Inspired by an early silly season spate of spooky ghost stories in the press, we asked our readers to provide their own ghost pictures. We asked this despite knowing full well that ghosts aren’t real, as comprehensively proved by the BBC’s Ghostwatch investigation in 1992.
We were inundated with spooky responses from around the world. Were any of them actually of ghosts? Let’s run through them, as one can with ghosts, and see.
1) A haunting down under
Our first ghost comes all the way from Australia, where hauntings by spooky apparitions are given an extra fright factor by being upside down.
“In 2011 I went to a party with a group of nursing students. We visited the old Manly Quarantine Station and did a ghost tour. I don’t believe in ghosts but I did enjoy hearing all the macabre stories from yesteryear. One recurring story was of visitors being followed at night by disembodied blazing red eyes. I got bit of a surprise when I checked my photos the next day.”
Guardian verdict: NOT A GHOST
2) A load of old Blarney?
“On our way to the top of Blarney Castle, I snapped two pictures of a dark cave carved into the side of the castle which was used to house prisoners,” says Alexandra Bacchetti
“There is no light source in this cave. After examining the picture afterwards I surprised what showed up. First I thought something was wrong with my camera, but pictures before the snapshots and after the snapshots where fine. The other picture shows streams of misty light descending from the roof of the cave and bouncing off the cave floor.”
There’s something wrong with your camera.
Guardian verdict: NOT A GHOST
3) Olympic Spirit
“This poltergeist appeared behind us during this photograph taken at the South East Asia games in Singapore at the National Stadium in Kallang, says Jason Elliott. It’s not a poltergeist.
“An ancient Olympian come to enjoy action maybe?”
No.
Guardian verdict: NOT A GHOST
4) Beer Ghost
“Did beer ghost drink the last Coopers? We’ll never know for sure”.
Yes we will, crumpet76. That’s one of your mates under a sheet, isn’t it?
Guardian verdict: CLEARLY NOT A GHOST
5) Marquis de Spooky
“If you look closely in this picture, you can make out a ghostly figure standing in the middle-left window of the pub, just above the sign,” claims endymionsleeps.
*Peers*
“A possible otherworldly origin is seemingly suggested by the fact that this patch of South East London is especially renowned for its spooky goings on. The photo is taken outside one of a trio of drinking establishments known locally as “the New Cross Triangle.”
Go on.
“Supposedly the nickname stems from the fact that many people have been known to enter “the Triangle” for a swift half, only to disappear for days on end, emerging confused and with little memory of what has transpired. The locality has been noted for its frequent ghost sightings.”
Oh really.
“Indeed, it has been proposed that a pale, squinting gentleman regularly spotted nearby, sporting a pointy beard and silken breeches, might not be a local art student as first thought, but rather could be none other than the phantom of murdered Tudor playwright Christopher Marlowe himself!”
Guardian verdict: NOT A GHOST
6) California haunting
DaLeftHook left nothing to chance, and dared friends (note: not himself) to go to Long Beach Cemetary at midnight. These brave, unnamed friends took this picture, apparently of a gravestone. They were never seen again.
Or were they?
Guardian verdict: NOT A GHOST
7) Coast ghost
“Taken at Chistlehurst caves in Kent whilst with my two young daughters,” says this anonymous reader. “Noticed the image when I uploaded it to my laptop.”
There’s nothing there.
Guardian verdict: NOT A GHOST
8) Rest in trees
“Spooky apparition seen in Rochester cemetery, Medway,” says Matt McMillan, who has optimistically captioned his photo ‘Ghost of a Squirrel’.
“Image captured by my sister. She gets goose bumps talking about it!”
Guardian verdict: SQUIRREL
9) A ghostly child
Now this is more like it. A sinister outline of a child. This must be a ghost, surely, just like this one in the Mirror, which turned out definitely to be a ghost. Tim Sandys takes up the story.
“I was pottering in my studio which is located in the basement level of my building. Now part of the postgraduate art school here in Glasgow, it once was a hospital as is very apparent from its slightly imposing medical trappings.”
Encouraging.
“Being a suitably dark and stormy night, the lights were occasionally flickering. The lighting system is a shambles, working intermittently and highly prone to problems thanks to its unpredictable motion-activated sensors. The lights were doing odd things. Clicking and burring - fluorescent tubes were sputtering and clacking.”
Sounds sinister. Paranormal activity?
“I decided to make a slow-motion capture of the corridor lights flicking on and off. I shot several clips over a twenty minute period. As I reviewed the footage, I became aware that some shots had the figure of a little girl standing at the end of the corridor, seemingly looking at me from around the door.”
Oh my word. And yet...
“The quality of the image, the history of the building and the fact that it creeps most people out late at night, all these pandered to the arcane narrative; the familiar trope of a ghost story. I suspect someone was working up on the second floor in Printmaking. They likely had their bored child along for the ride who decided to go exploring downstairs and was greeted to the site of some creepy guy with a phone.”
Guardian verdict: NOT A GHOST
10) Spookin’ 9-5
You have to hand it to this ghost. Unlike the other ghosts on offer, it looks like a ghost. But it loses points for being seen during the daytime, as no self-respecting ghost ever would. Also, it’s joined this tourist snap a little too readily to convincingly be a tormented soul, trapped between this world and the next. And yet. And yet...
Guardian verdict: NOT A GHOST
