This story is still doing the rounds, everyone seems to claim this ghost photo is one they took. So I thought I would bump up our article on it.I've mulled over this article for a long time, as I wasn't going to publish this story originally. The subject material when it was presented to us, seemed highly questionable. I felt at the time that we at BadGhosts were somehow being manipulated to suit an as yet undetermined purpose, perhaps to be an unwitting accomplice in the birth of a new Urban Legend. It would appear that we were right, because now that the story has been taken to national syndication, a deeper, yet far more interesting story has surfaced.
Now before we begin the dissemination and disection of information, we should familiarise ourselves with the story as it broke nationally. It was the tale of 17 year old Matthew Summers from Norton, Teeside, who "apparantly" managed to capture a "Ghost" on a mobile phone. It was covered by several news agencies at the time, (see reference sources at the bottom of this page).
This is the Image he allegedly captured.
Every great image has a story behind it, so here is how the national press covered it at the time, quoted so you can also partake of the "excitment" it generated.
Quote:
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. 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.
And right there on the left of the image, amidst the collection of underage legs, is a face, partially shadowed, but seemingly looking right at the camera. Cue spooky music, and a possible zooming effect.
He goes on to say:
Quote:
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."
Here is an Image of Matthew, holding the actual phone that he used to take the image in question.
©North News & Pictures ltd.
Seems like a pretty standard "Human interest/paranormal" story doesnt it? Syndicated press goes on to say:
Quote:
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.
Please dont get me started on The Hampton Court "Ghost" shennanigans as I may lose the will to live. Perhaps most suprisngly of all about this story is the comments made by "media darling" Ciaran O'Keeffe who was obviously sought out to offer an "expert opinion" on the subject. No doubt due to his long tenure with The Most Haunted Tv series.
Quote:
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."
Of course Ciaran is quite right about the pareidolia phenomena, it does exist and has a noticable influence on anyone with a pair of eyes when viewing chaotic jumbled or pixilated image. I must however strongly disagree with Ciaran on this particular image. I do not believe this is a case of simple pareidolia at all. The image is simply too good to be relegated to mere pareidolia. So put down the crack pipe Ciaran, and step away from the press, nobody needs to get hurt here.[/drama]
Now you are aware of the story, and its associated press coverage, we should move back before the publication date of 25th January 2008 for the full story.
Jon Donnis was sent an email from a "Chris" in Sunderland, at Some point before december 5th 2007. He presented it to the forum as a topic of interest. Along with the contents of the email of the sender, which can be seen below.
Quote:
Attached is a picture taken by my younger sisters mobile phone at the weekend. It was taken when she was round her friends house before they went out. As you can see, the picture shows a group of underage drinkers before they hit the town. However if you focus in between the legs of the second and third girl from the left then you can see the face of what appears to be a little girl.
Strangely the toddler to the right in the picture is distressed and my sister claims she was bothered by something but they couldnt work out what.
This picture was copied from my sisters phone onto my PC the day after the pic was taken so it has not been tampered with.The camera was a 3 megapixel mobile phone one.
What the hell is it in the picture? As a fierce sceptic I am bewildered by this strange face. What is your opinion? Optical illusion or just a result of a poor camera?
I'd be grateful for any reply.
Kind Regards
Chris, 23, Sunderland
So we have established that this image has been around for a long while before the press ran with it. We have also established that Matthew Summers was not the originator of the image in question, unless he contacted us under a psuedonym. We have also established there were a similar yet markedly different set of circumstances and stories which led to the image being captured.
One version tells the tale of Matthew taking the image on his phone.
Quote:
captured by 17 year old Matthew Summers on his mobile phone as he and his friends were preparing to go out.
The other insists it was taken by the sister of the person who contacted us.
Quote:
picture taken by my younger sisters mobile phone at the weekend. It was taken when she was round her friends house before they went out.
There are also comments listed by readers of these papers, which insist this image could be even older, and of undoubtedly dubious origins. Here is a comment from The Daily Mail's website concerning this article.
