Photo manipulation is nearly as old as photography itself,
and what early photographers lacked in Photoshop, they made up for in
ingenuity. Photographers identified nine different methods that could
aid in the photographic imitation of “spirits”, including techniques
like multiple exposure and combination printing. As David Brewster, in
his 1856 book on the stereoscope, explained:
For the purpose of amusement, the photographer might carry
us even into the regions of the supernatural. His art, as I have
elsewhere shewn, enables him to give a spiritual appearance to one or
more of his figures, and to exhibit them as ‘thin air’ amid the solid
realities of the stereoscopic picture.
William Mumler was the world’s first known
“spirit photographer”. He photographed people who were morning the loss
of a loved one and would superimpose their image on the photograph to
show that they were still with them in spirit.
Mumler got caught with his fraudulent photography because of
P.T. Barnum. He had captured an image of Barnum posed next to a ghost of
an exceptionally notable variety: that of the recently assassinated
Abraham Lincoln.
During Mumler’s 1869 hearing for fraud, Barnum was
called to the witness stand to testify against Mumler. Barnum would
serve as an expert on “humbuggery.”
Spirit photography lived on well into the 20th century,
fueled in part by the Civil War and, later on, by World War I. In the
U.K., in the aftermath of the first Great War, the spirit photographer
William Hope would develop a following for his work that included Arthur
Conan Doyle. The Sherlock Holmes’s creator supported Hope against
claims of Mumlerian fraud and wrote a book called The Case for Spirit Photography in
1922. He would also end his friendship with the famous Harry Houdini
when the magician publicly claimed that spirit photography was
“farcical.”
(Source:
The Atlantic)
The pale apparition, accompanied by the music of Chopin,
appeared frequently in the mansion. Her appearance at Heale House had
always been a mystery until the discovery of a long-lost painting solved
the ordeal.
Mr. Smith’s family had seen the apparition many times at the
house near Bideford, Devon, before he was approached by the owner of a
local junk shop who asked him, “Are you the master of Heales?” She told
him that she had something that should be returned to its rightful home
and showed him a painting. The face in the painting was eerily familiar
to Mr. Smith and he quickly realized that it was the same woman who had
been haunting their home.
Smith said her ghost “would walk along the corridors and in
the bedrooms, usually around one o’clock in the morning. She was usually
wreathed in a blue haze and just drifted around - you couldn’t see her
legs. Sometimes she would even arrive at the bottom of my bed in the
middle of the night. I thought there must be some kind of scientific
explanation, but other people who visited the house were terrified and
they now believe she’s been put to rest because she got her painting
back.”
Smith was so fascinated he decided to investigate the history
of the painting and uncovered a sad story behind the music loving
ghost. He identified the woman as a Mrs. Bell, the wife of an Argentine
beef rancher and one of the fifteen bedroom mansion’s previous
occupants. She had been bankrupted and forced to sell all of her
possessions, including her beloved portrait, shortly before her death in
the early 1900’s.
When he took the painting of Mrs. Bell home and hung it in
the parlor room, her ghostly appearances suddenly stopped. Smith even
confessed that the family tried to communicate with her spirit using a
Ouija board on several occasions, but they had no luck reaching her.
Apparently, all her ghost wanted was to be recognized as a resident of
the house. She is at peace…for now.
The old mining settlement at Bodie in California is America’s
best preserved ghost town. Dating back to 1859, Bodie is frozen in a
state of “arrested decay”, looked after as a historic park but not
restored to its original condition.
This makes the town both authentic
and mysterious, with original fixtures, furniture, and personal items in
the buildings left untouched since their occupants deserted them.
Bodie abounds with legends of the paranormal, but none more
famous than the haunted Cain residence. Jim Cain was a local businessman
who prospered from bringing lumber to Bodie.
Buildings were constructed
from and heated by wood, and the mills burned vast amounts of it in
their steam-driven engines, fattening Mr Cain’s wallet.
Rumors spread that Cain and his maid were having an affair, and
the maid was promptly fired by Cain’s wife. Publicly disgraced, the
unfortunate maid was unable to find work and took her own life. It’s
reported that the maid’s ghost haunts the Cain house.
Over the years, the house has provided accommodation for park
rangers and has also been open to the public. People have reported
ghostly apparitions in an upstairs bedroom, while others have heard
music coming from the same room.
Staying in the house, the wife of a
park ranger was lying in her bed and felt a strong pressure on her and
was unable to move. Another ranger who had lived there had the same
experience combined with the door flying open by itself and feeling of
suffocation in the same room.
