Spooky stuff
As I’ve mentioned countless times, I love all things supernatural. I’d love more than anything to see evidence that ghosts exist, because the logical side of me (my doubting Thomas) won’t let me believe on faith alone. I just haven’t seen any real evidence that ghosts, haunts, or spirits exist. A strange noise I can explain away as “an old house noise” won’t convince me. A nebulous corner-of-the-eye movement that my mind interprets as a person but really isn’t won’t do it, either. I don’t believe in the supernatural, but I love to read about it, think about it, and wonder about it. And, being the jokey sort, I like to joke about it, too, like with my comments about “ghosts” in pictures, when all they are is specks of dust reflecting the flash.
Mostly, though, I like to creep myself out with thoughts of ghosts. I may be strange, but I kind of like the feeling of hair raising on my neck because I happened to think something spooky. Maybe it’s the adrenaline rush of fight or flight. Who knows?
Last night I was at the new house alone, crawling out in the attic to check the paint tray liner to see how much water dripped (only a few drops, and the caulk was still wet, which tells me once I get the pipe dried out I can seal it for good) from the leaky vent pipe. Just as I was backing away, my mind said what if there’s someone behind you? and I got myself all creeped out, thinking about the original owner and how she’d lived here with her retarded brother for all those years.
And now they were dead, but who’s to say part of them wasn’t still here?
I turned around to make sure no one was up there with me, then got the hell out of the attic as fast as I could, spooked but grinning like a fool at my idiocy.
Millions of people around the world believe in ghosts, and I respect that belief though I don’t (yet) share it. I may pooh-pooh some of the ghost pictures or electronic voice recordings (seriously — have you ever tried to decipher one of those EVPs without knowing beforehand what you’re supposed to be hearing? It’s usually impossible. Plus, the fact that you have to “tweak” the recording in order to hear the “voice” should speak volumes to its authenticity), but I won’t ever make fun of someone who believes they’re real.
I’ve had a lot of fun writing about the weird noises at the house, and about the “shadow people” that Robyn and I have seen. Everything I’ve told you I heard / we saw is true — I wouldn’t lie to you about that. I’ve enjoyed hearing your thoughts on things, and it’s been cool to see the things you’ve noticed in pictures that I didn’t.
I wouldn’t lie to you…but I might play with you a little, because I’m the jokey sort.
On a recent entry, someone pointed out yet another “ghost” I’d missed in a picture, a small orb over one of the windows in one of the bedrooms. When I read the comment, an idea sparked.
“I really need to put a fake ghost in a picture,” I said to Robyn. “Something more definite than a dust orb. Then wait and see if anyone notices, or if I can sneak it by. Like a face in a window, or maybe someone standing off in the distance in one of the outside shots. Some spooky old person under a tree in the shadows.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, I forgot about my idea. Until Tuesday, that is, when I was looking at the latest picture of the upstairs hall:
Damn, that’s some fine work.
“This is the one, Bessie,” I said. “It’s perfect. I’m going to put something in the window, looking in, and then act completely oblivious and see if anyone catches it.”
And I Googled. On the image search, I tried “ghost face”, because I couldn’t think of anything better. Below is what I got as one of the first results.
I can work with this, I thought.
Personally, this doesn’t really look like a ghost to me. More like a zombie.
I got to work with PhotoImpact. First, I converted the image to grayscale, because everyone knows ghosts aren’t colorful. And they’re for sure not purplish, like that picture. Then, I used the brightness, contrast, gamma, and blurring tools to turn the original image into something a little spookier.
Note: this is a recreation, so it doesn’t look exactly the same.
Finally, I cropped out the face so it would fit in the window, then blew it up large and smoothed out the paste lines.
Just like that, I had a creepy face looking in the window at me:
Boo!
Then I posted the entry and waited to see if anyone would notice it. Sure enough, someone did. Almost immediately, even. I have some very astute readers — I thought for sure I’d made it dim enough to not be noticed right away.
Next time I’ll hide it better. 
So that was my fun for the week, sneaking a spooky face into a dark window. I won’t promise that I won’t do it again, but I do promise never to try and pass it off as a real ghost.
