Is There A Ghost In This Photo?

More specifically, is there the ghost of a witch in this photo?

A few months ago I wrote about Mary Nasson of York, Maine. According to legend, Mary was an herbalist accused of witchcraft and her ghost is said to haunt York's Old Burying Ground. The legend about Mary Nasson's ghost has been around since at least the middle of the 19th century.

Recently, a man named Steve (who reads this blog) was visiting York's Wild Kingdom zoo with his family. His daughter posed for a photo in one of those cutouts where you stick your face through a hole. She was alone, but after they took the photo Steve's wife noticed two faces were visible: their daughter's, and the ghostly white face of a woman.

Please note, I have blurred out Steve's daughter's face for privacy reasons. 

Steve told me that when he saw the face he thought of Mary Nasson's ghost. She supposedly haunts York and possibly was an herbalist, so he thought perhaps her ghost would be attracted to flowers and butterflies.

First off, I have to say thank you to Steve for sending me this photo. It is great! I think it's the creepiest (and therefore best) ghost photo I have seen in a long, long time.

And I also have to thank Steve for sending me another photo that put's everything into context:

As you can see, and as Steve mentioned in his email to me, the face is caused by the white tarp behind the photo cutout. This is a really good example of pareidolia.

Pareidolia is the tendency of the human mind to see patterns in inanimate objects. In particular, it is the tendency to see sentient, living beings in inanimate objects. For example, think of New Hampshire's Old Man of the Mountain, where people thought a rock formation looked like a human face, or of people who see the face of Jesus in burnt toast. Those are cases of pareidolia.

Many years ago when I was in grad school I read an entire book about pareidolia and anthropomorphism called Faces In The Clouds. The author, Stewart Elliott Guthrie, claims that people are hardwired to see living creatures in the world around them. This is an evolutionary advantage. Is that a stick in your yard, or a snake? It's better to think it is a snake and be wrong than to instantly assume it is a stick. Is that a bear in the dark woods, or just a boulder? A bear might attack you, so it is safer to think it is a bear. You get the idea. Pareidolia helped our ancestors to survive in a dangerous world.

In this case, the pareidolia leads us to ask "Is that a person in the photo, or just some white tarp?" Our brains are wired to see the white tarp as a person.

The word pareidolia comes from the Greek para (meaning "instead of" or "false") and eidolon (meaning "image"). The word eidolon has some interesting supernatural and religious connotations. It was sometimes used to mean ghost or phantom in ancient Greek, and our English word idol is derived from the word eidolon. Depending on your perspective, an idol is either the image of a god, or the false image of a god. It all depends on what you believe about gods.

We all interpret the world around us. Our minds need to filter out most of the sensory stimulus around us or we would be unable to function. So I think when you encounter a case of pareidolia it is useful to ask "Why am I experiencing this here and now?"

If you are a hardcore scientific rationalist, a la Mr. Spock from Star Trek, you might answer, "Oh, that ancient part of my brain I inherited from my hominid ancestors is acting up again. Silly me, there's no face in that tarp."

I am not a hardcore rationalist all the time, and I don't think anyone really is. There are times where I am all about the science, and there are times where I am completely irrational. If I had been reading about Mary Nasson, the ghost witch of York, Maine, and then took a photo in York and saw what appears to be a ghostly face, I might answer, "Hey, maybe that is the ghost I've heard about!"

Of course, it is clearly the tarp. But couldn't a ghost or other spiritual entity manipulate a tarp to show their face? It is the same principal behind the Virgin Mary manifesting in a grilled cheese sandwich, or the monkey god Hanuman manifesting in the bole of a tree in Singapore. We live in a material world, and spiritual entities manipulate matter to send messages to perceptive people. 

Well, at least that's the theory. If you don't believe in gods or ghosts it's all just caused by faulty perception. This is not a debate that I can resolve in a single blog post or probably ever...

If you go to York's Wild Kingdom looking for the ghost you might be disappointed. Steve sent one final picture and the face is not visible. Had it only been the wind or the angle of the camera that caused the face to appear? Or maybe Mary Nasson had accomplished her ghostly chore and gone on her way.

The Spirit Photos of William Mumler

Have you ever seen a horror movie where someone holds a seance in a haunted house? Have you ever played with a Ouija board? If you answered yes to at least one of those, then you have some idea of what Spiritualism is. 

Started in upstate New York in 1848 by sisters Kate and Margaret Fox, Spiritualism claims that the spirits of the departed communicate with the living to give advice and inspiration. Certain people, called mediums, are more attuned to the spirit world and can communicate easily with the departed. For those of us not so gifted, the spirits are more likely to manifest as rapping sounds, movements on a Ouija board, and suddenly extinguished candles.

In the 1860s, Spiritualism swept across the United States like a ghostly wildfire. Hundreds of thousands had been killed in the Civil War, and Americans longed to hear that death was not the end. Spiritualism filled an aching need in the country's heart.

One problem with Spiritualism, though, was that it was so ephemeral. Rapping noises and messages delivered through an entranced medium were nice, but wouldn't it be better to have concrete proof that your deceased loved one was still with you?

William Mumler, a Boston jeweler, was able to provide that proof. He could give you a photo.

There was of course a price. Customers would pay $10 for a dozen photos, a high price for the time, and with no guarantee the spirits would appear. Sometimes they didn't, but when they did the results were pretty spectacular. Look at this photo:

Photo from the American Photography Museum.

Mumler's customers were generally satisfied with the results, even if the spirits in the photos didn't exactly look like their relatives. The veil between the worlds was hazy, and the spirits themselves were perfected and changed in the Summerland where they dwelt on the other side. No wonder they looked a little vague when captured on film.

Skeptical Bostonians argued that Mumler's photos were faked. Was it merely coincidence, they said, that the spirits photographed were usually the same ones that customers had told Mrs. Mumler about while in the studio's waiting room? Local pundit Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote a pointed essay about how easy it was double-expose film, but faithful Spiritualists ignored the criticism and continued to patronize Mumler.

Photo from the American Photography Museum.

 
That is, until they began to notice that the spirits in the photos looked suspiciously like people still living in Boston. Feeling the heat, Mumler fled Boston for New York and set up a new studio. Things seemed to be going well in the new state until he was arrested and put on trial for fraud. 

Amazingly, he was found not guilty. A string of professional photographers testified they had watched him in the studio and saw no trickery. Many of satisfied customers also took the stand, claiming the spirits in their photos were indeed their dearly departed. If his customers were happy, the defense lawyers said, how could there be fraud?

Mumler returned to Boston after being released, and despite a tarnished reputation set up a small studio at his mother's house in the South End. A small trickle of clients continued to patronize him, including one woman dressed in black who refused to lift her veil until the camera was ready. She had been tricked before and didn't want to be tricked again. She wanted Mumler to prove he was the real thing.

Mumler produced the following photo for her:

Photo from Wikipedia.

The woman was Mary Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's widow. I think you can guess who the spirit is. This is probably the last photo taken of Mrs. Lincoln before her death in 1882.

Mumler himself died in 1884. Shortly before passing away, he burned all his negatives.

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You can find a lot more about William Mumler on the web. In particular I found this essay to be very informative.