Paranormal photos: separate the wheat from the chaff.

reply to post by elevenaugust


An excellent thread that hopefully will be made a sticky here. This is a must read for everyone prior to posting their ghost pictures. Time and time again have I tried to explain Pareidolia or "matrixing" to people posting "scary faces" pictures.

As an ex-ghost hunter myself, I thank you for your time and effort! Hopefully, this thread will help bring forth real paranormal evidence.

this kind bugs me

Your title sounded objective, yet where's the wheat? Any 'legit' photos? I think you'll give a lot of people the impression that there's no such thing as a true paranormal photo...

You seem to brush off any mists as either breath on a cold night or someone too dumb to realize he was smoking... what about mist above a tomb, for example, on a warm summer night - and no one is smoking a pipe?

Btw, how do you know this is Pareidolia?

Originally posted by elevenaugust
reply to post by icepack

 

Don't know about the first... Any background information?
The second one is taken from these two ATS threads:
Photo's of Spirits Captured in UK Tunnels,
Strange photo that a friend took, yeah it def looks like a "ghost"
I would guess a mixture of mists capture and pareidolia.

The third one was taken at the Pride House and is very impressive. Looks also like mist, but with what looks like a human shape.... hard to tell, and frankly I don't know!!

I guess that the original came from here

As an advanced hobbyist of photography, this one is particularly easy to replicate.

If I was briefed with creating something like this, I'd simply set up my camera on a tripod at the bottom of the stairs, set the exposure to around 10-15 seconds (depending on amount of light, if too much I'd use an neutral density filter to block out the light) and then I'd simply dance up and down three or four stairs which would create this ghosted effect.

Oh, I almost forgot... The creator was obviously wearing some bright colours that day so converted the picture to black and white for effect.

reply to post by dunipop


Yeah, that's exactly what I was trying to say in my previous post on page 2. There is some sort of tendency that someone who has been showing MANY cases to be explainable by ordinary means falls for the wrong assumption that ALL of the cases could be explained that way easily. I still do not assume the OP is doing this but the question is: where is the wheat?

For me the current viewpoint in this thread seems to be very unbalanced and so far we have not seen many "genuine" pictures. However it might not always be that easy distinguishing "good" cases from the "bad" ones. The obvious fakes and other simple explanations do NOT interest me to be honest. Why explain the obvious?

We need to focus on really HARD to explain stuff. Because this is the field where knowledge can be gained.
I do believe that the topic of a spirit world which interacts with our physical world somehow is very real. But the interaction is quite sparse and very rarely someone is able to obtain a "good" photo. The question might also be: what really MAKES a good photo? This is quite a subjective thing.

So I also like to see the wheat here...

Well, since your looking for pictures of the supernatural. Try these.








Back story is that I was attacked by a supernatural force and then this wound up on my leg. This picture was taken like 3 to 4 months after the event. What do you guys think about it?

reply to post by ntech


Now those are interesting pictures, got a story for them? I've experienced something similar. But the OP isn't trying to debunk every orb, face picture and misty blob... But rather try and make people understand, that just because it *looks* supernatural, doesn't always mean it IS supernatural. I've been a ghost hunter since the late 90's up until 2005. And it annoys me that people will jump all over people like the OP because he's pointing out the fact that not every single picture is that of a ghost.

You all need to understand, that we need to be a skeptic first, believer second. If we run around and shove pictures of dust orbs in peoples faces and get mad when they say it's just dust, our (supernatural) community is made to look like idiots. I personally KNOW ghosts exist. I've caught a few good EVP's, pictures and the likes in my time and have had numerous personal experiences. But we need to be serious here and try to comb through FALSE positives. The OP gives us a good starting point.

Originally posted by lioninthenorth
As an advanced hobbyist of photography, this one is particularly easy to replicate.

If I was briefed with creating something like this, I'd simply set up my camera on a tripod at the bottom of the stairs, set the exposure to around 10-15 seconds (depending on amount of light, if too much I'd use an neutral density filter to block out the light) and then I'd simply dance up and down three or four stairs which would create this ghosted effect.

Oh, I almost forgot... The creator was obviously wearing some bright colours that day so converted the picture to black and white for effect.

edit on 20-5-2012 by lioninthenorth because: (no reason given)

Exactly! You're absolutely right and I just succeed duplicate the same effect with my own camera.
I asked my young boy to 'dancing' up and down one stair during the whole exposure time.
The legs are more visible here, due to the fact that he was wearing a black pant, that contrast with the white stairs.



