Cloaked ghost

[brian]

While on a tour during our holiday in the UK I took two pictures through the locked glass front door of the Priory Church of St Bartholomew in Smithfield, London which was built in the 12th century. These were both taken in the day with the flash off within seconds of each other , one shows a clear cloaked apparition(ghost) while the other one shows the area without the cloaked apparition.

I had taken these two photos quickly & had to run back to the bus before it left me behind. While on the moving bus I checked my photos, found the one with the apparition in it & showed it to the qualified London guide straight away (independent witness) who liked it & requested if I could send her a copy of the photo.

I new nothing about the history of this church, except that the guide had told me it was haunted after I had asked her if she new of any haunted buildings in the area.

Have since found out that there has been many sightings of a ghost in a cloak, which is thought to be Rahere who founded the church & is buried in the church.
My camera is black & I am blocking any light from behind me with my body/hands.

Photo of front door of Priory Church of St Bartholomew taken before I took the two closeup shots.
Hope it is of interest
brian

[ghosts1905]

wow, that is very interesting, thanks for sharing brian!

[pjay]

Where are you seeing a cloak? Maybe I'm not looking at it right. I do see what looks like a figure, but I'm not seeing what would be a cloak.

[ghosts1905]

I see a cloak, behind the figure...

[brian]

Thanks for the feedback on the photo. When I first looked at the picture on the camera I thought it looked like someone walking with a coat/cloak on. That night I looked it up in a book Haunted London by Rupert Matthews which we had bought the day before but had not had a chance to read.
In the book it says" That the St Bartholomew's' is frequented by a very solid looking ghost wearing a long coat. Most often appears in the early morning, the phantom appears so real that more than one person has tried talking to it, thinking it to be the church warden. It is generally assumed the ghost is Rahere who was at one time jester-minstrel at the court of King Henry 1."

[pjay]

O.k. I see what you mean now. I looked at it as someone walking to my left, and it looked like an overweight woman in shorts maybe stepping up.

[PPI_Brian]

Hi Brian,

Thank you for sharing this image with us. I really enjoy looking at pictures of great historical sites, and I also enjoy looking at pictures of possible paranormal activity. This image captures the best of both.

I downloaded your picture and studied the XIF information first. That was very helpful in determining the camera model, resolution settings, f-stop, shutter speed, ISO and other related information that could lead to a possible explanation.

My first thought was that it was caused by a long exposure setting, and the XIF file indicates it was taken at 1/8 of a second at f/3.6 at ISO 1000. This length of exposure lends itself to blurs and smears from unintentional movement (notice the blur around your fingers in the upper left hand corner of the image), and this could account for the strange gauze-like texture of the hooded figure in your picture. Shots like this are especially tricky because you're shooting through glass, probably very old glass with lots of imperfections, and you're capturing a composite of the interior of the building and a reflection of the exterior on the glass itself. It's also worth mentioning that the head of the hooded figure closely resembles the camera strap in the owner's manual illustration for the Olympus FE240/X795.

Here's a link to the manual: tlc.housing.wisc.edu/docs/camera_fe230.pdf

I'm not saying your picture is not paranormal, I'm just offering an alternative explanation for the image. Again, thanks for sharing this image and allowing us to review and discuss it.

Regards,

Brian

[Darren]

Had a quick look at the image and it does appear that this is caused by the bright reflection of the surroundings behind the photographer.

The main difference between the two images (apart from the anomaly) is that the anomaly image has a very strong reflection present. This provides support that it is caused by the reflection - producing an effect similar to a double exposure. You have a combination of two images - what is actually behind the glass and what is a reflection on the glass. What actually gets recorded on the resulting image is whatever is brightest out of the two.

So I've tried to find which is which by highlighting the reflections. (See pic below).

Firstly the camera and photographers hands were isolated, then the photographers head, body and shoulder. Once these were removed it could be seen how the apparent shape of the anomaly was formed. What is left is an area where the brighter light from behind the photographer could have entered and been reflected into the camera. There is also some light leaking as would be expected as the main source of light is behind and to the left of the photographer.

Using the rating system we use on all of our photographs I would rate this as "natural explanation highly likely". However, as in many cases of a singular photograph, there's not enough data to be conclusive either way and it remains open to interpretation.

[PPI_Brian]

Hi Darren,

I really like the way you isolated the particular elements in the photograph to highlight the areas of interest, and I really liked the way you presented the isolated images as a composite. It clearly shows how the anomaly could have been created by the unique environmental conditions present at the time. ;D

[brian]

Hey thanks again for your interest & opinions on the photo.
Your explanations on how this anomaly was possibly caused are very good, your knowledge of photography is very good.

The camera strap theory Brian is sound, however I never put one on this camera for that reason of strap getting in frame. I did think sometimes it would have been a good idea on the holiday to have a strap with me as I took photos over the edges of high castle walls(luckily I didn't drop camera)

Darren, the isolating particular parts of the photo was great & also explaining about light leakage. I have looked at that myself by trying to simulate the exact position of the way I was holding the camera in a mirror at home & then taking a resulting photo with still answer of how light got through.
However the light inside is all wrong, I will try to simulate photo in the daylight taking it through the glass of our outside windows at home so I can try to get natural light behind me similar to when I took the photo in London. It was approaching twilight when I took this photo & if you look at the picture of the front door the light in the immediate area of the door was not very bright.
Will try to do this in the next couple of days, when light conditions look right.