Grey Lady of Hampton Court ghost CAUGHT on camera: Hoax or Proof?

Hey guys. I hope you are all well?

I am posting this in here until there is enough justification from members to move into the HOAX forum. Also, please forgive the source to which this post is coming from. I am not interested in the article, but the picture itself in the article.

The Low Down (Is that what kids say?)



Link/Source


Two school girls aged just 12 years old, have apparently captured a remarkable photograph of Dame Sybil Penn, who was a servant, whilst on a trip to Hampton Court, UK. Hampton court is notoriously "Haunted", and many stories and sightings have come from the place. There is some back story of about Penn, however, as I said, this is about the evidence, rather than the story.

The photograph depicts what is clearly a human shaped figure, draped in old black dress with remarkably long hair, standing directly behind one of the 2 school girls on their day out. There is a second picture, supposedly taken straight after the first, showing the school girl facing the camera, in the same position, but NO ghostly figure behind her. SPOOOOKY.

Now, as always, I am open minded about all these sorts of things, and I have decided to list a FOR and AGAINST below to help deconstruct and decide whether this is a hoax or not. Please by all means decide for yourselves, but I hope I can spark some sort of friendly discussion on this image. I shall start with FOR.


FOR a Hoax

1) The Light - As far as I am aware, ghosts cannot conjure up enough energy to become solid objects, so why does the light from above and the natural light in the room so clearly shine and reflect off the ghost? I.E The hair bun on her head.

2) The Lack of Human Features - They are all so conveniently hidden. No face, no arms or no hands are visible in the shot. God forbid any ankle (If anybody gets that 10 points to you).

3) The Sharp Edges - Look closely, around the ghost you will see some very sharp edges, implying this figure could have been cut from one image, and pasted on another.

Not many reasons for, but all pretty important and substantial to me. Now, the AGAINST the hoax.



AGAINST a Hoax



1) The Age of These Girls - They are 12, and I know some kids that age are super whizzes, but let's be honest, that level of image editing (If that is what it is) is remarkable. Now, we could easily a mother or father was involved, but keeping to the baseline, the age of these girls implies it would have been difficult to reach these results

2) The Graining - As a photographer for a tax payer, I feel I have some weight in this comment. The level of distortion and graining on the "Ghost" and fire place, is exactly the same. This contradicts FOR reason number 4, where I said the image could have been cut out. Again, matching the grain and distortion in Photoshop is easily possible, but once more, the age of these girls implies that would be hard for them.

3) What are the odds Hampton Court letting 2 12 year olds fake such a thing?



3 reasons for, 3 reasons against a hoax. If this is a hoax, it is a VERY well done in my opinion. However, if it is real, is this the kind of evidence needed to make EVERYONE believe?

All the best

a reply to: brace22

I'm not an expert by any stretch but what happens to the rope near the bottom of the apparitions dress?

If the apparition was on the other side of the rope cordon, we'd still be able to see the rope, wouldn't we?

It just looks a bit odd.

a reply to: iskander683

Well my original guess is that the dress is simply covering it? As I thought that if this was a ghost, we should see it go straight through etc. However, this could also be further evidence to support that the ghost has been placed in the image from another image.

Interesting, thanks for sharing

This picture can be found at a better resolution here (the Sun).

Interestingly, a close look at the highly metallic reflective part of the ceiling lamp is informative as the "ghost" can be seen as well:



#2 is the little girl, #3 is the "ghost" and there's possibly a third person standing outside the frame (#1).

The close-up of the ceiling lamp:



To be sure of this, a comparison of this lamp with the second picture could be interesting, unfortunately, I haven't found it yet with the same resolution of that of the ghost one (1300 x 1020).

No more information can be extracted from the pictures, as (as always) the metadata are missing...

Moreover, the Sun picture have the compression signature of Photoshop ("Save for Web 070"):



Not a proof of anything, as PS is widely used by newspaper for 'improving' their photos, but just another bogus image manipulation that avoid any further analysis...

a reply to: iskander683

that's what i thought, and if the ghost is on the other side of the rope, directly behind the girl, does that mean you can see the rope because the ghost is transparent? and if that's the case, why can't you see other details the ghost is covering? like the chair or the paintings?
And if they only noticed the ghost while looking at the pictures the next day, why in the second picture the girl looks like she is purposely looking where the ghost should be?
not sure what to think, also why is the ghost so tall? and the hair so long?

$10 says it's the result of one of those "Ghost Picture" apps for smart phones that overlays an image of a "ghost" onto your picture.

My reason? A similar story pops up about every 6 months in the Sun or the Daily Mail.
And shouldn't the "Grey Lady" behind the rope barrier?

One of the comments in the link says that dress may not to be off the period "grey lady". Not something i would know about.

If you look at the bottom half of the 'ghost' or showed it to someone, the likelihood is they'd think it was a shot of someone's back and shoulders in an anorak type coat.

Which to me is exactly what it is.

iPhones have a 'panoramic' feature, which, when not moved smoothly or when something is moving in frame, can give results like this:

twitter.com...

What I think it is, is someone who's jumped in the air whilst the panorama was being taken, or simply that the panoramic shot has glitched, which is very common. This would explain the fact the 'ghost' has a reflection, a shadow, yet 'merges' into the ropes. It might *even* be a man with a girl on his shoulders!

The girls might easily have forgotten someone else walked through the room when they went though it - especially if one was leaving and one was concentrating on setting up a panoramic shot. So it's not unfeasable for it to be an 'unintentional hoax' - the same way people freak out about 'orbs' which are no more than dust caught in a camera flash.

a reply to: scepticalkat
I fear your scepticism has made you desperate to find a conventional explanation for this anomalous image. The notion that someone with such long hair and wearing such out-of-the-place-clothes could be forgotten within the few seconds needed to take another photo is ludicrously improbable.

