New Ghost Picture - Who is haunting St. Martins cave?

This guy from my Province of New Brunswick in Canada has this picture that he took in a cave. Check it out and tell me what you think. It doesn't seem to me that he is lying but it's interesting. This is in our local paper. timestranscript.canadaeast.com...

It could be Michael Jackson.

Wow a fellow NB
I am hoping this isn't another one of those iphone faker type programs again. It is a very interesting picture though, if it is not a hoaxed one at least.

Wow nice catch, the guy who took the picture doesnt look like someone who would try and fake it, he looks like a good hearted fellow.
Is there anyway we can tell if its been faked.
It looks almost to real.

The first time I saw the picture, pirate flashed in my head and then in the story it says it might be a ships Captain.

I don't mean to call anyone a liar, but to me it just looks like an extreme overexposure due to flash.

Like this.

The cave is pretty dark, the rest of the subjects are some distance away, and some oblivious guy walks right in front of the photographer just as the flash is going off. Result: flash blowout.

Yes, I know the photographer says there wasn't anyone there, but that's just his word. "A picture is worth 1000 words," and this photo speaks for itself in my opinion.

Lately I've seen a trend where people accidentally take weird-looking photos and then decide to claim (or perhaps really believe, human memory is notoriously unreliable) that their photo shows something paranormal.

JMHO.

reply to post by hhott


Do some cellphone cameras have a flash? Also most flash blowout I have seen is up close photos, that dude looks pretty far away to me.

reply to post by TKDRL


Yes, they do.

The higher-end cell phone camera goes much further with a brighter xenon flash (rather than a more standard LED flash),

He's not six inches from the camera, but he's much closer than anything else ...

reply to post by hhott

The cave is pretty dark, the rest of the subjects are some distance away, and some oblivious guy walks right in front of the photographer just as the flash is going off. Result: flash blowout.

Surely the guy that took the photo would have seen someone walk in front of him 10 feet away???
The guy said there was no one else around.

reply to post by hhott


Ah I see. I only had one with phone with a camera, it didn't come with a flash.

reply to post by hhott

Nice try ,hhott but I don't think it's the same thing as in your pic. He probably would have known if someone else was there. Also there is the blue orb that no one is talking about. Orbs are common in the paranormal, I guess, if you believe this kind of stuff.

I'm sure he did know if someone else was there. Let's consider a few things.

This picture is anomalous because the photographer says it is. In other words, he says there was no one there and this "apparition" just showed up in his picture. If that's true, then it is an anomaly which probably can not be adequately explained.

However, in the pursuit of paranormal studies, how often do we accept the word of a person without evidence? If a man's "testimony" is believable evidence, we would by now all know of and believe in ghosts, sasquatch, and aliens because of all the eyewitness accounts and anecdotes. But, we don't. How often have you seen on ATS the words "pic or it didn't happen"?

When there is eyewitness testimony and no evidence, we can only choose to believe or disbelieve what the person says. When, however, there is both eyewitness testimony and evidence, we can examine the evidence and compare it to the testimony.

When the witness account and the evidence agree, we have a much stronger case for whatever-it-is being real. On the other hand, when the account and the evidence disagree, what do we do? Do we believe the witness and accept their version of events, or do we analyze the evidence separately?

Most often, we analyze the evidence separately and then decide if it matches or doesn't match the witness' account, and then decide which is more believable.

So, let's set aside the photographer's account and just look at the picture, by itself. Here's an enlarged closeup of just the "anomaly."

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/32c1c58d0d14.jpg[/atsimg]

What does it LOOK like? To me it looks like a man walking. There is motion blur and flash washout. Similar blur which obscures features and details can be seen on the children in the background. On the man's shoe and hand the distortion of motion can be clearly seen. Normally, the shutter speed associated with a flash stops motion. Obviously in this picture, that did not happen as we see motion blur on the children as well as the man. And, obviously there was a flash, which we can tell from the light foreground to darker background and from the flash reflecting off the children and rocks. So we have two fairly certain facts: There was a flash, and the shutter didn't open/close fast enough to stop motion. Therefore, the photograph is overexposed because the shutter stayed open too long for the lighting provided by the flash. Thus, objects relatively close to the camera are washed out, and, if they were moving, blurred.

Now look at the photo again. What do you see that is NOT consistent with a normal human being that is motion-blurred and washed out by overlong exposure during a camera flash going off? Anything? I don't. I can see clothes, shoes, a receding hairline, and taking the motion blur into account he seems quite solid.

So, the photographic evidence and the witness testimony disagree. If not for the photographer saying there was no one there, this would be a perfectly normal messed-up photograph.

In my opinion it is, therefore, up to each of us as individuals to decide whether this honest photographer snapped something out of this world that happens to look like a washed-out, motion blurred man walking, or whether the photographer is trying to get his 15 minutes out of a photographic mistake that looked pretty cool when he saw it after the fact.

I know what my decision is.

Would the flash even fire? Seems like there's plenty of natural light, even towards the back of the cave.

Whatever he is, he is certainly dressed right for the weather. He is wearing shorts like the folks in the background.

reply to post by hhott


Thanks for posting the picture, hhott. I would have to say , after seeing it larger, that you are probably right. I yield to your investigative prowess.

It seems to me like a effect made by the phone's camera. The people in the didn't saw anything ? I don't know, I May be wrong.

reply to post by hhott
yesterday this same camera stopped working. The cave was completely dark when the photo was taken so a flash was used. Also, I'm not sure if this could cause anything but this is a very "salt air" environment and at the time of this photo the humidity in the air was very very high as there has been a solid week of rainy, foggy, wet weather.

reply to post by minintown


Are you claiming to be the picture taker?

Originally posted by minintown
reply to post by hhott

 

yesterday this same camera stopped working. The cave was completely dark when the photo was taken so a flash was used. Also, I'm not sure if this could cause anything but this is a very "salt air" environment and at the time of this photo the humidity in the air was very very high as there has been a solid week of rainy, foggy, wet weather.

Being very familiar with cave environments & photography I'm gonna have to say there is no way this photo was taken in a completely dark cave. Way to much light in the photo for that. If the cave was completely dark I just can not see a way that a cell phone camera's flash would have made it all the way back to were the kids where playing. Plus, if it was completely dark, how could the person taking the photo say for sure that there was not someone walking thru frame?

My first impression is, this is an open cave (one of the sea cave?) with daylight coming thru the opening. The "anomaly" is a person that is washed out by the natural light along with the camera flash.

Also in reading the article there is mention that this was sent to the TV show Ghost Hunters.

The television show Ghost Hunters doesn't know what to say about the photograph, but its producers are interested. The problem is the production costs that would be involved in shipping a film crew from the Seattle-based show out to the Bay of Fundy. Possibly, the producers haven't looked at the Village of St. Martins website and realized what a videographer's dream Canada's most picturesque village is.

Sounds like someone is trying to boost tourism $$.

OiO

reply to post by OneisOne


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/45c665ce608e.jpg[/atsimg]
Here is a wide angle view of the cave.