 

[ChrisMatson]

Fair enough.

 

[James T]

I've gone ghost hunting and I don't believe that that picture is real. Most of the stuff I see are just flying orbs or ectoplasm. The people that claim to see the casper type ghost are either alone or have no real clear pictures.

 

[Edwin-S]

I took another look at the picture. I think this thing is as phony as a three dollar bill. Looking at it from another angle (tilting your head to the left) the "ghost" starts to look like some kind of pony wall that they were standing near. The "arm" pops out in sharp relief against the blurry background. The more I look at that "arm", the more I think it has been drawn in with some kind of digital tool. The resolution is so poor, distant background details start to become a mass of unresolved shapes.

 

[Grant B]

I don't know but being an engineer most of my life, I have a hard time with anything I can't eat, touch or @#$%. My 1st time I had a strange experience was when I was 17 and was touring Europe. A friend of mine took a photo at a concentration camp and a very strange image was in the photo. He was the most honest person I knew and it was in the 70s which did not have photoshop.
An aunt who died contacted me before I even knew she died and then contacted my niece. I really dont understand but it's hard for me to dismiss those events.
Some people lie and others love to play jokes....taking that into account, I still think there is something there that cant be considered fact right now.

 

[Scott Leopold]

I always get a kick out of arguments over the existence or non-existence of ghosts. It's similar to the argument over whether there are bobcats in the state of Ohio. The official stance of the Ohio wildlife authorities (at least as of 10 years ago) is that there are absolutely no wild bobcats in Ohio. This knowledge didn't do me any good the night I ran off the road trying to avoid hitting a pair of them, and it didn't comfort my uncle and cousin any as they watched one rip their cooler to shreds while camping one weekend. When I called to report it, I was told that I was either seeing things or drunk. When my uncle reported it, they told him he was lying, and that the pictures he took were no proof because he could have doctored them or taken them in another state. Like the ghost argument, it basically came down to the people who experienced it believing they were real, while those who didn't insisting that the others were either lying, delusional, or that there was some other logical explanation.

That being said, in regards to the picture, I'll agree that it looks doctored. The arm looks too sharp and detailed in comparison to the rest of the picture to seem valid. However, that picture alone doesn't prove or disprove anything. I'm sure that for every genuine, inexplicable "ghostly" experience, there are 100 fakes, frauds, liars, and misinterpreted events.

Based on personal experience, I believe that ghosts exist. In fact, for me it's not a matter of believing, but knowing. I feel just as confident stating that they do exist as others do stating that they don't. While nobody I've spoken to has ever been able to explain away stuff that I've seen and witnessed, I've also not been able to convince anyone of their existence who didn't experience the same or similar things themselves. Sticking to the theme of photographic evidence (of which I personally don't have any), I'll just mention something I saw back in high school.

In my sophomore English composition class, one girl in my class did a report on the photographs of her great-grandmother. Her great-grandmother, a lifelong smoker, had died after a long, painful bout with lung cancer. Shortly after her great-grandmother's death, the family began experiencing some strange events. I don't recall anything she said about them, but I do remember the pictures quite vividly. The girl's mother had a box of photos in her bedroom closet. There was an old black-and-white snapshot of the great-grandmother that they had made multiple copies of years earlier to hand out to the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. After the great-grandmother's death, the girl got these photos out, and took the remaining stack of the copies of the picture of her great-grandmother, put a rubber band around them, and put them in a box on her dresser.

For several months after her great-grandmother's death, she'd look through the stack of pictures on a regular basis. There were about fifteen identical pictures, but she liked flipping through them just to reminisce about her great-grandmother. A few months after the death, she noticed that several of the pictures had changed slightly. The first and last pictures in the stack still looked the same, but in the inside pictures, there now appeared to be smoke coming up out of the great-grandmother's blouse. The amount of smoke grew slightly over a couple weeks, and then for a while nothing happened. She quit checking the pictures for a few weeks, and when she next checked them, they were drastically different. The pictures appeared to go in sequence. The first and last were still unchanged. The next photo had the smoke coming up out of the great-grandmother's blouse. Each successive picture had a greater amount of smoke. The great-grandmother's blouse also gradually changed from white with black dots, to black with white dots. The most drastic change was the great-grandmother's face, which became more emaciated and skeletal in each successive picture (although also progressively obscured by smoke). In the middle picture, the blouse was all black, except for a few polka-dots. The head appeared to be nothing more than a skull. The smoke had pooled into a thick cloud over the great-grandmother's head. After this picture, the sequence went in reverse until the final picture, which was also unchanged.

The girl brought these pictures in as a visual aid to go along with her report. I got to examine them up close afterwards. They were not damaged in any way. The backgrounds in all of the pictures were identical, as was the position of the great-grandmother. The girl didn't strike me as being at all capable of doctoring 20+ year old photos (they had been taken and duplicated in the early 60's). The effects in the pictures did not appear to be the result of any sort of natural fading, damage, or doctoring of any sort. While I wouldn't necessarily say the resulting photos were the work of a ghost, I personally can't think of a plausible explanation for their appearance. Add in the odd occurrences the girl and her family had been experiencing, and it made for an unsettling and thought-provoking experience.

 

[Peter Apruzzese]

It sounds like the rubber band was outgassing (or triggered it by pushing the photos together rigidly - the center photo was probably improperly processed and still had the fixer in it) an acidic substance and it affected the photos.

 

[Max Leung]

Scott, you could take the photos to an expert, preferably someone who develops photos the old-fashioned way. And get a second opinion.

 

[Max Leung]

Some research has been done that may explain why some people experience "ghostly manifestations" while others don't. I think the best explanation comes from the neuroscientists who are exploring the effects of hallucinagenics, studying the mentally ill, and applying electromagnetic fields directly into the brain.

All schizophrenics report manifestations that can be unambiguously interpreted as supernatural. Voices, apparitions, the feeling of a presence in the same room, etc. Hallucinagens also have the same effect in many people.

Emotional stress, malnutrition, and sleep deprivation are also big factors. Hell, I can make myself "see" ghosts by taking wake up pills and force myself to stay awake for several days straight.

And I must mention the experiments scientists have done by applying an electromagnetic field into a person's brain through a special helmet. A statistically significant number of people reported the feeling of a "presence" in the room when wearing the helmet, even though no one else was in the room.

Susceptibility to ghostly visions seems to have roots in brain chemistry, in varying degrees in each person depending on environmental factors.

 

[Kevin P]

Well, the consensus seems to be that the pic is fake. I actually found the link on another forum I hang out on, which deals with the supernatural, and has many members who are supposedly sensitive to paranormal phenomena. Even the owner of that forum says this picture is fake.

I'm a believer though. I've never seen a ghost, but I have felt a presence or strange feeling when in places that are known to be haunted.