Quote:
An absolute hoax. I've seen this on someone else's mobile phone before Christmas who has nothing to do with the man who supplied the picture in this instance. I wonder how many other people claim to have taken this picture of this same group of girls?
- Lyndsay Kohberg, Litherland, Liverpool
Lyndsay as it happens is a journalist herself at the Crosby Herald, quite ironic isnt it?
This by itself is not a conclusive argument that this is a fraudulent image, however there are more discrepancies in this tale, Which we shall detail below.
I took a look at this image at the time it was presented to us, I failed to see what was paranormal about it. Despite the assurances of the email, I could not see how exactly, this girl in the image could be a "Ghost". The image looked perfectly natural to me and not unusual at all. The only thing about this that "
made it paranormal" was the authors insistance no other child was there at the time (except the little girl by the sofa of course). He also alludes that only the child could see this "Ghost" which is why she was seemingly so upset.
I decided this was merely a "missatributation image", where a mundane image that has a peculiar aspect to it has a backstory invented for it to make it appear paranomal in origin. The scene not matching the image description was a good place to start. Some thought it was something placed on the floor behind the girls which merely looked like a face, others thought it was a child in a Halloween costume,others insisted this was doing the rounds via viral mobile transfer and had been for quite a long time.
So what choices do we have here? Well there are three that immediately spiring to mind.
The image must be:
A: a ghostly child.
B: an image that looks strange but is infact quite normal.
C: a purposeful hoax or fraud.
But which one is it? we need more information.
Upon further research it was revealed by a "paul smith" on 12/01/2008 on the UK Living TV Forums, reprinted here in its entirety with all grammar and spelling intact and unedited:
Quote:
hi Ive just been shown a picture on a mobile phone of my friends daughter with her friends at christmas. it shows 4 girls ready for a night out one of the girls is a singal mum she asked her son to have his photo taken with them .but heran off crying saying he did not like that littel girl she allways hurt him? . puzzeled by this remark and being a one parent family she let it pass. but when the daughter of my friend looked at the photo they had taken only then did there blood run cold.in between there legs is a littel girls face . not just a thing that looks like no it is a picture of a ghostly littel girl .very weird
Sounds familiar doesnt it? Another poster in the same thread called "destroythemall" stated:
Quote:
Hi. i've got a picture that has the same thing. is this in liverpool? i have enhanced the picture and it has not been edited and is definately an actual picture of a little ghostly girl. i've never seen anything of this quality before. Is there no way of posting the picture on here. Would love to have some veiws on it.
On the abovetopsecret forum dated the 16/01/2008 a user called "bwfcfan" posted this:
Quote:
Hi this is my first thread here and i would like some help trying to figure out this picture. my mums friend came round the other day and showed me a picture that she had received from her brother the same day. the picture shows 4 relatives of hers just getting ready to go out. in between two of the relatives legs near the bottom of the picture is what i can see looks like the face of a baby. now there was no baby there and it wasnt until the picture was viewed that it was noticed. so was wondering what people thought of it as i dont think it is a fake or a trick of light because of the facial features. bear in mind it was also taken on a camera phone
He then posted the "exact" same image as the national newspapers. However he insists the image was taken in bolton manchester where he claims to live, which would tie in nicely with his username. BWFC = Bolton Wanderers Football Club.
A day after bwfcfan posted this on abovetopsecret forums 17/01/2008, a user by the name of "willow"on thebigfatwitch website forum also claimed this was taken by his sisters friend. This is his story.
Quote:
This was taking at new year by one of my sisters friends,the little girl was crying because the little boy wouldnt stop looking at her (look between the girls legs)she is the only child in the house ,i have been promised that they have not messed with the photo in anyway, and i believe them what do you think
Forum member Pharmcat of Badpsychics also had the same image emailed to her on the 17/01/2008
It seems a lot of people are claiming to be the originator of this particular image, well in advance of Matthew Summers, and it ultimately being published on several news websites. Matthew is shown on several websites holding his mobile phone, complete with the image he allegedly took on it. The phone in question is a Sony Ericsson K510i in a "Seductive Red". According to the Sony Ericsson website, this phone is capable of taking images at a maximum resolution of 1280 x 1024. The image submitted to us was actually 600 x 450, this is very odd.