Camera specifications:
- Canon Powershoot A720 IS mounted on a tripod
- ISO 400
- Exposure time 10"
- F 8.0
- Flash off
- No ambient light
- Taken in B&W mode

Not a perfect duplication, okay, but I can try to improve this test, with my boy wearing white pant and shirt and shoot a few more meters away.

Edit to add: the original picture came from the ASUP site and is a 2112*1584 picture.
Examination of the EXIFs datas don't shows anything of interest, and especially what was the exposure time.

reply to post by Auricom


Yeah, there's a story behind the pictures. But I could never tell it though. There is just too much high grade crazy there just to let it go. And I would either be canonized or committed for telling it. But it was an interesting religious experience though.

reply to post by dunipop


That isn't pareidolia. That's an actual face (eyes with irises, nose with nostrils, lips). It does, however, look like a painting.

OP: Great thread! The paranormal community needs more like you. It has to be approached with skepticism first then, when everything else has been eliminated, belief. Too many go into ghost hunting hoping to find something, and suddenly every picture, every "bump in the night", every shadow has GOT to be a ghost! Those people do a real disservice to the community. Real pictures/video/EVPs are about 1 in 1,000 (IMO it's higher, but I'm OK with that number).

S&F

/TOA

I really think windows somehow have a link to viewing the supernatural. I have seen things in the past without having a camera...once in a pool at night, once in the daylight, a face in the attic window.

But here's PROOF, to me anyway, that this stuff really happens. This photo was taken last year shortly after my mother died. The only think I did to this picture was lighten it up. The kid on the right is my son, the snowman we made that night. Maybe his grandmother was watching, maybe it was someone we never knew...but I'll be damned, that's a FACE below kids mother, who WAS looking out the window.

She wears glasses, but there is a snowflake appearing at the center of her forehead.

There is a kitchen sink other side of that and nothing that could explain an extra face!

Originally posted by The Old American
reply to post by dunipop

 

That isn't pareidolia. That's an actual face (eyes with irises, nose with nostrils, lips). It does, however, look like a painting.

Yeah, exactly... but unfortunately, it seems like a lot of people who've just learn about this optical phenomenon now think everything is pareidolia, because something less detailed was... discernment not required anymore. In reality, it's all a question of probability. For example, if you have that face in the window, with that level of details, and it's not a painting, or statue, or whatever, and on top of that, the same apartment is known to be haunted, then the chances of that turning to be pareidolia becomes incredibly tiny...

reply to post by dunipop



Kentaro Mori in its blog have done an interesting comment and investigation about this photo:

Though the face looks very detailed, we suggest nevertheless it’s merely pareidolia. Apparently there’s a patch of exposed concrete inside the room, and due to various factors including the light from the flash, that face must have appeared.

I asked Santos if he had other pictures of the same place but from slightly different angles, and he kindly sent me another photo, “taken five minutes after the first”. I post a cropped and enhanced version below:

Highlighted by the circle (click to enlarge) is the area of exposed concrete (it could also be plaster) which I think created the illusion of a face.

A very nice illusion, must I emphasize.

I can understand that you may not agree with what Mori said, but here's another well known baffling pareidolia, that really is only pareidolia:

Jesus faces?


No...

Originally posted by 0thetrooth0
reply to post by elevenaugust

 

Woaw,

I did not know alot of these things. This explains alooot woaw thanks.

What are your thoughts on this photo: www.holylove.org... what is the cause behind it?

Go back and re-read OP. It explains the light source.

Great thread, I agree on those saying there should be stickies lol.

S+F!

I have to say that I used to be a skeptic with this stuff, but after seeing with my own two eyes doors closing and objects moving. I am no longer a skeptic. I just can't explain it.

reply to post by TWISTEDWORDS


In that case, welcome to the fun side! I've always been a believer. My family for at least one hundred years have been in "contact" with the paranormal in one fashion or another. I grew up listening to various generations of my family tell their tales. But what sealed the deal is my personal experiences in later life.

Originally posted by elevenaugust
reply to post by dunipop


Jesus faces?

Optical illusions do exist, but if you look closely, you'll see there is so many things that needed to go just right in that picture to produce that illusion. You may need to take over a million photos to get something like that... In other words, if you take pictures in a known haunted location, you have more chance of getting the real deal than getting that 1 in a million perfect illusion... But as I said, it's always a question of probability, depending on the level of details, the location you are at, etc... the chances of being the real deal vs being an illusion might be 10/90, 50/50 or 70/30, etc... But the hardcore believer will always say "definitely paranormal" while the skeptic will always call it 100% Pareidolia!

reply to post by iIuminaIi


I made an analysis video of this case last year-



I think you'll notice some things with the adjustments I made that are not readily apparent with the base footage-

I have my opinion about it, but I'll keep that to myself for now