Ghostly: A ghoulish child stares back as a little girl cries in Matthew Summers' photo 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."
You da man!
You know what’s really funny? In the past I would have listened to people tell me that that photo meant that something bad was going to happen to me and my girls this year. It is a sign.
I’m taking it as a sign that my hubby couldn’t work the new phone!
LOL~
Hey I think I have the match for that Rocker in the foreground. It belonged to my great great grandmother.
It looks like he head of a horned animal, maybe a goat.
No, it’s definitely a hand. My friend has fooled with the contrast to the point you can see fingernails and I think a watch.
What I posted here is the original - the light enhanced ones show the hand *very clearly.*
It came from my MIL.
Are we related? LOL!
My great grandmother was from Mancelona.
That having been said, I don't rule out the possibility of a ghostly image. Someone mentioned the aborted child idea. The girl on the right seems like a very sad person...Who knows. We speculate about a complete stranger and her possible deeds. Such are the hazards of posting photos online.
My MIL is from another planet.
I don’t think we are related.
My mother in law was from Hell and I don’t mean near Pinckney.
LOL!
The only good thing about my MIL is that she incubated my hubby. I’m sure none of her genes went into him.
Ron Jeremy?
Looks like the photo was snapped before the flash was ready and the camera held the exposure until the flash fired or proper light level was attained. I’d guess you and the little one moved into the scene as this was occuring thus creating the additional exposures.
Just yikes!!
Wow! That makes sense! Thanks.
?
I testify differently. There do exist beings without what we physically perceive by some of our senses, which are still able to interact with us in other physical and spiritual senses.
I once had a fist'o'cuffs with either a fallen angel or spirit, which grabbed me from my bed, by my ankle. As I kipped up out of bed thinking a burglar had snuck in, he/it held on to me to the point that I nearly busted my head on a concrete floor. I jerked loose and swung about flipping on the lights only to discover nobody present.
As I stood there, I felt goosebumps all over my arms, then felt as though somebody was immediately behind my head in my "private space". The same sort of sensation one might get in a kitchen when a overhead cabinet door is open behind your head, which you forgot to close, but within inches of your head.
I immediately turned around and nobody was there. This happened 3 times, and on the last one, I felt as though somebody was up on the ceiling peering down at me wearing a vest with stones in it (something I later learned was similar to what is called an ephod), and I perceived the person there was similar to the person of the "Lord of the Rings" movie, "Golem". Mind you this was circa 1984 timeframe and I hadn't red Lord of the Rings, but the character in the movie struck me years later as personifying the type of gaunt, gnarly figure I perceived was there, yet could not visibly see.
The last moment of sensing the 'presence', it leared at me from behind my shoulder near my head as though it had venom dripping from its teeth/mouth.
At that time, I simply blurted out, "In the name of Jesus Christ, be Gone!" Please, note that at that time, if anything, I was agnostic, hadn't really studied Scripture intensely, but had a childhood from a Christian culture and had exhibited faith in Christ in my early childhood. At the time of this incident, though, if anything I was a carnal Christian or considerably backslidden to the point of worldly agnostic.
Within a moment (about a third of a second) of having blurted out the statement, an object fell over in an adjacent room.
I immediately rushed in to that room, thinking my previous thinking was right and one of my lieutenant buddies was screwing with me, but nothing was there, with the light in that room still on.
I rushed back into the other room, but nothing there and no presence perceived at that time.
I quickly checked back in the other room and all possible exits to block any exit, but still nothing there.
What had fallen, was a wooden plaque off of a speaker which had been stable for many months previously and no motion which could have naturally disturbed it.
I kept pinching myself, making sure I was awake, and even took a shower.
I then pieced events back together to try and figure out what had happened. At this point in my life, I was a Lieutenant of Marines, living in a BOQ, with concrete walls, 2 rooms, separated by a head, two exterior doors, one on each room, mirror imaging each other about the head(restroom). The doors were solid core, old, brass locksets with deadbolt locks and core locks in the knob, so double locked. The door to the bedroom didn't have a key, so was always kept doubly locked from the inside. The living room had a similar lock, but I had a key to it, so it was used for access.
When I slept, both were kept locked, 8" concrete tiltwall and 4" waffle concrete roof. Windows on the exterior wall were steel frame and generally painted shut, but had been secured for the winter, with a evap cooler in the window also secured with plastic for the winter months. Interior walls had no doors, other than common access by both rooms to the shared head.
