That makes a lot of sense!
“Hey Bob, lets put a scratch on your $200 lens and get some youtube hits! Hold my beer!”
(Or more likely an already scratched lens - or perhaps some water-based marker drawn on as a spoof?)
Stuff like this is so interesting. Brings up the various levels of knowledge of people (photographers vs. non), and also the beliefs of people. I’m with Fox Mulder in “I Want to Believe” as it is sort of cool to think of ET’s and Bigfoots, etc. So 50% of the time that shadow in the woods is “Yeah - that could be a bigfoot”, and the other 50% of the time is “I don’t know - there’s just something not right about that.”
Especially with “ghosts” - there always seems to be a photographer or somebody with a good explanation of lens flares, cloudy lenses, etc.
And you get all sides of the knowledge and beliefs right here on FR!
I whole heartedly agree, there are a lot of well informed people on FR on a variety of subjects.
If you want to know, just askk. Somebody here probably knows.