Possible ghost caught on friends webcam?

The above file is 2 screen captures from a friend's webcam late the other night.

He was home alone and several times i saw the silhouette of a man walk past his doorway... he said he had seen nor heard anything and told me to stop messing with him.

I was lucky in that it happened again so i took a screen capture, the top image. You can't see much except that it looks like a person moving from left to right... which is what happened.

Several seconds later, a figure appeared in the doorway for a few seconds and the 2nd screen capture is of them.

I've showed my friend the images and he doesn't recognize the man, but insisted to me that he was the only person home. He is not one to joke on these issues either.

What do you think? (Sorry for the quality of the images... it is a cheap webcam!)

[edit on 10-1-2007 by fooffstarr]

Well, assuming you and your friend are not staging this; This has to be the best potential ghost picture I have ever seen.

Was your friend sure that someone didn't enter his house with out him knowing?

I am no expert on picures from web cames so, I can not really specualte on a possible cause for such a human looking optical illusion. Maybe it is a ghost. If so, I don't know much about ghost either. I am sorry but, I have no real idea on what you should do. I guess you could look up the history of the place to see if there is any stories or deaths at the place. You could also try to research optical illusions with web camers and investigate if there is a source. You could also try to find an opinion form someone in the know with cameras and images.

(Edit for grammer and spelling errors)

[edit on 11-1-2007 by halfmask]

It is not staged, i assure you

I was taking a trip to the local library to look through some archive stuff anyway, so i'll have a look for anything about the house as well.

Could possibly be an optical illusion, but if so, it knows what shapes to take!

Originally posted by fooffstarr
It is not staged, i assure you

...

Could possibly be an optical illusion, but if so, it knows what shapes to take!

Are you implieing that an optical illusion is living or a being? I am comfused. An optical illusion is something you see from light reflecting and refracting from random elements in the house to form images that are not there.

Originally posted by halfmask

Originally posted by fooffstarr
It is not staged, i assure you

...

Could possibly be an optical illusion, but if so, it knows what shapes to take!

Are you implieing that an optical illusion is living or a being? I am comfused. An optical illusion is something you see from light reflecting and refracting from random elements in the house to form images that are not there.

I know, i was just joking around a bit. I do that way too often. It was just my way of saying that if it was an optical illusion it is very good one

An optical illusion is not a type of ghost or spirt. It is like seeing your relection in a mirror, and you mistake it for another person.

Sorry about my last post, replied to late.

Originally posted by halfmask
An optical illusion is not a type of ghost or spirt. It is like seeing your relection in a mirror, and you mistake it for another person.

If it was an optical illusion, it was a very good one... as in it was a good coincidence that the angle of the camera and whatever was in the photo was right to make it look like a person..

The reason i don't buy into that theory is that the doorway was empty all night... there was just the occasional movement from left to right like i mentioned in the first post.

[edit on 11-1-2007 by fooffstarr]

I know it was good optical illusion. However, something some where else like in another room could have changed. Like something fell or the moon/sun moving or a car out side. Anything could have caused the illusion.

If is was a ghost, how is your friend handling it? Has he or you seen anything else?

Hope you can still sleep at night.

[edit on 11-1-2007 by halfmask]

He is handling it well. He is a hardened skeptic, and even after i showed him the pictures he still sleeps in the same room in the same house.

He hasn't reported anything out of the ordinary to me, but i doubt he would because i don't think he'd believe it himself to begin with. He is one of those skeptics that will make up an explanation if there isn't one.

I have no trouble sleeping at night! My house isn't the haunted one!

How confident are you that your friend isn't fooling you? The second image looks like a woman with a white blouse and black skirt, fiddling with something in her hands. Are you sure it wasn't his mother/grandmother that just walked in with the house key in her hands?

^ Positive. Sorry for the 1 word post.

I have a possible theory regarding the optical illusion idea. I live on the second floor next some very trafficated roads, at night headlights of cars occasionally point directly towards my balcony (which is glassed) and so all the stuff that is between me and the lights (2 sets of windows, pots and plants, blinds..) distorts the light and can give the impression of some pretty freaky things.

So Im suggesting you find out if there is a window near the hall outside your friends room, and if this window has a road outside of it.

Offcourse I´d rather have it be a real ghost as well

On a second view of the pictures my suggestion seems unlikely. The first picture is a man, the question is how did he get there?

The second picture I still cant make out, if anything it looks like a decapitated person to me. Perhaps Im looking at it the wrong way.

Originally posted by DJMessiah
Are you sure it wasn't his mother/grandmother that just walked in with the house key in her hands?

Thanks.....thats exactly what I see as well, a girl/woman with dark hair and
something in her hands.

...as for the first picture, I'm sorry but I can't really make anything out
at all.
I'll have another look tomorrow when I'm not so sleepy.

The figure under discussion seems totally out of proportion relative to the seated figure (face obscured) in the foreground.

For the 'possible ghost' to be so small relative to the rest of the scene, it would require the 'ghost' to be considerable distance/several rooms away.

Is the house so large that this could occur? Also, is there a hallway several rooms away that is clearly visible from where the photo was taken?

First of all, its a rarity when someone posts pictures and it actually looks like what they are describing.

It does look like there's someone there but they do look very small. Its either a hoax, an illusion or something beyond our understanding.

At least we've ruled out an over-active imagination/insanity which is obviously the case in 95% of posts like these.

Originally posted by madhatter
...as for the first picture, I'm sorry but I can't really make anything out
at all.

The first picture looks like someone walking in through a door, hence why I believe they had house keys in their hand in the second image. It looks as if they were closing the door behind them, and the camera had taken a picture of their right side.

Originally posted by fooffstarr
^ Positive. Sorry for the 1 word post.

What has lead you to be so positive about it?

[edit on 11-1-2007 by DJMessiah]

The first picture is definitely a man, IMO.. For the larger picture i can't make nothing out, but i would think he would know if he was home alone or not, and if he is a skeptic like you say seems like he would try to make u understand that it was his mother/dad etc... if someone was there with him.. Its either a ghost, illusion or one silent and friendly burglar

[edit on 11-1-2007 by VoXiSo]

Just another spurious webcam image to me. Actual moving footage would be more useful than some selective frames.

The compression algorithyms and stuff used on webcams can mean that even if you are looking at someone / something you know sometimes you don't recognise them until they stay still.

No cigar...the quest goes on...