Lizzie Borden Society Forum

I'm back from England & will upload various pictures when I can.

I discovered one last night I wanted to share & ask for opinions.

This is a house that can be seen from my parent's living room. One day, I went trespassing & went into the courtyard to get a closer shot of it.



Last night, I discovered the ZOOM feature on my camera & was looking at details of some shots. In this one, I discovered what looks like two ghosts in a window! One male, one female. You can see a line in the window (which I think is a stick for blinds), and there are two figures.

Whoooo!



It freaked me out to find them! If you look at the top picture, & assuming they are "ghosts", they are in a position where they would be observing me taking the picture.

Freaky. BTW, the Isle of Wight is supposed to be extremely haunted!

This is amazing! Wow! I once saw a photo of the Borden house (the photo was stolen) of a short woman looking out the window of the room where Abby was murdered. She was more gray-opaque- with the leg o' muttons and the little bun of hair. Bur your "ghosts" look almost like photos! Well, they look happy and not scary. Cool!

These "ghosts" look somewhat Edwardian to my eyes.

Here is a shot as seen from my parents' living room. It's an interesting house. Late Victorian with both Second Empire & Gothic architectural features. It's apparently vacation flats, altho there are people living there year round.

There's an interesting Victorian bell pull at the front door. There's a sign that sez, "Bell Please Ring."

Yes- and those great chimney pots too- only in England have I seen so many great varieties. You should have rung the bell- maybe your ghostly couple would have answered. You could do some research maybe and find out if a couple were tragically killed who owned the place. At least they are together forever now!

I have never seen chimney pots. What are they put on top for?

TK remarkable! I read what you wrote and looked at the larger picture first and saw them right way. It was something that looked substantial in the window which caught my eye. Then when I scrolled down to your close-up, I was amazed. I had seen them. That is really something!

Something I noticed last night---





The female ghost has a resemblance to myself in this 2001 photo. Eerie!

No---I did not Photoshop---heck, I'm just learning a digital camera. Feel free to download & check the pixilation.

The male ghost could be Sigmund Freud!

Something I was wondering---are all ghosties always black & white? If that's the case, I wonder if the difference between color & b/w might give a clue to the nature of what they are. Just a thought...

This morning, I found a business website for this place & I sent them an email with the photo & enlarged photo attached.

I hope they find it interesting.

Perhaps they will have some info/insight???

Tina-Kate @ Tue May 06, 2008 8:50 am wrote:I did not Photoshop---heck, I'm just learning a digital camera. Feel free to download & check the pixilation.

--partial

I read and re-read the posts here and see no mention of Photoshopping. I'm confused.
I think your pictures are pretty cool!
And you've taken me places I'd never have gone. Thank you!

Just letting skeptics know it's a legit picture & not doctored by me.

No word as yet from the people who own/run the house. I'd like to hear their reaction...esp if they already thought they had ghosties. Without being there, I doubt I could do any research. After finding this surprise, I'm dying to know about the place!

I just hope they don't think me a crackpot.

I love ghost talk!

This reminds me that I was in a Barnes & Noble Saturday night, and I saw one of those "spookiest places" guides. They mentioned the Borden House, and they went on to say that the apparition of a short, elderly woman has been seen near the guest room - and that it's probably BRIDGET SULLIVAN.

Oh, for copy-editors and fact-checkers!

Bob Gutowski @ Wed May 07, 2008 2:00 pm wrote:...Oh, for copy-editors and fact-checkers!

They seem to be a dying breed.

These ghosts, of course, are simply a continuation of the branches coming in from the right side.

I've adjusted the light and contrast a bit to show it off more clearly.

Hey Fairhavenguy, I could use your skills on a couple of frames from the Zapruder Film!

Not that I don't appreciate the detecting skills---but it still looks to me that they are in the window behind the branches. They are whitish-gray as opposed to the branches/leaves, which are green & brown.

Tina-Kate, part of what you are seeing in your own photo is an artifact of your digital camera. Often times, because of the resolution, one finds the hint of an outline appearing around objects. If you look carefully at your own enlagement up above, you'll see that around the outside edge of some of the leaves against the white background, this outline effect appears. It is the same subtle outline around the leaves in front of the window that you are seeing as parts of faces.

Also at work is the well established principle that the human brain seems to be "hard wired" to "see" faces, even where none actually exist. If you look at random arrangements of leaves, clouds, etc., your brain will focus in on patterns that resemble faces.

Well, all I can say is I have taken dozens of other house photos with my camera & nothing even close to this has occurred elsewhere. This one jumped right out at me the 1st time I looked at it under zoom & I had no question as to what it was....no "Hey, that looks like...", but it was an "O My Gawd! That's..."

A manifestation is a manifestation---if it looks extremely human, there is no harm in letting the imagination feel some magic.

But letting the imagination feed the magic might lead to the proposal that the Borden murders were committed by Sarah, who finally managed to get back from the other side and express her dismay for Andrew's choice of a second wife. No worries about being seen, bloody clothes, making a getaway, etc. Between murders she just floated around in the attic for a while.

Why do we get a down to earth and scientifically technical when studying the murder evidence then willingly accept floating orbs and such hanging out in the house?

Oh yeah, orbs are good energy like happy Smurf bubbles. . .

A little extreme. I don't believe a ghost could actually kill anyone (unless maybe someone had a heart attack from fright!)

Keeping an open mind doesn't mean letting the imagination go insane. A healthy balance should be kept between the scientific & the spiritual.

I can't honestly say I believe in ghosts because I've never actually seen one (except possibly here). Altho, I have known a lot of other rational people who believe they have seen one.

