Amazing photo of my grandfather (recently deceased)

Click here for more information.

Please stay on topic

thanks

I'm gobsmaked.

OP, I am in the Dakotas in September, I have much to share. PM me please.

OP,
If it were me, I'd give it a rest. Why make your grandfather a circus here?
If you and your family believe it is his spirit then feel the warmth in your heart or whatever your grandfather's memories make you feel. If you and your family believe there is supernatural sh@t out there you need to let your grandfather know it's time to move on.
then as years go, you can think back and look at the pictures and reconfirm your thoughts.

For me, the pictures are of no value, but to you they could be everything and that is what matters.


ps. my grandfather also passed away a few months ago, my father passed nearly 31 yrs ago and I'm still trying to figure things out right after my fathers death.

good luck

reply to post by SonoftheSun


Thanks for the info, (I don't understand all of that data), so is the jist of this, that the photograph was deffo taken in 2010, when the OP's Grandfather was still alive?

To the OP, once again my condolences to you on your loss~ I now think that the sender of these photo's just assumed they were all taken at the same time. I don't think this is any kind of a hoax at all, just wishful thinking. We would all like this to be true I think, and it is something I always hope will turn up in one of my photo's.

Originally posted by nyk537
I'd like to see the EXIF data on these pictures if you can.

File Type JPEG
MIME Type image/jpeg
Comment CREATOR: gd-jpeg v1.0 (using IJG JPEG v62), quality = 80
Encoding Process Baseline DCT, Huffman coding
Bits Per Sample 8
Color Components 3
File Size 81 kB
Image Size 1,024 × 768
Y Cb Cr Sub Sampling YCbCr4:2:0 (2 2)

Can I ask how the picture was transfered off the camera/phone? I think it was sent electronically. The only way to see the true exif is to copy it by cable from the camera phone.

Looks like a good catch. Not easy to fake a picture like that with the pole in the foreground like that. Looks like flash was used. Could be reflection off something? Can we see some more pictures taken just before and just after in this location?

reply to post by ManBehindTheMask


I took the two images and put one over the other making the top one somewhat transparent so we can see how they line up. I used the bar at the bottom to line them up. You can tell it's lined up because everything matches exactly except the time when it switches from 5:38 to 5:40 (EDIT: You may have to download the pic to see that. Apparently the scrolly bar thingies aren't working on the pic) where you can clearly see them overlapping showing that the pictures are indeed laid over one another.

I just have one question. Who took this picture? Everything lines up perfectly. How did they hold the camera perfectly, better than a tripod, steady for two minutes? Or are they just the same photo shopped to be all ghosty?

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/a3cd59ec6248.jpg[/atsimg]

reply to post by CherryV


Hello CherryV,

I would assume so. And I say assume for different reasons. The EXIF does show a January 2010 date stamped. Could it be a glitch? Is the date stuck for some reason? I would like to see one or two pictures taken in 2011 to see what date it reveals but I won't ask for it. Out of respect for the OP and his grandfather. This thread has been once again a source for some members to scream hoax without any research or data, scream fake out of personal opinion and belief without a slightest link to such claims.

ManBehindTheMask is a respectable member here, I never think for a second that this is/was a hoax or some other game as suggested by other members and I highly respect that he posted the pictures here to find out more about them. What I see from the EXIF is that it's an IR camera, the flash fired causing the illumination and that it was taken in January 2010. So to me, it is a living person on that picture. The OP sees a resemblance with his grandfather and it is possible that it is him indeed. When he was alive.

It's a great picture and the OP should keep it as a sweet memory of his granddad. But as far as I see, it is not a ghost. Unless more data or details show up.

I repost the link to the EXIF in case some members haven't seen it:

EXIF DATA

reply to post by tinfoilman


If it was shopped, it would show in the EXIF. Which it doesn't.

See above reply.

There is also another member that posted two pictures with deers somewhere on this thread that shows the same type of almost perfect synchro pics. Not shopped.

reply to post by SonoftheSun


You can easily just copy EXIF data from one photo another and edit it at will. And if the two photos are the same, nobody would probably notice anything.

