Spot The Ghost Hand In This Old Photo

I downloaded the image and magnified it. The woman in the bottom left has a glove in the crook of her arm. It looks like one of those rubber-coated fabric ones.

Whatever the heck is on the other woman's shoulder is anyone's guess. I can't see it being an actual hand because the finger lengths are way out of whack. Fingers don't get shorter from the index finger and the 'fingeresque' things on that object do. Apart from that, it really does look like a flesh hand with fingernails. Headscratcher!

It looks like the two in the second row (left) are twins. I found myself looking at their faces and wondering what they were like as people? Belfast accents too! We forget how these B&W photos showed people with personalities. Fifteen women there with a pecking order and jokers, gossips and so forth. Imagine there could be several hundred descendants from these ladies.

a reply to: IAMTAT
Look at the dress of the woman behind the ghost hand. Her dress is "flat" suggesting it has been digitally manipulated. Compare the look of the dress with the other dresses on the front row, where are all the minor creases?. I would hazard a guess that somebody has digitally removed another person with their arm around the girl and has missed the hand.

Think it's a glove, look at the girl on the left bottom row, she's got a similar glove/hand looking thing.

a reply to: IAMTAT

I thought that then saw the one top left isn't either

originally posted by: DarkvsLight29
Think it's a glove, look at the girl on the left bottom row, she's got a similar glove/hand looking thing.

The girl on the bottom left.
Looking at the position of her arms.... that thing is not her hand!
Maybe gloves or something.

a reply to: Bigburgh

The more I thought about it, the tools look more like for lace making. Maybe it's not an Irish linen mill but Irish cottage lace making industry. This picture needs a textile historian.

a reply to: Aleister

One more anomaly to add...
The woman on the left in the front seems to have a strange "nub" growing out of her forehead. Strange picture indeed.

a reply to: HushedNoLonger

In the old days, the photographer used glass plates, then they were coated with a solution of Silver Halides, this dried in darkness, then they were put in the back of the camera and they took the shot. When this was developed you had the negative, essentially it was the film. This was laid on top of photographic paper, illuminated for a second or two, which was developed as the final print .I would imagine ,the glass plates were then cleaned and used again. If they were not cleaned properly the hand could have been left on the plate as it was recoated. So the image of a disembodied hand showed up on the new print. Just a thought as how it could have happened without anything strange occurring.

a reply to: anonentity

Thank you for explaining something I'd heard about years ago but no one ever explained exactly how it could happen! I learned something today.