I ran across this picture a couple of days ago after release and was skeptical to post about it, but after seeing it on paranormal.about.com and another site that will go unmentioned, because the blogger might gripe about it, I decided to post it. The picture originates from Australia at a place called Barwon Park mansion. As the story goes, a group on a ghost hunting tour (as this story was released by Australian Ghost Adventures) was upstairs in a stable and someone sensed a presence. The photographer snapped several pictures before a shutdown of the camera occured. After leaving the stables, the camera comes back to life and after review, they capture a picture of the ghost girl (above). The two stories below are from Australian Ghost Adventures and Today Tonight an Australian news outlet.
On the night of Saturday the 8th August 2009 a ghost tour group from Australian Ghost Adventures were exploring Barwon Park Mansion, Winchelsea Victoria. At 11.20pm the group were in the Mansions stables upstairs loft when a patron sensed a presence in the corner of the Bluestone building. Another patron used a digital thermometer to measure the temperature in the area the other person sensed something and got a reading of 22 ’C with the cold winter night readings at 5’C everywhere else in the building Adam (another patron) took a number of photographs in the same direction of the heat source, after taking some photos his camera shut down, As the group left the stables, his camera started working again and he immediately checked his photos and one of them had the (attached) image. Could this be an image of a ghost?
Gary Sullivan, lead investigator and paranormal researcher from Australian Ghost Adventures said: “At the time the temperature rose to 22 degrees I put it down to one of the bluestone bricks being warm, but was not” and could not explain the temperature change on the digital thermometer. With the photo” he could not explain what the image was”. Ron Dorre the Sceptic from AGA was also present. “I too witnessed the events including Adam taking the photos, I couldn’t believe it when he checked them and it had a slight image of a girl in one of the frames” We took the photo to Anthony Kilner a Photographer and photo journalist to investigate. The photo data showed no flash was used and to have such a clear photo in low light without a tripod was unusual.
The mystery is still not solved. The ghost tours continue and tour guides are encouraging photographers to take as many photos as they can in the Stables.
Source: Australian Ghost Tours
Barwon Park Mansion is situated in Winchelsea, an hour and a half west of Melbourne. Built in the mid 1800’s for the Austin family, its rich in tradition and history. And now, after the events of one cold night last August, it’s considered haunted.
19-year-old Adam Harris and 15 others were on a tour of the mansion, the tour included sceptics and paranormal investigators. Armed with digital thermometers, cameras and torches, they entered the barn at the back of the property.
“I was taking photos because I felt a presence coming towards me, as in dark figures. So I got my camera out and took three to five photos up there and my camera went dead, just turned off, I couldn’t turn it back on. I tried and tried and tried,” said Adam.
“It was a five degree night, everyone was wearing scarves and jackets, and it was freezing cold and we wanted to get out of there. We wanted to get back into the warm mansion so somebody said, ‘No, I feel something in that corner’. So this lady took this temperature gauge that we have we give them to play with and took a reading and it came up to 22 degrees and we thought that was quite strange. Then we had Adam take some photos in that area and I saw him take the photos and then his camera failed.”
By the time the group made it outside, Adam’s camera turned back on and what he discovered has left “believers” in a spin and sceptics scratching their heads.
“There was an image of a girl in the top left hand corner of my screen, just a real faint picture,” said Adam.
Apart from being the best looking ghost ever, she appears out of a seemingly black digital photo, only revealing herself when you adjust the tone.
Today Tonight took the photo to Andrew Tauber (a photographer with Melbourne’s Herald Sun), and Anne Maree and Nick (Digital photography experts). Anne Marie was previously re-toucher at the National gallery.
If the photo was a fake, you’d assume they’d be able to tell.
They analysed the metadata attached to the photo (embedded information connected to every digital photo). It tells them when, where and how the photo was taken.
The inconsistencies had them baffled. The photo with the ghost shows no background, yet the next photo clearly does. The experts all agree the image hasn’t been tampered with, but they believe some aspects could be fingers and that the image appears to be a photo of a painting not a person.
The biggest flaw is with regards to the time difference. Adam claims to have taken five consecutive photos, with the third one capturing the ghost. The meta data tells a different story. The ghost photo is recorded as being taken two hours earlier. But mystery surrounds how it is planted in order among the others on the memory card.
“I did see it happen and I know it’s there but I can’t explain what it is,” Adam said.
Source: Today Tonight
After reading these articles, especially the one from Today Tonight, my skeptical mind starts working. If the metadata on the picture showed it being taken two hours earlier, shouldn’t that point to the answer? As stated “But mystery surrounds how it is planted in order among the others on the memory card.” After doing a bunch of research and you knew how the camera and card works, you could probably easily plant a photo on a memory card. Who is to say that he gave them the correct memory card in the first place? If this is a ghostly photo, it’s probably the clearest to date, but that makes me just a suspicious in the end.