Also, Photoshop has an option to preserve meta and EXIF data. Many photo editing programs do this by default. They won't mess up your EXIF data anymore. It just copies right over. It's just meta data and it has no tamper proofing features. There's many tools to edit EXIF data at will too.

But assuming the EXIF data is legit, the story gets even weirder. For some reason someone just stood in the exact same spot for two minutes, like a statue, and then decided to take another shot, or they took a one in a million.

reply to post by tinfoilman

Do the leaves in the lower right of the pictures line up as well?
If they do would that lend credence to these being the same photo or is it possible that the leaves would not move at all in two minutes?

reply to post by tinfoilman


Good spot. Either the pictures were taken with the camera on a tripod or propped on a table, or it is the same photo with two different effects added later. There is no way hand held could get two pics the same like that - good spot tinfoilman - I think this is the smoking gun.

I don't accuse the OP any mispropriety, perhaps someone is yanking his chain?

reply to post by dethduck


Yes, perfectly, every single leaf. Only the lighting is different, but nothing physically moves in the picture. Except the time change of course and the white ghostly swipes.

Originally posted by tinfoilman
reply to post by dethduck

 

Yes, perfectly, every single leaf. Only the lighting is different, but nothing physically moves in the picture. Except the time change of course and the white ghostly swipes.

Indeed.
Mark me up in the "I'm suspicious" camp.
I'm not to cognizant of that many leaves outdoors that do not budge for two minutes.

reply to post by tinfoilman


Take a look at those two pics posted by Leaflock, taken a day apart :

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Yeah, the EXIF could be edited, it could be shopped and hidden, it could be, it could be, it could be...

The OP has posted pictures sent to him by his aunt. No conspiracy, no foul play, no games. To claim otherwise is just baseless assumptions without fact. Prove to me that they are shopped, edited. Prove to me that the EXIF is altered. Prove it. If you can't then it's just a gut feeling that you have.

reply to post by SonoftheSun


What I'm saying is that the EXIF data was likely not altered, but in fact just copied over to the new photo. But since EXIF has no tamper proofing built into it, matching EXIF data doesn't mean that the pic is authentic.

Due to the many complaints from photographers (especially professional photographers) about photo editing software messing up their camera's EXIF data, Photoshop and other programs now keep the orig EXIF data by default even when you edit the photo. There would be no fakery needed.

Unless you edit or change the EXIF data yourself or tell it not to, newer programs will typically retain the orig EXIF data even for the edits. Programs messing up the EXIF data because they're not EXIF aware is old school and will soon go the way of the Dodo. The newer software programs don't do that anymore. Professional photographers want to know which camera the pic was taken with, what lighting, what format and so forth, even after editing.

Any program that munges your EXIF in this day and age just isn't professional.

What this means is that if they were using even a slightly up to date image editing program, they wouldn't have to fake the EXIF data at all. They wouldn't even have to know what EXIF is. They just edit the photo and then when they save it, the programs are now smart enough to copy the EXIF data over for them.

I was just saying that if someone wanted to go further and purposely fake it, there's tools for that too if someone really wanted to go that far. But it's more likely that if it is faked, they just saved it with the preserve meta data option picked. One click (that's usually already clicked for you automatically) and you get the same result.

But I don't have to prove it's fake, cause I'm not saying it's necessarily fake. I'm just saying if it's not, then it's a weird friggin story and a pretty odd pic considering all things. But I don't know if it's fake or not. Everyone will just have to make up their own mind there.

I am not going to try debunk this by the following:

I had a similar photo experience with my iPhone camera. Pictures were coming out with an orb like line across my partners face. Took about 10 photo's, all the same.

Turns out a very small hair was covering my camera lens, it gave the exact same affect and some looked like faces.
The flash on the camera enhanced it

reply to post by SonoftheSun


Hi Sonofthesun,
I wish I understood more about the EXIF data, some is straightforward and some is over my head..but I'll do some reading up at some point. I agree with you, people scream hoax, and if there is a photo (which they inevitably ask for!) then that is photoshopped/hoax/fake too. We can't seem to win these days. I personally would love this to be real, and as you say, it is a nice photo to keep and treasure, memories are more important than words spoken in haste on here