Dan's Ghost

Story

March 6, 2002 - Above is the scan of the original picture (resized a little, increased contrast, and decreased brightness - all to make the picture clearer). Can you spot the ghost?

Those three guys are my friends from the English Language Institute (L to R: Nava, Daniel, Yoshi). They were on a bus heading to Whistler when they took this picture. They had just finished visiting Shannon Falls and were continuing their way to Whistler. Daniel said the time they took this picture was about 4:30pm. I assume it was a pretty cloudy day. Another student took the picture for them and there's no way the ghost is a reflection of her. I don't know if it could be related, but Daniel has had an interesting childhood with several encounters with what he believes are ghosts.

The "ghost" here is probably some freak reflection from the flash but you can clearly see the lips, a nose, chin, and even a cheekbone of a pale faced skeleton-looking thing. The "fingers" look like bones too. Note also the orb in the upper right of the bus window.

Provided as well is a close-up of the ghost. The little specks are dust or whatever on my scanner or the photo. On closer inspection, I think these are just leaves and branches that somehow reflected the flash in a funny way. Kinda makes your imagination run a bit doesn't it?

So in summary, it's probably a bunch of leaves, but if it's not...

I'll let you decide on this one.

UPDATE: March 13, 2002 - Daniel just told me today he now knows the explanation behind the ghost. It's not as mysterious as it should be. The truth: when the bus was leaving the ELI, they were busy making faces and waving bye to people and they must have pressed their face and hands and whatever on the glass. The skin oil they left behind must have caught the lens flash and voila.

They confirmed it with a digital camera and some windows - although they said it was hard to create a clear picture of a face. So this clear face must have been a pretty lucky coincidence.