Was this a lower resolution setting? Sony Ericsson stated in their technical specifications that the K510i can take images at these resolutions. Large 1280 x 1024 Medium 640 x 480 Small 160 x 120.
So the image submitted had definately been cropped or resized, as the native format of the image is not actually capable of being captured at that size. The person who submitted this to us stated:
Quote:
This picture was copied from my sisters phone onto my PC the day after the pic was taken so it has not been tampered with.The camera was a 3 megapixel mobile phone one.
The image has been cropped/resized so we can prove it has been tampered with despite his assertions it has not, coincidentally, or perhaps convieniently? the Exif data for the image cannot be read because it is corrupted. This is another indication it has been manipulated, as every instance of this image found online has the same problem, except those that copied it from the the news sites. The news sites have Exif data they have added, namely "North News & Pictures ltd".
Transferring it from the phone to the PC makes sense, It is here it can be altered using an art program if so desired. However the Sony Ericsson technical data for the phone states that it only has a 1.3 megapixel camera with 4x digital zoom, not a 3 megapixel camera. Seemingly yet more inconsistancies.
People have incorrectly assumed because Matthew is seen holding the phone with the image on it, that he must be the author of the image. Many Sony Ericsson phones come with bundled software like Sony Ericsson File Manager and Sony Ericsson PC Suite, which not only allow you to drag and drop files to and from your phone via a PC connection, but also edit them too. This means the image could have been taken on any phone or even regular camera and transferred to his phone.
Here I have placed the image on my phone, which just so happens to be a Sony Ericsson K750i. Click to enlarge.
This serves to prove that the image can be transferred and stored on any mobile device.
What happened to the missing sections of the image? We will assume for now that it was originally taken at Medium resolution which is 640 x 480 because that is the size which most closely resembles what was actually submitted. It could however have been taken at the larger 1280 x 1024 setting, but this implies a huge swathe of image was removed.
Perhaps the most striking feature of this submitted image is there is simply not enough room for a child to be crouching behind the girls. This only serves to add to the mystery. That is until you realise what you are looking at is actually a forced perspective image. The bottom and sides of the image have been removed.
I spent a short amount of time rebuilding the approximate dimensions of the image so we can ascertain what it may have looked like unedited. The results turned out pretty good. They clearly show that now there is more than enough room for a small child to be crouching behind the girls.
This effectively removes the description that what you are looking at is a virtual impossibility. It should be pointed out that this is in no means meant to be photorealistic, it merely serves as an illustration to prove there is ample room for a crouched child in the non cropped image.
Now looking at it, without the forced perspective, does it really seem that paranormal? Why is it not just a kneeling child hiding, after possibly having a spat with the crying child? We only have several conflicting stories from several different sources to say there was no other child there in that room. I think we can safely discount that information as being innacurate.
Do you have more information about the origins of this image? Can you help us trace its appearance back further than december 5th 2007? Do you know any of the people in the image, or indeed Matthew Summers? Are you the original owner of this image, and can you shed any further light as to its true nature? If so please feel free to contact us, so we can bring a reasonable conclusion to this obviously non paranormal hoax.
References:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=510155&in_page_id=1770http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/01/24/nghost124.xmlhttp://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23434056-details/Mysterious+%27ghostly%27+face+of+child+appears+in+mobile+phone+photo+of+teen+pals/article.dohttp://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article726271.ecehttp://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=510155&in_page_id=1770&in_page_id=1770&expand=truehttp://www.livingtv.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?s=a60c9bd2e26edc7997b78639788ea1f6&threadid=156579http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread327362/pg1'
http://www.thebigfatwitch.co.uk/community/showthread.php?tid=2360http://www.sonyericsson.com/cws/products/mobilephones/overview/k510i?cc=gb&lc=enhttp://www.mobile-phones-uk.org.uk/sony-ericsson-k510i.htmhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Ericsson_K510http://moh2005.proboards78.com/index.cgi?board=medpsy&action=display&thread=1196855585&page=1
Re: Norton, Teeside Ghost Child
