Did I Photograph a Ghost? You Decide!
Five years ago, my family and I were fortunate enough to take a cruise on the Mediterranean. One of the first stops was a small French Riviera town called Ville-Franche, where the streets are terraced, slashes into the hillside, so the whole thing looks like it's about to tumble down into the sea. The most interesting thing about Ville-Franche, to me, was a street called Rue Obscura (literally, Hidden Street), so-called because the buildings on either side form a long closed block, and more housing has been built ABOVE the street, connecting the sides, turning Rue Obscura into a long tunnel into which little light enters. Old-fashioned lanterns are bolted to the walls inside this hidden way, and small alleys allow entrance at intervals along it from either side.
I took a bunch of photographs simply because I was fascinated by Rue Obscura and its look, and knew that I would take enough inspiration from it to write about it at least once, possibly more, and I wanted pictures for reference.
One of the pictures turned out to be something more. Take a good look. If you see what I see, I can promise you it wasn't there when I snapped the picture.
I'll leave you with this. I don't believe in ghosts, but I WANT to. The first time I looked at this picture, I can closer than I ever have before. But I still haven't had an experience that is enough to convince me 100%.
posted by Christopher Golden at 7:25 AM
13 Comments:
Oh wow! I'd love to see the original full size of the picture. Of course, in 2005, you probably had a 5mb digital camera.
I was fortunate enough to catch a vortex on our last trip to Sedona, Az.
i have the same views as u on ghost i want to believe but i just hant seen enough myself but looking at this pic it does seem as tho u have photographed a ghost to me any way
Wow. Look at that. I think you probably did. A little ectoplasm going up the stairs. Nice job!
I'm gonna say no, at a minimum because you don't have other evidence like follow up pictures of the immediate area showing whether or not there was a natural discoloration of the stone, source of smoke or dust or something else I haven't thought of as a potential explanation.
I am a believer ... I am just not sure of what I am seeing in this photo. It is strange, I'll say that. My book "For the Love of Lisa" deals with spirits, but it is a bit far fetched, as it can be when a book is fiction.
I'm leaning toward not. I've been involved with Paranormal investigation and have read/written many horror stories myself. To me this looks like it may be a case of matrixing, where the background images and textures are automatically perceived by our brain as recognizable patterns (IE: Faces/images/figures/etc.)
The only reason I am hesitant to level this claim is that the figure in question does extend beyond the structure in the photograph. Though as other posters have suggested, it could easily be smoke or vapors from your breath. Was it cold in that building when you took that picture?
It wasn't cold at all, actually. Summer in France. And I was obviously quite a distance away from the...image. And if you look closely, it has feet. Don't know if you can make it large enough to see that.
To be clear, I am NOT claiming this is a ghost. I wish I could believe it was, but I'm a natural born skeptic. I just thought people would find it interesting.
Wow, not an expert, but that's a pretty amazing shot of what certainly looks like someone coming down those stairs! The placement of the feet makes the idea of fog or photo matrixing less believable to me. It looks you captured a trace of something that happened a long, long time ago.
Very cool photo, regardless!
I'm with you. I don't believe in ghosts, but I want to.
Wow, that's stunning. It took me a little time to find this on my mible, but when I took a better look online...even with my limited experience, I would say yes.
Interesting.. after playing with the perspective, I think you captured a person, a little over 5’ tall wearing brown shorts or a skirt and blue shirt, rapidly descending the stairs. He or she appears to be carrying something, perhaps a baby. Could be a ghost or.. you were intently focused on the architecture of the buildings and simply didn’t see the person as they quickly passed in and out of your view. Either way, that is a person (you can see the shadow cast across the steps) and a very cool image.
Whether it is a ghost or not, I couldn't say. But whatever it is, it's casting a shadow so that's interesting nonetheless. I see the feet as well.
Perhaps have a local paranormal investigator take a peek?
So was this taken with a digital camera? If so, can we get the data on what the shutter speed was? I'd be willing to bet it was a fairly long exposure, giving someone time to walk through the picture quickly and leave the afterimage....
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