Another cellphone ghost hoax makes news.
Ok, I don’t want people to think that GhostTheory is a ghost video disproving site. We do it from time to time, but we mostly focus on investigative reporting on cases, as well as abstract psychological theories that could explain the paranormal. But lately there has been a rash of videos making news about ghosts being captured by cellphones and such. I don’t know what you guys think of this, but cellphone evidence is entertaining. Comical at best.
This morning I saw a post made on “The Sun” online newspaper about a school boy who had captured a ghost with his cellphone camera. Being curious about the clip, I found it on Youtube and right away noticed how fake this was. On the website, people seems convinced that this real footage of a ghost. People in forums were discussing how scary or “freaky” the clip is. I couldn’t help but notice immediately how this was done.
Notice on the :02 second mark how there is a glare from the hallway light on what appears to be a clear plastic sheet.When you run the clip for the first :06 or so seconds, you can see the kid was moving the cellphone around and around the 2 second mark there is an unexplained glare. To me, it seems like this was the glare from a plastic sheet that was used to put infront of the cellphone camera lens.
Next we have a still from around the :08 second mark. Notice the 2 blotches in the picture.
blotches on the plastic sheet at the :08 second markWhen you play the clip, you can see that these 2 blotches move in unison to each other. Pointing to the fact that the white blotch is some abrasion in the plastic, and the darker blotch the so called “ghost” that could have been colored on the sheet.
Notice how they move across.
A SCHOOLBOY has captured eerie footage of what he claims is a ghost striding towards banisters at his home.
Terrified Reece Pitman, 12, heard whistling — and used his mobile to film the shadowy being.
It came days after his nine-year-old sister complained that someone was mysteriously finishing her jigsaws at night.
The lad showed the amazing footage — which must be seen to be believed — to mum Tonia, 38.
She said: “Reece looked scared witless.
“In the clip a white shadow appears from my bedroom followed by the dark image of a man.
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“It crosses the landing and disappears when it reaches the banisters.”
Tonia, of Solihull, Birmingham, said she consulted a psychic who told her the ghost could be friendly.
Sales assistant Tonia said: “I’ve had a tough time recently as my husband left me. I didn’t believe in ghosts — but I’m thinking of the spectre as my guardian angel.”
Julian Banks of the British Paranormal Society said the film was “potentially the best image of a ghost in years”.
Full source: The Sun UK
Remember how I posted before an article on faking a ghost with your cellphone?
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Written by Javier Ortega - javier@ghosttheory.com
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No comment….I don’t want to type out expletitives that state the obvious!
Gary P,
It’s amazing how I keep reading that this is all over the news in the UK.
More and more I think it’s getting difficult for real investigators to advance in the field when we have stuff like this making headlines.
Yup! It’s gonna water down actual paranormal events that make it to the news, just because some knob of a reporter bites down and swallows the bait on some kids fake ghost on his cellphone video, and actually puts it out into the news? Yikes, so much for the integrity of journalism! Unfortunately, news outlets do not see the quality of reporting anymore, just the quanity of it, nevermind the repercussions. Just the same type of reporting about how the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe could ‘possibly’ create miniature black holes delayed the LHC from going online until hearings were completed on this subject, because the reporting wasn’t concise enough to point out the black holes would be sub-atomic in size and lasting less than a second and then cease to exist. Same thing here, they are gonna have any hoaxters video or photo put out there, never mind the fact it damages the actual community’s efforts to scientifically approach the subject. Sooner or later, people will get desensitized to the news on the paranormal. “Oh geez, not another fake ghost video”, “Not another bogus picture”, etc…
And for shame on Julian Banks, who states “potentially the best image of a ghost in years”. Wow. Better start researching the ‘Net with regularity if he wants to continue a career in the paranormal, because this isn’t even a questionable fraud, it’s about as stark as the sun in the sky!
I’ve been looking at this video for some time now…
I just did a couple of test shots with my blackberry and the stairway light, which is an exposed bulb, and shooting directly at the light, center frame, giving enough time for the camera to balance exposure, there is an identical halo like glow around the bulb. I believe it is lens flare and/or overexposure. Moving the shot around and playing with the relationship between the light and the camera, I get artifacts identical to what we see in Reece’s clip. There is no plastic film between my lens and the light.
I also do not observe the shadow and the artifact moving in unison except at the very beginning. As the shadow approaches the opposite side, it is actually converging with the light artifact, which I believe is the ceiling light that is just at the very top of the frame.
Also, I do not see any apparent distortion of the background of the scene except as the shadow passes, as you would expect to see if a sheet of plastic were being moved across the lens at close proximity. The background returns to normal immediately as the shadow clears. I observe what appears to be exposure being compensated throughout the crossing.
Lastly, the shadow has a relatively fluid movement, both horizontally and vertically. Consider the coordination necessary to keep the shot relatively well framed, and move a piece of painted plastic across the lens, while maintaining a stable shot and a fluid movement of the subject across it. Remember this is a 12 year old kid. Also your recreation of the event does not recreate the lighting conditions present in his clip. His scene is well lit throughout. Yours is dark except for some ambient light in the background, and would obscure any artifacts introduced by your plastic film.
Still might be fake in the end, but creating a forgery that resembles an effect in another video does not disprove that video’s authenticity. It merely offers one inconclusive explanation.
Tim
Thanks for your comment Tim!
I still stick to my guns on this one, I think it is a hoax. After the camera becomes somewhat still, the light artifact moves around in peculiar fashion as if reflecting off of something like plastic sheeting or plexiglass. The shadow need not neccesarily be ‘painted’ onto the surface as much as having the ’shadow’ being an actual shadow cast onto the surface. Thus at the end of the video you see the ’shadow’ block out the light reflection.