Angie D'Arcy apparantly took a random picture of a field gate near her home. Very Interesting I know, but who am I to quibble about peoples hobbies? I myself collect beermats from Saudi pubs, and Im sure you can appriciate how rare those are.
She allegedly took the image on one of those cheap disposable cameras, and like most disposable cameras, it probably lay forgotten in some dusty drawer for five years before she finally remembered to get it developed. When she did however, it positively
blew her mind out of her ass straight onto an appropriate type of paper.
Right there in the series of innocuous disposable imagery was a.......was.......a.......G...G....GHOST!!!!
"Bulls*it" I hear you cry, "looks like a photoshop fake to me", says some random bloke, only to be shushed by his Mr's for making a fuss publicly. Yet here, in a national newspaper, is a story about just such a tale. This is how it was exposed to the world by those 3rd rate journalists at that infamous tabloid rag, The Sun. As condensed by the ever busy "STAFF REPORTER" on 11 April 2008.
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THIS spooky image of an unknown boy gave Angie D'Arcy the shivers when she had her photos developed.
Here is the image in question. Feel free to sprinkle dessicated Holy Water liberally around your monitor.
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She took the picture in 2003 in Evercreech, Somerset, but only just got round to having the disposable camera film printed.
Amazingly, just in time for that "slow news day", and they say miracles never happen eh? Damn sceptics.
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Angie, 40, of Shepton Mallet, cannot remember anyone being in the shot when she took the snap and said the figure, dressed in old-style country clothing, remained a mystery.
Old style country clothing indeed. That is if you live in a binary star system, on a planet controlled by the Hutt crime syndicate, called called Tatooine (I was also suprised to find this was not the planet of the schoolgirl russian pop starlets).
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"I don't believe in ghosts but I just can't explain it," she said.
Oh, I think I might just be able to assist you there.
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"It was among pictures of our old house. No one recognises the boy."
Except perhaps for dozens of fans, and maybe George Lucas, who I hear is quite keen on prosecuting Tradmark Infringments.
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The child also appears on the negatives.
I could'nt find a copy of the negative images online, and I refuse point blank to buy the sun, so unfortunately I am at an impasse on this matter. However I publicly challenge The Sun to produce these negatives for analysis. I fear we shall be waiting a long long time. If the negatives do exist, and this "Craparition" appears on those also. Then that in itself will be evidence enough that a fraud has taken place.
Negatives can be manipulated much like a digital image. It is much harder though, sometimes requiring specialised software or even hardware to accomplish realistic results. There are devices commercially available that will scan a negative and transfer it to digital. There is no reason this process cannot be reversed in a darkroom, and it has been since the 1860's. Now we use photoshop, then it was probably done by hand, in "Daguerreoshoppe".
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/ It is also a bone of contention with Dr Hany Farid, a Digital Forensic examiner based at Dartmouth College. The head of the Image Science Group, whose research focuses on digital forensics, image analysis, computer vision, and human perception. He had this to say about Image manipulation, which is oddly ironic given the source of this alleged Ghost story:
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manipulation and doctoring of photos has a long history. Yet digital, with new tools that seem to increase daily, allows those without journalistic ethics, and those who have something to sell, whether politics, sex, celebrity, stocks or what have you, to alter individual images and sets of images for his or her gain. Some photographers, editors, plain folk, politicians and propagandists feel they have the right to alter any image or set of images for personal, political and commercial gain, often depending on his or her point of view.
From the excellent article by Ron Steinman.
http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0802/digital-forensics-an-interview-with-dr-hany-farid.htmlSo lets have a closer look at the image in question. The first thing that I thought was odd about it, is that the "Ghost" appears to be almost perfectly straight, while conversely the rest of the image is quite slanted. Could this be actual evidence of a "
spirit level"? Not really, shame, I suppose that could have become another tool for the budding "paranormal Investigator" to use, possibly to double check which "plane of existance" the ghost was on. The apparant cause of this oddity, is simply crap photoshop skills.
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If you take a closer look at this cropped image, you can clearly see that the person who "shopped" this was so incredibly inept, they just lowered the transparancy and dumped it ontop of the original image. The bars of the gate are behind the face, the boy is not behind the gate. This would take literally ten seconds to fix, but I guess Angie D'Arcy or "STAFF REPORTER" had a story to sell or a deadline to meet. It should also be noted that the right leg, seems to be held stiffly in an anatomically incorrect position, almost like the child has Tibial Bowing caused by Neurofibromatosis.
What about this Old style country clothing? Well the child does appear to be wearing a tunic of some description, along with some sort of belt, almost like early saxon vestments. It reminded me of a reenactment costume that you might see at one of those new age fayres (where there are giant pickles), or maybe a movie costume from a production still.
I took a look at the Exif data, it was pretty strange in this image, containing a seemingly inordinate amount of unnecessary information. It states:
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A print from a negative from the camera of Angie D'Arcy from Wells which shows what appears to be a ghost.
Yet it is obviously not possible, without the aid of manipulation. So who is the real culprit here? The Sun? or Angie D'Arcy? I am sure both parties will blame each other equally when the "effluvial flow hits the air conditioner". It matters not for now, "real" or "faked" is not the issue here. "Journalistic integrity" however, is.
So we have established the image is faked, yet I refuse to leave it at that. For some, even this wealth of deduction is not enough to prove the image is fake. Some will believe it is real simply because "it is so bad, it must be real". I went away from this for a little while, because my leads had fizzled out. After a good nights sleep (1 hour 40 minutes to be exact) it finally hit me where I had seen something almost exactly like this "Ghost" before.
Let me introduce you to Jake Lloyd.
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Still dont recognise him? Maybe an earlier image of him, in his most famous role will Jog your memory?
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The "Ghost child" in the image looks remarkably like "Anakin Skywalker", from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. I do realise however, that although some might grudingly admit a passing resemblance between Jake and the "Ghost", it is not in itself proof enough.
How about I show you the
exact same image used for the fraud?
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Still not convinced? How about a comparison shot?
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The image was apparantly taken from this website, or another just like it.
http://www.partsofsw.com/Ep_1/anakin.htmIt would appear that The Sun is following in the footsteps of William Randolph Hurst, and is now in the business of creating news to sell papers, instead of just reporting it accurately. "Oh wait", what am I thinking? That has been your business all along hasnt it? Silly me, I almost forgot.
Lesson of the day kids? Dont believe anything you read, until you check it for facts, and definately do not believe anything in this obviously integrity free, Journalisticly barren rag.
I think a more apt headline would be:
Ghost child fails paternity test, truth found not to be The Sun.
References:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1030054.ecehttp://www.partsofsw.com/Ep_1/anakin.htmhttp://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/ http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0802/digital-forensics-an-interview-with-dr-hany-farid.htmlhttp://www.partsofsw.com/Ep_1/anakin.htm
