I was healed by a ghost...and there's a photo

[Brian Topp]

A WOMAN believes she was healed by a ghostly apparition known as the White Lady as she visited a church during a family summer holiday.

To read more and to see the photo: http://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/439446/I-was-healed-by-a-ghost-and-there-s-a-photo-to-prove-it

Please note, I am a skeptic, I only post this for conversational purposes.

[JesseCuster]

The following summer they went back to St Mary’s Church in Worstead and showed the slide to the vicar, who told them about a local legend that the White Lady was a healer who appeared when there was sickness.

The folklore also said that a man climbed into the church belfry on Christmas Eve in 1830, boasting he would kiss the White Lady if he saw her.

His friends later found him huddled in a corner whispering “I’ve seen her, I’ve seen her,” before dying.

She doesn't sound like much of a healer if this dude saw her and then died immediately afterward.

I can't help but be cynical of stories like this. They took a photo and six months later when it was developed were shocked and amazed about someone in the photo they couldn't remember being there when it was taken? Occam's razor would suggest that they simply didn't remember the circumstances when the photo was taken six months earlier instead of immediately jumping to the conclusion of ghost because they don't remember the woman in the photo. Add to that the fact that the story is being reported and told decades after even that.

My own cynical take on this (and I tend more towards this the more I see provably hoaxed photos in newspaper stories) is that a good proportion of these stories are simply invented out of thin air. Someone takes a photo and a face shaped blob appears in a shadow or reflection or a person in the background looks vaguely ghostly and the story develops around that. And it's always the same. The photographer (and subject) didn't see the ghost and only noticed it when the film was developed or the photos were uploaded to their computer and the "ghost" was seen. Blah blah blah.

Edited October 27, 2013 by JesseCuster

[Brian Topp]

She doesn't sound like much of a healer if this dude saw her and then died immediately afterward.

I can't help but be cynical of stories like this. They took a photo and six months later when it was developed were shocked and amazed about someone in the photo they couldn't remember being there when it was taken? Occam's razor would suggest that they simply didn't remember the circumstances when the photo was taken six months earlier instead of immediately jumping to the conclusion of ghost because they don't remember the woman in the photo. Add to that the fact that the story is being reported and told decades after even that.

My own cynical take on this (and I tend more towards this the more I see provably hoaxed photos in newspaper stories) is that a good proportion of these stories are simply invented out of thin air. Someone takes a photo and a face shaped blob appears in a shadow or reflection or a person in the background looks vaguely ghostly and the story develops around that. And it's always the same. The photographer (and subject) didn't see the ghost and only noticed it when the film was developed or the photos were uploaded to their computer and the "ghost" was seen. Blah blah blah.

All true,

My most favourite threadon um, was a guy who had claimed to have taken a photo of a ghost (shadowman). Of course, He added a story to it in an attempt to make it valid. I do not like stories, they can be easily be made up or altered

I decided to use my photoshop, It didn't do any thing fantastic except brighten and sharpened the photo. The end result was a photo of his own shadow. He wasn't impressed and vanished.

[JesseCuster]

Another thing that says BS to me is the clichéd claim that the ghost is wearing "old fashioned clothes". Every second ghost photo in a newspaper article posted here seems to say that same thing even though there's typically nowhere near enough detail to claim such a thing. Take a look at the photo in the OP and try to describe with confidence how the woman in white is dressed and how the clothes are old-fashioned. At first glance it just looks like a regular cardigan or similar to me.

You could write a computer program to generate these articles. The ghost only appeared when the film was developed or the photo was uploaded to a computer. The photographer felt warm/cold/scared/happy/etc. when the photo was taken. The ghost is wearing old fashioned clothes. Etc.

But you know... OMG! CREEPY!!!

[sinewave]

OK so they took a picture with a film camera no less then waited some 6 months to have the pictures processed. After all that time following an unremarkable diversion on a hot day, their recall was so good as to know there was no one else in the sanctuary with them? Please.....

[CatFromHell]

Its halloween week, The papers are full of this sort of stuff all week. I take no notice and I'm not a sceptic as such.

Edited October 27, 2013 by SheWomanCatTypeThing

[JesseCuster]

OK so they took a picture with a film camera no less then waited some 6 months to have the pictures processed.

That in itself isn't strange.

When I was a kid my parents had a camera that was only taken out a few times a year - Christmas, birthdays, weddings, vacations, etc. - and a handful of pics were taken at a time. At the end of the year they might have shot 2 or 3 rolls of film which would be sent to be developed. As a result, when the slides came back, we'd be seeing photos for the first time that were taken anything up to 12 months previously. That was back in the 1970s (consistent with the story in the OP saying the photo was from 1975). Come the 1980s and cameras were smaller and cheaper and it only took a week to get photos developed...

Getting out the projector and looking at the 'new' photos was a bit of a family occasion. These days you snap a vacation pic and within seconds everyone you know has seen it via email, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Edited October 27, 2013 by JesseCuster

[sinewave]

Its halloween week, The papers are full of this sort of stuff all week. I take no notice and I'm not a sceptic as such.