The Curse of Bodie
One of the most bizarre stories associated with Bodie is a
mysterious curse that has been cast on multiple visitors to the town.
Allegedly, the ghosts of the residents serve as guardians of the town’s
property, bringing bad luck and misfortune to souvenir hunters who take
anything with them when they leave.
Each month, park rangers receive objects and letters in the
mail from people who admit to taking items from the town and beg the
rangers to put them back. The letters also tell tales of horrible
incidents such as mysterious illnesses, car accidents, and even death.
The rangers have been on television specials about Bodie, speaking of
the accounts, and assuring the senders that the objects are always
returned to their original places as requested.
John Dee (1527-1609) was an English mathematician and astrologer
interested in divination using crystals and mirrors. This purple
crystal was used for curing disease
and predicting the future by looking for symbols or the ‘ghosts’ of
people in the stone. Dee claimed that this crystal was given to him by
the angel Uriel in November 1582, and that Uriel had instructed Dee and
his assistant Edward Kelley (1555-1597/8) on how to make the
Philosopher’s Stone – one of the goals of alchemy. The crystal was
entrusted to Dee’s son, Arthur (1597-1651) who passed it on to Nicholas
Culpeper (1616-1654) as a reward for curing his liver complaints. Culpeper was a physician and alchemist who used the crystal to try and cure illness, until 1651, when he believed a demonic ghost burst out from it.
Possibly one of the most haunted places in the world is a one
acre graveyard stuck far off the beaten path called Bachelors Grove
Cemetery. Located in an isolated section of the Rubio Woods Forest
Preserve in Chicago, Illinois, this one acre plot of land holds an
unbelievable amount of unexplained phenomena. It is also the location of
one of the world’s most recognizable ghost photos that captures a woman
in white sitting on a tombstone (pictured above).
The cemetery
was founded in the 1820’s and for years, was considered a peaceful,
serene resting place for the departed. But by the 1960’s, it was
increasingly isolated and abandoned and was often the site for wild
parties, vandalism and possible satanic rituals. The chaos at the
graveyard was so great that many bodies were moved to other cemeteries
to avoid being desecrated and a large number of tombstones have been
either stolen or knocked over.
This cemetery has reports of every
type of paranormal activity. Many strange lights are seen in and around
the tiny cemetery. A flashing blue light, similar to a police car’s
light, was spotted many times flitting noiselessly amongst the
tombstones. Orbs, bright lights, ectoplasm, unexplained mist, cold
spots, and apparitions are frequently encountered in and around the
cemetery.
But the oddest repeated sighting is that of a “phantom farm
house”. What makes these reports so credible is that they come from
people who had no idea that the house doesn’t actually exist. Each person
who has seen the house describes an old, two-story farm house that is
white washed, a large front porch with post to either side of the porch
entrance, a porch swing and a
light that cheerily burns in the front window. As people approach the
old house, it is reported that it seems to shrink until it finally just
fades away. Local legend says that if a person does enter the house they will never return.
According to Japanese folklore, an ubume is the ghost of a
womam who has died in childbirth (birthing woman ghost). Appearing
disheveled or in a state of desperation while holding a swaddled infant,
the apparition will beg those who pass by to hold her baby, only to
then disappear. The infant will grow heavier and heavier in the arms of
the stranger, until when becoming impossible to hold, it is revealed to
be a heavy stone.
According to one legend, the warrior Urabe Suetake who was a
retainer and guardian king to the Lord Minamoto no Yorimitsu, was
traveling with a group of soldiers. One night he overheard his men
telling wild stories of an ubume that haunted an upcoming river. She
would appear to travelers who attempted to ford the river. Standing in
the rapids, she would beg them to help save her child, but upon
accepting the child, it would grow so heavy that the good samaritan
would sink below the waters and drown.
After hearing of the story, his men became too frightened to
cross the river the next day. Suetake chided his men for being
superstitious and crossed the river himself to prove it was safe. At
first the ubume didn’t appear, but on his return crossing, a woman with a
crying child did appear and begged Suetake to save her baby. Suetaki,
momentarily forgetting the old tale, took the bundled infant in his
arms. The child grew heavier and heavier, but Suetake was a strong
warrior, and he hefted the child across to safety. Upon arriving back at
the camp he opened the bundle and found it to be nothing more than wet
leaves in the rough shape of an infant.
