A USA Today Bestselling author, this slightly out of place Renaissance man writes mysteries and more. Topics include writing, family, gardens, and more, often infused with a bit of gentle philosophy and always with a lust for life.
A USA Today Bestselling author, this slightly out of place Renaissance man writes mysteries and more. Topics include writing, family, gardens, and more, often infused with a bit of gentle philosophy and always with a lust for life.
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In the upper picture I've always seen the head, longish neck, and shoulders beneath the face. It almost reminds me of a surprised alien! In the lower picture I see two images - the almost smiling picture of the little face on the right, and the whole body of the figure on the left, with torso, legs, arms, and head. It almost looks like his arm is above his head, pointing to (or holding?) the other head. Do you see that?
Interesting photos. More interesting, though, are your other comments.
In particular, you said children could see the little girl, but adults could not. This is a common report.
Children are more open to unusual sights than adults. It is amazing, in fact, how closed an adult’s mind is, without their realising it.
If you drive to work, you must surely pass advertising hoardings on the way there, and back. You pass these (I’m guessing the size) thirty-foot wide images twice a day. Can you remember what’s on them?
You’ll say you’re concentrating on driving so you’ll deliberately ignore them. Even when they’re in your direct line of sight though, you don’t really see them.
Here’s another one. Have you ever lost your keys, only to find them in plain sight, somewhere you’re sure you’ve looked many times already? You’re looking for keys, but if they’re somewhere you don’t expect them to be, your brain will discount them several times before admitting that it sees them. The keys should not be there. The brain ignores them, even though it’s searching for them. Often, someone else will point them out, and you’ll wonder if that person deliberately hid them from you. They didn’t. You hid from them.
Children don’t do that. They haven’t learned what they’re expected to accept in the world. They see everything, without filters. The filters fall into place all too soon. There is so much information thrown at us these days, filters are necessary. We can’t process everything. Unfortunately, those filters aren’t as specific as we’d like them to be.
One child describing something an adult can’t (or rather, won’t) see is always passed off as imagination. Two children describing the same thing is not so easily dismissed, especially if it happens at different times. Three children reporting the same event, and there’s something interesting going on.
The tapping sound is less convincing, since you’ve already said you have a couple of dodgy pumps in the basement ;) By the way, I’ve experienced water pumps that need a tap to get them going. I recommend replacing them as soon as possible. The bearings are worn. It’s only a matter of time before they seize up.
I’m not going to say the tapping sound wasn’t supernatural because I’m on the other side of the world. I can’t see from here. All I’ll say is, it’s an old house, with dodgy pumps and floorboards that curl up in humid weather. You have a lot of possible alternative candidates for the tapping.
(I’ll talk about the photos in a separate post, since this is getting long)
What I’m going to say on the photos is only my opinion. Remember, all I have to go on here are the photos themselves. You’re too far away for me to call over and visit.
You’re clearly using flash, which shows on the car and on the side of the house. (You’ll get some amazing Christmas light photos with a tripod and long exposure, without using flash, by the way ;))
The ‘smoke’ in photo 1 seems to originate below the camera, and rises in curls at the top of the picture. This could be mist from an exhalation immediately before you pressed the shutter. Nobody inhales or exhales on purpose, it’s something we do without thinking. The mist would not have been clearly visible to you when you pressed the shutter because it was dark. I assume this camera is an SLR? If so, you can’t see anything through the viewfinder when the shutter is open, so you won’t see the flash illuminate the mist.
So it wasn’t visible to you when you took the photo, as you said.
Photo 2 might be the same, but the mist does not clearly originate from any particular direction. I see a ‘face’ in the centre of photo 2 (I didn’t make out anything in photo 1).
This is more interesting.
The face is central in the photo. I assume you haven’t trimmed these, since your Christmas tree is centred in the frame. So the face looks like what you’d get if someone, who hadn’t seen a camera like yours, came over to see what you were doing. Children, in particular, come over and stare directly into the lens. One of their more irritating habits.
Let’s assume the mist is condensed breath from you. It is possible that a ghost, not strong enough to manifest an image, could make use of a fine mist to form an outline image. It’s as if you sprayed a window with water. You can’t see the glass (if it’s clean and not reflecting anything) but you can see where it is because of the water droplets sticking to it.
So photo 2 could be an image of your ghost. It’s not clear, perhaps because the ghost might not be doing it deliberately. It’s a face moving through fog.
