by Joan Seth
Our previous topic, Top 10 Best Ghost Photos Ever has been the of our most popular postings on Asia Paranormal. Finally we have decided to do a sequel article due to popular demand. Let us take a look at 10 more ghostly photographs.
1. The Eastern State Penitentiary Ghost
These two photos were taken in 1988 at the Hotel Vierjahreszeiten in Maurach, Austria. Several vacationers gathered for a farewell party at the hotel and decided to take a group photo. One of the party, Mr. Todd, set up is Canon film camera on a nearby table and pointed it at the group. (The table is the white band at the bottom of the photos.) He set the self-timer on the camera and hurried back to the table. The shutter clicked and the film wound forward, but the flash did not fire. So Todd set the camera for a second shot. This time the flash fired.
The film was later developed, and it wasn't until one of party members was viewing the photos that it was noticed that the first (non-flash) photo showed a somewhat blurry extra head! (In the sequence above, the second (flash) photo is actually shown first for the sake of comparison.) No one recognized the ghostly woman, and they could not imagine how her image appeared in the picture. Besides being a bit out of focus, the woman's head is also too large compared to the other vacationers, unless she is sitting closer to the camera, which would put her in the middle of the table.
The photo was examined by the Royal Photographic Society, the photographic department of Leicester University, and the Society for Psychical Research, all of which ruled out a double exposure as the cause.
2. The Toys 'R' Us Ghost
The Toys 'R' Us in Sunnyvale, CA, is home to a spirit named John, and that's him leaning against the wall in the photo above. This photo was taken during a TV filming of the show That's Incredible, and no one who was in the room at the time saw the man, yet he turned up on the infrared photograph.
Psychics like the renowned Sylvia Browne have visited the store multiple times and have conducted seances in which they found out John's name, etc. The story is that John was a preacher and a ranch hand back in the 1880's on the land where the store now sits. Reports of how he died vary, but the general consensus is that he bled to death while chopping wood.
Employees of the TRU say that John often plays pranks on them and on customers, including following people into the Ladies' room and turning on the water faucets, tossing dolls off the shelf, and whispering employees' names in their ear, only to have them turn and see no one standing near them.
3. Ghost of Grandpa
Denise Russell took this photo of her grandmother in 1997. Her granny lived independently into her 90's, and during a family picnic just before her death, Denise snapped this picture. No one noticed the man standing behind her grandmother for over three years, but when they finally noticed him they recognized him to be none other than Denise's grandfather, who had been dead since 1984.
Old black and white photos of her grandfather confirmed their suspicions.
4. Ghost Baby
In 1946, a woman named Mrs. Andrews took this picture of her deceased daughter's gravestone in Queensland, Australia. Her daughter had been just 17 when she'd died the previous year. When the film was developed, Mrs. Andrews was shocked to see the image of an infant girl looking directly into her camera.
There had been no children in the cemetery that day, and Mrs. Andrews didn't know any babies whose pictures she'd have taken with her camera. She also remarked that the child did not look like her own daughter when her daughter was an infant.
Years later, Australian paranormal researcher Tony Healy investigated the case and found the graves of two infant girls very near to Mrs. Andrews' daughter's grave.
5. Ghostly Farm Boy
Photographer Neil Sandbach was taking pictures around a farm in Hertfordshire, England, when he captured this astounding picture. When Sandbach looked at the digital photo later, he couldn't believe his eyes; he was certain that he had not overlooked a child hanging around the farm that day.
He later asked the farm owners if they'd ever had any supernatural experiences there (he did not tell them about the photo), and the owners confirmed that they had witnessed the specter of a boy in white night clothes many times before.
6. The Phantom Pilot
Mrs. Sayer and some friends were visiting the Fleet Air Arm Station at Yelverton, Somerset, England in 1987 when this photo was taken. They thought it would be cute to take a picture of her sitting in the seat of retired helicopter. No one, Mrs. Sayer insists, was sitting next to her in the pilot's seat... although a figure in a white shirt can clearly be seen sitting there. She told an investigator with the Society for Psychical Research that she remembered feeling rather cold sitting in that seat, even though it was a hot day. Other pictures taken at the same time did not come out.
Worth noting is that the helicopter was used in the Falklands War, but there is no information as to whether or not a pilot died in that aircraft.
7. Ghosts of the SS Watertown
James Courtney and Michael Meehan, crew members of the S.S. Watertown, were cleaning a cargo tank of the oil tanker as it sailed toward the Panama Canal from New York City in December of 1924. Through a freak accident, the two men were overcome by gas fumes and killed. As was the custom of the time, the sailors were buried at sea off the Mexican coast on December 4.
But this was not the last the remaining crew members were to see of their unfortunate shipmates. The next day, before dusk, the first mate reported seeing the faces of the two men in the waves off the port side of the ship. They remained in the water for 10 seconds, then faded. For several days thereafter, the phantom-like faces of the sailors were clearly seen by other members of the crew in the water following the ship.
On arrival in New Orleans, the ship's captain, Keith Tracy, reported the strange events to his employers, the Cities Service Company, who suggested he try to photograph the eerie faces. Captain Tracy purchased a camera for the continuing voyage. When the faces again appeared in the water, Captain Tracy took six photos, then locked the camera and film in the ship's safe. When the film was processed by a commercial developer in New York, five of the exposures showed nothing but sea foam. But the sixth showed the ghostly faces of the doomed seamen. The negative was checked for fakery by the Burns Detective Agency. After the ship's crew had been changed, there were no more reports of sightings.
8. Ghost of the Seven Gables
While touring the historic House of the Seven Gables in Salem, Massachusetts – the birthplace of American author Nathaniel Hawthorne – Lisa B. snapped this remarkable photo. The ghostly image of a small boy seems to be in the shrubbery, peering over the wooden fence.
The most amazing part of the story of this photograph is that she subsequently did some research about Hawthorne and the house. While looking through a library, she came across one of Hawthorne's books, Twenty Days with Julian & Little Bunny by Papa. On the cover of that book is a portrait of Hawthorne's five-year-old son, Julian. And as you'll see by clicking on the photo at left, the portrait of little Julian bears a striking resemblance to the ghost in Lisa's photograph.
9. Railroad Crossing Ghost
A strange legend surrounds a railroad crossing just south of San Antonio, Texas. The intersection of roadway and railroad track, so the story goes, was the site of a tragic accident in which several school-aged children were killed - but their ghosts linger at the spot and will push idled cars across the tracks, even though the path is uphill.
10. Ghostly Grip
This interesting photo was taken sometime around the year 2000 in Manilla, Republic of the Philippines. According to The Ghost Research Society, two girlfriends were out for a walk one warm night. One of them entreated a passing stranger to photograph them using her cell phone's camera (hence the low-resolution picture). The result is shown here, with a transparent figure seeming to tug on the girl's arm with a firm if friendly grip.
Without further information on this photo, we have to admit that the ghost could have been added with image processing software. But if it's genuine and untouched, it certainly qualifies as one of the best ghost photos.
Some pictures and text in this article are granted permission to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; and as such are reproduced in this article.
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