And speaking of real ghosts, there are some interesting anomalies in the picture of me on the roof. Check this out:
Ghosts, or our minds trying to make something recognizable out of nothing?
I think the latter, personally, but damned if that man’s head doesn’t look like a man’s head.
I can almost see half a face here, in the bottom window.
I hope you guys had fun getting creeped by the picture (those of you who did, anyway).
Check it out — all the rain we’ve had is turning our puddle into an almost-pond.
bummer, I wanted it to be real!
Ok Fred, but what about the person inside the house in the 1st picture, in the bottom of the 2nd window in the group of 3 windows? It’s not a reflection in the glass, it’s inside the house.
Dang! I can never see eeire things other people see. I read that first comment about the ghost in the window yesterday, scrolled back up and STILL didn’t see anything. Same goes for what you saw in the roof picture….nothin. Fred, Ya’ll really should go up to Salem Massachusetts around Halloween, not only is the foliage glorious, the weather perfect, but they go all out for Halloween up there. We took a candlelight ghost story tour walking the streets at night. Now THAT made my hair stand on end!
You got me, Christine. At first I thought it was sunlight coming through the door on the end of the house (not visible), but it was an overcast day. I can see what you mean about it looking like a person in there. More of those patterns, I guess.
Speaking of that roof picture, I’m going to get Robyn to send me the original fullsize version (if she still has it on her memory stick) to see what the windows look like. What I suspect is that in the bigger version, all those faces won’t look anything like faces.
But I’ll be creeped if they do.
Very funny. Ha-freakin-ha.
Okay. I DID have my eyes checked yesterday and found out that I have the beginnings of cataracts in both eyes…no wonder I couldn’t see the image The doc said it was like looking through a dirty window and I know Robyn would have the windows squeaky clean! Why cataracts? Age, baby!
Karen - sorry to hear about your eyes. Will you be eligible for corrective surgery?
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Alrighty, I got the fullsize picture from Robyn. The quality kind of sucks because as I mentioned, it was a very overcast day, but here and here are the windows from the original picture. Note that there’s not really anything there that looks like a person. I suspect it was shrinking that did it.
And don’t try to tell me our ghosts planned for the picture to be resized and compensated in their appearance.
Oh, also, people interested in paranormal stuff might be interested in the Philip experiment. It’s pretty creepy.
I told Robyn I hope we didn’t create our own Philip by talking about ghostly noises and apparitions in the house all the time.
I knew it, I showed my husband and we both agreed it had to be placed there. But it sure was fun thinking about it.
My husband loves to watch the show Ghost Hunters on Sci-Fi. He wanted me to record the 6 hour live special they did at the Stanely Hotel on Halloween night. I declined and I’m glad I did. Last week’s episoide was a 1 hour recap of their results of the 6 hr show. It was verrrrry disappointing.
As I’ve posted before, I really don’t believe in ghosts or the supernatural either.
No one ever does…until something happens that defies scientific/technical explanation to them PERSONALLY.
I’m going to hope this doesn’t happen to you or Robyn at the house. I DO LOVE old houses and yours is simply beautiful.
Fred, there’s a show on VH1 right now called “Celebrity Paranormal Project” where every week different “celebrities” goes to a supposedly haunted building overnight and do “investigations” with heat cameras and recorders and get all freaked out. The show definitely plumps up the scare factor for the viewer by telling a backstory and flashing a grisly picture now and then, but mostly it’s fun just to watch the “celebrities” get the bejesus scared out of them by the paranormal activity. Or the dark. heh.
Is it just me, or do I see the reflection of a tree in the picture of the almost pond?
Maria - you see a couple of trees. There’s a tall thin maple (I think) just beyond it and another of those really really big pecan trees. You can see the bases of the two trees at the top of the picture (assuming I’m looking at the same thing you are).
I was being a wise ass. : )
Wow that picture was kind of freaky wish it was real.I was always into scaring myself
verry nice good stuff like you i am not a beliver till i have sen it for my self but then i have seen verry stange things but as to the pics cant see a mans face but you did quite a good job of fobbin one off tho lmfa
wtf i nearly shat myself the i read the print you little bas
thought it would at least look real
those pics were so scary i almost peed in my
pants