A note of caution however: The human mind is programmed to seek out human faces. We find them everywhere, in rock formations, in the grain on wood, in clouds, in the shapes of leaves and branches, even in mist and smoke or among the rocks on Mars. Anything that resembles a placing of two eyes, a nose and a mouth can be interpreted by our brains as a human face. Some are better at this than others (which is probably why you see an image in photo 1 when I don’t). So any face-image has to be treated with caution.
However, as face images go, this is a good one. I have to say, I hope it’s not real, because it’s certainly not the face of a little girl. It’s standing at the same height as you and it doesn’t look friendly.
Quick question: How do you feel when you go outside the house at night? Relaxed or tense? (From memory, before you read what I said above, naturally!). This is a better indicator than most people think.
Many ghosts, and other apparitions, are like those billboards you pass on the way to work. Your brain might filter them out, but only after your eyes have seen them. You can get a reaction to something your eyes have seen, even though your brain refuses to accept it’s there.
I still think the most interesting evidence comes from the reports of the children. Try photographing where they indicate, with an under-exposure of one or two settings. Film is better than digital. Digital cameras don’t (yet) come close to the detail you can get with film.
Anyway, as I said, all that is only my opinion, and it’s an opinion from the other side of the world so it might or might not be of use to you.
Looking at those pictures again, I see the second head you mentioned. It looks drawn, with a low forehead. Directly above it is an interesting dark shape. Didn't you say one or more drunk drivers died nearby? I won't say what the shape looks like to me, I'll wait to see what others think it looks like.
Hi, Romulus.
Thanks for stopping by to take a look. I wrote this piece on a lark and at the request of one of my column editors. Parts of it are authentic, but I elaborated a bit at the end to bring a scary, "Halloween" twist to the column. The tapping didn't occur on my window, nor did I see a flash of something outside my window. I felt completely peaceful and figured it was probably the dog, anyway.
The story about the baby and the little girl in the weeds was told to me by a neighbor - so who knows how much has been exaggerated over the years.
I did find the photos interesting, though, and thought they'd fit into this theme, regardless. I immediately saw the faces (a complete body in one with a separate face, and a large alien type long necked face in the other.) BUT, as you said, I can imagine faces in anything. I frequently find faces in wallpaper or swirly water or clouds. I'm a very visual guy, so it's rather natural.
To answer your question about how I feel when I'm outside... I feel incredibly peaceful, tranquil, and strangely as if that's the best place to commune with the souls of the people I've lost in the past decade. Eight folks died in five years in my life, and I miss them terribly. I feel very close to them when I stand outside near my house under the stars. The feeling's especially strong when it's cold outside. Not sure why. I do love the cold, love the way the stars glitter in the winter sky. But I've never, ever felt threatened in any way inside or outside the house.
I linked the story of the little girl/baby with my photos after the fact to make a good column. Not that they mightn't be related - one never knows and I'm keeping that option open! LOL.
The fact about us filtering out daily images is so very true. It's also true when I edit my own writing. Man, the brain has an amazing capacity to integrate stuff into what is is "supposed" to be, doesn't it?
There is a very cool story that my secretary told me about her nephew when he was about five. He's ten now, and doesn't see the "people" or "angels" anymore. But he always talked about his grandfather (whom he'd never seen) and described him to his aunt and parents all the time, saying he was sitting beside him, etc. The family didn't know this man very well, even though he was related. They tried to find his grave one day. After searching unsucessfully through the cemetary, the little boy pointed to the top of the hill. "There he is. Up by all those people." The adults saw no one, but they climbed the hill and found the grave immediately. This little one also saw angels floating on the ceiling of the church. My secretary witnessed all of this herself and was amazed at the capacity of a little soul to see so much more than we see. It does match your own observations about our filtering abilities, doesn't it?
Thanks for taking the time to stop by. Fascinating topic!
Good to see you're not taking it all to heart. You'd be surprised how many people become extremely defensive when their 'orbs' are proved to be dust, their 'vortex' is shown to be a camera strap and their 'taps' turn out to be a bubble in the central heating. Poltergeist exorcism sometimes requires nothing more than a radiator bleed key :)
Children, I think, might hold the key to finding some kind of proof of after-life existence. It's impossible to find 'learned scientists' willing to listen to them though. There are a few adults who have retained this ability, but those who speak out usually find themselves sedated and locked away.
So children are probably the best source. Pity I can't stand to be around them for long. Still, I have an assistant, and she seems to be able to tolerate them.
It sounds as if you have nothing malicious in your house. Maybe nothing at all - but keep your eyes open, just in case!
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