A wonderful trip...and an interesting picture

I finally got to visit The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, WV.
Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum

We wanted to go for the Halloween tours but couldn't get our work schedules worked out. Instead we drove up and took the historic tour. We are so glad that we did. The place is beautiful!! So many of the little touches would have been missed if we had done a night tour first.

Anyway, the point of this post. Right before we left I walked out to the front fountain and took some pictures of the main building. One picture has a very strange shadow in it. There is a shadow in-between me and the front door that does not line up with the shadows the sun is creating on the benches also in that area.


Just thought that I would see what others thought. The shadow starts at the bottom and goes all the way to the top, actually causing the top of the building to blur. What is odd is that I don't think it's a focus problem because everything else is in focus.

Well, there is one obvious possibility that can be dismissed right away if you tell us that the camera strap is not
- dark, and
- thin.

Everything looks proper besides the big finger print on the lens center bottom around the bench.

reply to post by alfa1


I don't have a camera strap on my camera so that's not it.

reply to post by Martin75


I know nothing about ghosts and even less about cameras, so you may want to disregard this! I can't see a shadow going up to the top of the picture, I can only see what looks like a shadowy man in a bowler hat with his back to the camera.
That might say more about me than about your picture, though.

Thanks for sharing x

reply to post by Martin75


Neat picture of an ominous, and beautiful old building. Don't ruin the mystery. The building and the picture has it's own secrets, it's own stories and it's own magic.

Let each of us take from it what we wish. The power of our own minds will reveal or hide, that which is meant for us to see, or that which we choose to keep tucked away until it unfolds on its own or we summon it forth.

We forget that the images that imprint in or minds start their journey on a beam of light that travels, though rapidly, from the front of our eye to the movie screen in the back of our eye, and the image projected to our brains. Who know what things go unnoticed or are left behind when the movie begins.

I relish the odd, the subtle, the shadows that brings color, definition, and life to the tapestry that we call home. What we see through the eyes of our mind is as true and as real as we decide to make them. So enjoy the mystery.

Did you take other pictures after this one? Please post if so.

reply to post by StoutBroux



This is the TB hospital directly beside. I walked maybe 30-40 yards to the right and then took the above picture

a reply to: Martin75

Nice thread, I will read it later

I hope you don't mind, but I was intrigued with your picture and took the liberty to try and study it a bit more. All I did was enhance it 3 times.

As it got lighter it would seem it was a optical illusion with the worn ground, dirty building corner in background, and such. Where I place the arrows though still seem to show a shadow line. The top left arrow still shows a blur, and the bottom right arrow seems to still show a "Outline of a shadow."

Long and short, I still think you have a very curious picture indeed, lol and I don't think it is your thumbprint!

a reply to: onehuman
Oh that is awesome!! No that is more than enough, I had never looked further than just looking at it and talking about it. LOL THat is awesome THank you!!!!

a reply to: Martin75

Did you use a panoramic option when you took this picture? I was just there last year and the way the building appears in your photo is off. Hard to explain but from where the "shadow" appears and to the left, the building is angled wrong. Sorry I don't have any of the pictures I took handy right now to compare.

a reply to: camwar
I didn't think so but now that you say that, if you zoom in the top of the tower in line with the shadow is blurred...would that cause that?

a reply to: camwar

Your back from your trip I see! How was it?

Play with the brightness and contrast of the original and see if you can pull any more detail out of it... looks like apparition to me... but i am not a skeptic like others... i know the supernatural is real as well as evil...

Nice picture... bet it was a great tour.. love to see the rest of the pics...

the bot

a reply to: Martin75

When I zoomed in at the top of the building it looks like it has movement blur almost. I really think that something was set on the camera to cause the building to look like that. I'm not dismissing the shadow as a result though, just trying to help you get to the bottom of it.

a reply to: Quantum12

The place is great to visit! We did daytime tours and the flashlight tours. I definitely want to go back and do an overnight

a reply to: camwar

Sounds like fun, happy may 5!

a reply to: Martin75 What a beautiful building! I see the spooky shadow near the bench for sure! Cool thread!😊