Every night after work, I would come home to the BOQ, and before going asleep, would read some. 2 nights before this event, I had finished reading some engineering text and parts of an epistemology textbook, and decided that I really couldn't consider myself very intelligent if I hadn't read the Bible, even if I did have 5 years of engineering at a most competitive institution under my belt. I read several passages which came to mind regarding belief and faith.
I then was puzzled because one passage read, 'believe in me and thou shalt be saved', while another read, 'Ye are saved by faith aloe, lest any man should boast'. From having rigorously studied epistemology in college, I discerned there was difference in the meanings of the two words, faith and belief, at least as used in English. (I would later discover the same Greek word PISTIS/PISTEO was used in both, but translated differently in the English.)
At this point, I didn't understand what the real meaning was,..so I said a simple prayer, confessed any known and unknown sins to God through faith in Christ, and placed the issue in His hands, asking for Him to guide me or let me understand the difference in the meanings of the two passages and the use of faith and belief.
Again, mind you, I was if anything a backslidden carnal Christian. As a Lt and engineer I wasn't really prone to fear or hesitation, as I had already trained in many situations going downrange with explosives while live 50 cal and 7.62mm machine gun fire would be laid down within 50 ft of my advance 200 m downrange. I had already experienced seeing 50 cal rounds popcorn about me and my men, grabbing them an taking cover to avoid injuries from friendly fires, and felt no sense of fear, merely performing my duty and job and mission.
But 2 nights later, when this incident occurred and just as I blurted out, "In the name of Jesus Christ, be Gone!, I felt fear greater than I ever had before.
That evening, 2 evenings after the little prayer asking to understand the difference between faith and belief, I also went to bed, reading that evening Wittgenstein's 'Philosophical Investigations'. Upon completing it, I remember thinking somewhat arrogantly how sloppy it was and that much of the same sentiment could be expressed by Austin more concisely, without wasting time reading it, I then fell asleep after turning out the light next to the bed.
Several hours later in the evening, I remember sensing while asleep as though a large person was coming into my room by the door that was normally locked. I couldn't awake, but sensed and perceived somebody was entering the room. I then felt a large hand, a cold grasp, (closest I could describe would be a Halloween gorilla costume set of hand like gloves made out of latex, but with sharp long nails, and firm grasp), wrap around my ankle.
That was when I could awake and kipped up out of bed with the events described above. Throughout the event, both doors had been double locked and only opened when I immediately blocked them to insure nobody coul get by me. Nothing had hidden in the closets or behind or beneath any furniture or furnishings.
After this occurred, I considered the synchronicity of events. First I wanted to discern between faith and belief. I prayed to God for that understanding. 2 nights later I perceived somebody encroaching in to my room. I couldn't awake. I then was physically grabbed out my bed, to the point of being thrown off balance, nearly busting my head wide open. Turned on all lights immediately to see my adversary, blocked all exits so he couldn't escape. I was unable to see any human present. I repetitively felt a presence. I perceived more than the physical attack but also something wearing an apron with stones/jewels in it ( I can't describe that other than a perception, because it wasn't visible and I hadn't read or studied anything about that sort of thing, just a perseption). The perception of something still about to attack me continued. I was wide awake. I blurted out a phrase through faith in Christ. The person threatening me immediately departed. I wasn't very believing at that time, but i still had simple faith alone in Christ alone when I blurted out an appeal. The departure corresponded with a physical object being moved in an adjacent room with no proximate physical cause. The object moved was wooden and not prone to displacement.
With this summary, I discern that although we might rationally deduce statements regarding spirits and their inability to influence the physical domain, I would recommend a closer review of those arguments, simply from my own private experience as I testify to it. I do not ask that anybody take my word for it,..rather take His Word for it and remain in faith through Christ in all things. In that path, there if sure truth and indubitable veracity, regardless the tests or temptations which ever might be placed in our way by any person, human or otherwise.
I don’t doubt your story. It has truth’s own ring. However, I seriously doubt that your assailant was a ghost, as in a departed human spirit. It sounds to me like you were under attack from a fallen angel, i.e. a demon. You did right to invoke the Lord’s most holy Name, against Whose power all hell cannot stand.
The St. Michael Prayer introduced by Pope Pius XIII is a powerful spiritual weapon. I find it to be both efficacious and comforting; you might, also. The late Pope John Paul II highly recommended it.
Saint Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray;
and do Thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host -
by the Divine Power of God -
cast into hell, satan and all the evil spirits,
who roam throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.
May God bless and keep you.
I love ghost photos. Ghost Hunters and other similar shows are some of my favorites. The guys at TAPS are great.
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