Posted on 01/24/2008 5:05:05 PM PST by BGHater
At first glance, it seems to be an ordinary snap of a group of young people.
But look more carefully and there appears to be an extraordinary, ghostly presence among them.
Peeping out between the knees of two of the girls is the face of a child.
Ghostly: A ghoulish child stares back as a little girl cries in Matthew Summers' photo
The eerie image - clear enough to show a pair of eyes, a nose, a mouth and hair - was captured by 17-year-old Matthew Summers on his mobile phone as he and his friends were preparing to go out.
"I zoomed in to my sister's mate's little sister who was crying and I saw a face,"
Matthew said. "You can see all the facial expressions and everything.
Mysterious: The floating face can can clearly be seen at knee height between two girls
"Usually when you see pictures like that it's a blur but this one is really weird.
"I was really shocked because I don't believe in that stuff."
Matthew took the picture in his sister's friend's front room in Billingham, Teesside.
"I've sent it to my girlfriend and she thinks it's a bit weird," he added.
Haunted: Matthew Summers took the mysterious photo on his camera phone
His photo joins a long line of apparently paranormal snaps. The most memorable in recent times was a cloaked figure photographed standing in a doorway at Hampton Court Palace in 2003.
However, Ciaran O'Keeffe, a parapsychologist on Living TV's Most Haunted show, has a more down-to-earth explanation for the "child" in Matthew's photograph.
Dr O'Keeffe said: "As human beings we're very good at finding a pattern in randomness and related to that we're good at finding faces in randomness. The term for this is pareidolia.
"First it was ink blots, then things like clouds in the sky and now mobile phone pictures.
"There is no ghost in this picture, just the coincidental effect of pixelation and darkness and light which combine together."
Is that the kid from “Three Men and a Baby?”
No big deal. The kid on the right is astral projecting...
They all need to go on a weight-loss diet.
Ooooh, spooky. Why do ghosts also show up in pictures? Probably the same reason the Virgin Mary makes appearances on tortillas and dirty windows. They love the attention!
No, actually her mother is Rosemary...
No one seems particularly happy in this photo ... even the supposed ghost ... or, whatever!
that being said, the face on the kid with the phone scares me more than the ghost.
Your gig?
The girl with the big bottle seems to be in a good mood!
They can’t get a picture of a UFO or a chupacabra but they can get this useless nonsense that isn’t even the BVM.
I don't know, but on this clip for a European car commercial, a ghost just pops out of nowhere and starts shrieking. Absolutely heart-stopping.
Wouldn’t it be sad if the spirit of an aborted baby perpetually clings to her mother? I mean, adding to the sadness that she was killed in the first place.
Sort of reminds me of the New Orleans Beer Guy.
Let me grab my flameproof suit before suggesting it may be the ghost of someone aborted....
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