Say What You See

 

The morning after the night before I was feeling tired, drained and grouchy. A paranormal investigator’s hangover – as Richard Estep would describe it.

Settling down with a caffeinated hair-of-the-dog I started scrolling through the photographs I had taken over the night. I had learnt that to have the best chance of capturing a ghost on film – or in this case through the camera of my Iphone – it was best practice to take 3 snaps in quick succession whilst trying to keep as still as possible like a desperate paparazzi. With low light being an issue for playing David Bailey I had tried playing with the settings to increase the exposure time, but was uncertain if this would affect the end result.

The light grid photographs from the main event space looked as interesting as they had done at the time, but as my finger swiped left I was met with a series of much more interesting images. My phone screen showed me a darkened archway with two of my fellow investigators mid investigating. As I swiped forward through the shots it appeared that some figure-like form was appearing from the darkness holding what I thought on first impression was some type of lantern.

Appearing from the Archway

As I pinch zoomed in on the third photograph looking for further detail what I initially thought was some precursor to my trusty torch had the appearance of a child’s face. A face that was staring straight at me with unknown intent.

Face of a Child?

Scrolling through the video of flashing cat balls in the yoga studio I remembered that we had spent some time, before descending to the basement in suite of rooms where we did not appear to get much activity. Holding back as my group moved off, I asked glibly if it was ok to take a photo if anyone was there. The Ghost Hunting Tools app produced ‘above’ and so I took three photos of the ceiling, not giving them much thought – until now.

Scrolling through the burst of three pictures I was annoyed that someone had ruined the third one by shining their red torch into the room – but scrolled back onto the second as I noticed something on the screen. Another face, more haunted than the young lantern face from before, hollowed cheeks and almost skull like sat within the emerging flare of the red torch.

Looking at the Ceiling

The Ceiling looking back?

Had I on my second venture out captured not one but two images of spirit? Or was there another, more psychological explanation?

The human brain is a clever thing and if you have spent anytime laying down and staring at clouds in the sky you will have witnessed it power in drawing order from chaos. Identifying recognisable shapes in clouds is juts one of our mind’s superpowers – but with this power comes great responsibility for the ghost hunter.

The scientific word that describes the tendency to perceive specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous pattern is pareidolia. It is this phenomenon that is relied upon when conducting the Rorschach or Inkblot tests in the study of psychology to draw out the correlative image for assessment.

In researching pareidolia, one of the most common reported images is that of the human face. This is because only a small percentage of facial features is required for our imagination to fill in the gaps. Famous examples of facial pareidolia include the Mimetoliths on Mars, where the patterns of the rocks provide recognisable faces, the ‘Man in the Moon’ – due to the formation of craters on the lunar surface, and the happy Danish electrical outlet.

So are these badly taken pictures, images of the departed returned as spirit or just my mind filling in the details of fuzzy, blurry shadows   – I will let you decide.