Myself, I happen to know there is some kind of existence after death. I say I know (not just merely believe) because I have had many communications of this kind. No visual "ghosts"...but communications in several different ways (as varied as the person who passed) shortly after the person died. Oftentimes there have been messages that I've passed on...& always the message was legit & there was confirmation it was real.

A lot of ghost "sightings" I've heard about have been from people who say they saw loved ones shortly after they passed. So, when someone has had such experiences, it's not a hard stretch to imagine such a thing as ghosts exist. The difference there would be if it was possible for a spirit to hang around for a lengthy time after passing over. Do they? Who knows. But ghost sightings have been going on for centuries.

And...it might be possible that a spirit would "use" the life energy from surrounding living things...like a tree...to manifest an image of themselves.

In this case, I had been observing this house for several days from a few different perspectives. Gorgeous house with very interesting architecture. Then, I actually went over & into its courtyard to take a close picture. This was the only house I photographed where I had spent a lot of time observing it beforehand. And it was the only house where something like these appeared. (After this, I went thru all others with a fine-toothed comb!) Perhaps I myself was observed while I was observing...& the observers found a way to let me know.

Not so crazy. I think it's a fascinating possibility.

And...who doesn't love a good ghost story?

O, BTW---I'm quite skeptical when it comes to "orbs". You never heard about them 30 years ago, but only recently. At least, I never heard of them.

Orbs appear when camera-mounted flash units highlight virtually invisible dust particles or water droplets. It seems the close proximity of the flash to the lens on digital cameras is most responsible for the appearance of orbs.

I find it odd that most people accept that "red eye" in photos is from the flash reflecting off the retina of the eye and NOT from demonic possession, but they won't accept that orbs are also created by their camera flashes reflecting off dust.

Tina-Kate, I want you to know that I respect your thoughts on the afterlife and the possibility of ghosts.

I only feel that in the case of the particular photo you showed us, any truly impartial experts looking at the photo are probably going to suggest that a branch that's rather clearly extending from the foliage on the right side of the frame is most likely the cause of what shows up in that photo.

Fairhavenguy, I do agree that judging this particular photo is a separate issue from accepting the existence of ghosts. I think it was Harry Houdini who believed so passionately in the afterlife, that he spent a lot of energy exposing fake spiritualists. Part of his philosophy was that the overt frauds being committed by fake spiritualists was seriously jeapordizing the respectability and the accuracy of true ghost hunting.

In this particular case, I see the artifacting off the tree limbs and don't believe it to be anything supernatural. But Tina-Kate ,that's a completely separate issue from the belief or dis-belief in paranormal phenonmenon.

I do share you sense of wonder and magic about the universe. There are so many hidden energies and unexplored dimensions (even modern day quantum physics and super string theory is scientifically proving the existence of extra-dimensions beyond the fourth dimensions of time) and I believe its only a matter of time before we can prove the existence of the energies that would explain paranormal phenomenon, and I even believe that a large numer of people daily are experiencing things that can't be explained rationally. However, in this case, with all respect, I just don't see anything that can't be explained.

In other words, if we determine this photo doesn't show a ghost, that doesn't prove that ghosts aren't real. It just means in this particular photo, the image is the digital artifacting around the tree branch.

O, I don't mind skeptism...I've been known to "poo-poo" quite a lot myself.

But, I don't discount the possibility.

Ghosts manifesting are supposed to be light/energy of some kind & would possibly draw from what is around them to do so. I've heard theories that visible ghostly phenomena is close in nature to photography...rather like photographs or recordings of the past. The very nature of the supernatural to us is ethereal and enigmatic. Our understanding of such phenomena is limited. Perhaps that's the way it is supposed to be...otherwise it would be a common part of what we sense all the time. It's fascinating to research.

The weirdest thing I've ever seen was a cloth whisk itself off the top of my stereo with no breeze nor other explanation.

I just wish I'd discovered the zoom function on my camera while I was still there. I'd have liked to have done some research on the place...I was right next door to the actual house, plus nearby to some places where I might find out a few things.

Perhaps some day I'll be able to do some further investigation. It would be awfully cool if I were able to find out about people who lived there in the past...even more cool if I were to find pictures of people who resemble these images!

My personal belief is that all of matter and energy is "light slowed down" so perhaps spirits are entities moving at different speeds than we are, or vibrating at different frequencies. I don't discount the possibility that photography (the art of capturing light with a man-made machine) can also capture images of these beings.

Or maybe it's not just branches

Sorry, Double post. . .

What an interesting photo, Tina-Kate. An interesting house, too. To know its history would be neat.

I have no doubts that psychic phenomena exists. I've never seen an apparition and have never wanted to. I'd have a heart attack. My mother says after her mother died, she saw her - just once as she was crying in her bedroom.

My mother also says that the very last time she saw her mom, Gramma was visiting for a few hours. My mom was washing the dishes, and my Gramma was sitting at the dining room table. My mom noticed that my Gramma was really staring at her, and my mom said, "What's the matter? Why are you staring at me?" And my Grandmother said, "I want to remember you just like this." The next time my mother saw her, she was either near death in the hospital or was deceased.

There have been many incidents directly involving me, and some time I'll post some and share them.

If I had to vote on Tina-Kate's 'ghost photo', I would say that it was the branches and foliage of that bush. Just an opinion. It could be the other.

Does someone live in that house? In the photo, it looks abandoned.

At last - we have a brand new suspect in the Borden case: Sarah Borden! That's about the only person that never was the suspect in Lizzie books. I'll bet if someone wrote it, it would sell.

I don't believe in "orbs". I think there's an explanation for those - maybe what Fairhaven Guy says. But they don't do anything. There's no communication coming from it, and it seems to serve no purpose.

FairhavenGuy @ Sat May 10, 2008 8:49 am wrote:Or maybe it's not just branches

Very funny, Christopher!