J.P. Doyle took this photograph of a tombstone in the graveyard at New York City's Trinity Church using a disposable camera on a partly cloudy day. The photographer claims there was no rain, fog, or mist when the picture was taken.
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J.P. Doyle took this photograph of a tombstone in the graveyard at New York City's Trinity Church using a disposable camera on a partly cloudy day. The photographer claims there was no rain, fog, or mist when the picture was taken. |
If at least some of these photos are genuine, what are they revealing?
Researchers
postulate that the cloudy matter is ectoplasm, a light-colored, viscous
substance that is
thought to be involved in the materialization of spiritual bodies. The
formation of
ectoplasm has been traditionally associated with a human communicator,
or medium,
who produces the substance from his or her own body. The human
intermediary was also
the traditional source of direct voice communication with the dead.
Today, that exclusive
role has been usurped, in part, by electrical devices such as tape
recorders, as used in the
taping of anomalous voices, or video and television equipment, as used
in
transcommunication. It could be speculated that the modern camera
is playing the same mediumistic role in today's spirit
photography.
T
he images on this page
represent only a fraction of the similar photos found on paranormal Web
sites. The
photographers who captured these images claim without fail that there
was no visible
smoke or fog at the time the pictures were taken. While the mystery fog
often appears on
pictures captured in cemeteries and other haunted sites (even Walt
Disney World's Haunted Mansion),
it is also
appears with regularity on average family photographs such as the one
below
right.
Mysterious smoky
shapes
appeared on this photo of a family Christmas taken during the late
1970s. According to
the photographer, no other picture on the roll was
affected.
It is easy to dismiss many of these images as the result of
atmospheric conditions, the photographer's frozen breath, steam,
or cigarette smoke, as well as natural,
mechanical, film or developing flaws, human error, and
misrepresentation. But I
remain nevertheless ambivalent about this
category of photographs, a fraction of which may be genuinely
paranormal.
Renovations Raise Ghosts?
T
he following
photos were sent to me by a woman named Patti who was restoring her
home, built in the
early 1800s. During the renovations, Patti not only captured what might
might be restless
energy in the old house, but also witnessed a ball of light that seemed
to follow
her.
Mike Johnson says that this picture was shown
to him by the owner of a house
built in the 1850s. The picture was taken
in the home. He took a photo of
her photograph, seen here.
Michael O. took this picture at the headwaters of the
Sacramento river, at a group of springs that form the river.
The photographer says he was not smoking and no one
was within twenty feet who might have been doing so.
This photograph was taken on a clear night outside
the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Connecticut.
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