The only time that people have such convenient amnesia is, of course, when sceptics like yourself attribute without evidence to healthy people like these girls sudden hallucinations/epileptic fits/amnesia/etc merely to avoid the obvious, namely, the frequently-reported experience of discovering an image of an object on a photo that was not there when it was taken. Such ad hoc explanations simply don't wash when they stretch credulity beyond the limits of a reasonable mind that is not desperate enough to entertain highly implausible scenarios in order to avoid acceptance of ostensible, paranormal phenomena like this.

Some great analysis going on here!

I would like to point out that I personally believe that this is NOT a panoramic shot. Why? well because why would somebody in weird clothing and stupidly long hair be jumping in front of a 12 year old? Also, if this figure had been glitched, shouldn't the whole vertical area below and above "it" be glitched too? But I may be wrong, and I completely take skepticalkat's theory as a possibility.

Moving on, I am still open minded about this. Elevenaugust has made a fantastic post regarding this thread. The most interesting thing he has pointed out is that the figure appears in the reflection of the metallic object. I will have to concur that the Photoshop tag in the data is more to make it easier to load to web, rather than manipulation. But I would not be surprised if this image has been cropped, severely, and colour corrected maybe.

It looks like a girl in a blue coat whose hair has been stretched in some way.

a reply to: Atsbhct


I starred your post purely because of how cool your avatar is.

Secondly, I may have to disagree just a little bit, because although I have an inkling this thing has been photoshopped, I reckon it's more likely a mixture of images and/or something taken from somewhere else entirely.

The problem is it's so difficult to tell, all we can really do is suspect the most likely scenario unless some other form of evidence leads one way or the other.

In my case, although I think there is enough evidence to believe that at least something is going on with regard to ghosts (I myself have experienced things that I cannot explain), I still have to go with the logical conclusion and the most likely one...

For me, the most plausible conclusion is that it's a deliberate hoax in an attempt to gain free advertising and increase visitors. The venue itself doesn't even have to be "in on it".

In fact, it would be interesting to see if the girl involved and the person taking the photo also happen to be related to someone who works in marketing and promotions, and a company or individual hired by Hampton Court to increase visitor numbers.

If that's the case, well done to that person/team!

a reply to: Rocker2013

A very plausible possibility Rocker!

In fact this could be one of the most logical reasons behind it.

Well I've starred your post because truly, it's not easy being cheesy. It's so hard.

Yes, I could see some extra hair being added in in some way. It doesn't look ghostly in the least to my eyes.

a reply to: brace22

Well, unless the Grey Lady resembled a 9-foot tall hatstand covered in coats and a weird wig-like thingy on the top, I'd probably have to veer towards hoax.

I looks like a second girl in the photo had her image stretched, which can be done with various apps that are available for free.

I don.t think it is shopped in... I do think it is a hoax, perpetrated using a thin piece of fishing line hung from the chandelier suspending the prop ghost. Easily concealed in a backpack a ball or balloon a wig a coat hanger and a dress assembled the rolled up. In less than a minute it could be hung photographed and put away and the facility would not have to even know. The wig already has some fly aways loose hairs to conceal, and to ease obscuring use a digital camera to be guaranteed pixelation.

Nice try though... I love ghost pics and truly believe there are wandering spirits, and events recorded some how in a space to replay. I think a few have been captured on film, sadly I don't think this is one of those rare instances.

Fun thread none the less! thanks op!

a reply to: micpsi

Excuse me, I wasn't criticising anyone for believing in ghosts, so please, don't criticise me for being a sceptic who seeks only the truth when presented with evidence of any sort.

I am not suggesting that anyone has been brainwashed or has amnesia - it's not 'ludicrously improbable' that this is a simple panorama glitch, especially given as the image was taken on an iphone, which has a slower capture speed than a dedicated camera (which is why you can't take a picture of a fan with an iphone without getting a blur but you can see the fan blades when the same image is captured with a DSLR).

Anyway - I've taken a look at the *second* photo in the series and can clearly see the person I believe the 'ghost' to be in the first photo. She's wearing a blue mac and is next to the girl in the green mac, standing in the doorway. She has a shoulder bag over her right shoulder.

i.dailymail.co.uk...

If you look at the 'ghost' you can see the shoulder bag in her 'skirt'. All the evidence is plain to see in the two photos, in the link on the Daily Mail (who has yet to publish a non-hoaxed or very very easily explained 'ghost' photo!).

Sorry if you think this is a 'highly implausible scenario' and I'm glad you don't feel 'desperate' enough to even consider it, oddly convinced are you that this has to be of paranormal origin. I respect your right to believe in what you like, but I do not appreciate my analysis being dismissed on a response based around critique of criticism itself, rather than the subject matter.

I think you are mistaking my username for a sign I am not willing to be convinced of 'other' explanations, however like most level headed people, I veer towards the most likely and obvious solution. The second photo explains the first.

a reply to: brace22

First, let me thank you for presenting a well balanced discussion. It's a breath of fresh air, actually...


Second, I was surprised when I saw the photo. To me, this looks far too much like a simple and rather generic photoshop technique.

Also, wow, this was a "ghost" ? An "apparition"? Now, mind you, the entire concept of a ghost is one of social norm with regards to what it should or shouldn't look like. I cannot say I've genuinely see a ghost. But, this didn't appear to me to be a "ghost".