Yeah, good point. Tis the season.

Edited October 27, 2013 by sinewave

[sinewave]

That in itself isn't strange.

When I was a kid my parents had a camera that was only taken out a few times a year - Christmas, birthdays, weddings, vacations, etc. - and a handful of pics were taken at a time. At the end of the year they might have shot 2 or 3 rolls of film which would be sent to be developed. As a result, when the slides came back, we'd be seeing photos for the first time that were taken anything up to 12 months previously. That was back in the 1970s (consistent with the story in the OP saying the photo was from 1975). Come the 1980s and cameras were smaller and cheaper and it only took a week to get photos developed...

Getting out the projector and looking at the 'new' photos was a bit of a family occasion. These days you snap a vacation pic and within seconds everyone you know has seen it via email, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Yeah, I know. Sometimes it took a while to use up the roll. I am just questioning their recall after 6 months. I have a picture of me visiting Fallingwater that shows one of the groundskeepers working on the landscaping a few feet away from where I was standing. I do not remember him being there when the picture was taken but clearly he was.

Edited October 27, 2013 by sinewave

[CatFromHell]

When I go somewhere and take pictures i tend not to see the other people around me, Even if they happen to end up in the shot, If I want to take a picture i won't wait for someone to move out of the way or necessarily notice them unless they would ruin the pic if that makes sense. Even with digital cameras it can take me a few weeks/months to get around to looking at my photos and looking at it from a fresh perspective i often notice details, people in shot etc that i can't remember seeing when i took the picture.

Edited October 27, 2013 by SheWomanCatTypeThing

[JesseCuster]

Yeah, I know. Sometimes it took a while to use up the roll. I am just questioning their recall after 6 months.

Which is a good point. Our memories are notoriously unreliable. I had a bizarre argument with a friend some time ago. I was telling a story about myself and some friends skipped a Friday off school and went on a camping trip instead. He was laughing and nodding and agreeing because he remembered it well. Until I pointed out that he wasn't there. I even had photos of the whole group (apart from me who had the camera) and he wasn't there. Someone else who was there confirmed to him that he wasn't present. I think he'd heard about it from myself and others and he unknowingly put himself into the story even though he wasn't there and as a result he "remembered" being there.

In the case of the OP article, it's not just the 6 month gap between the photo been taken and them seeing the 'ghost' for the first time, it's now being recalled almost 40 years later. Who knows how reliable the story is now.

[sinewave]

Which is a good point. Our memories are notoriously unreliable. I had a bizarre argument with a friend some time ago. I was telling a story about myself and some friends skipped a Friday off school and went on a camping trip instead. He was laughing and nodding and agreeing because he remembered it well. Until I pointed out that he wasn't there. I even had photos of the whole group (apart from me who had the camera) and he wasn't there. Someone else who was there confirmed to him that he wasn't present. I think he'd heard about it from myself and others and he unknowingly put himself into the story even though he wasn't there and as a result he "remembered" being there.

In the case of the OP article, it's not just the 6 month gap between the photo been taken and them seeing the 'ghost' for the first time, it's now being recalled almost 40 years later. Who knows how reliable the story is now.

Yep, everybody does stuff like that one time or another. The human brain is a wonderful but flawed machine. That is why perception and memory are not scientific evidence.

Edited October 27, 2013 by sinewave

[Brian Topp]

Another thing that says BS to me is the clichéd claim that the ghost is wearing "old fashioned clothes". Every second ghost photo in a newspaper article posted here seems to say that same thing even though there's typically nowhere near enough detail to claim such a thing. Take a look at the photo in the OP and try to describe with confidence how the woman in white is dressed and how the clothes are old-fashioned. At first glance it just looks like a regular cardigan or similar to me.

You could write a computer program to generate these articles. The ghost only appeared when the film was developed or the photo was uploaded to a computer. The photographer felt warm/cold/scared/happy/etc. when the photo was taken. The ghost is wearing old fashioned clothes. Etc.

But you know... OMG! CREEPY!!!

Typical stories are.

1. "I was a sleep and i woke up and i saw" = You most likely they had just dreamt it or they were half a sleep when they think they saw it.

2. "I didn't sleep for two days and I saw" = sleep deprived. halucinate.

3. "My friend told me this video/photo and it is an eye opener" = They didn't see it, they only believed their friend who is just pulling their leg or they just making it up.

4. "I have this superpower!" = Yet refuse to prove it because they can't do what they claim.

5. "Any one give me your opinion on" = 9 out of 10 threads ends up with the original person telling a story and just want positive reinforcement and not asking for opinions.

6. "My dead relative/friend called me" = Amazing story yet they never tell us what the phone number was under. Most likely it is a automated telemarketer who auto dials

7. "I hear ghosts talking to me on the phone" = Most likely a crossed/poor signals or just a defective/cheap phone or terrible phone service.

8. "i caught it on my phone" =ends up a ghost app where a picture is inserted.

9. "I caught it on camera" = Most normally it's dust reflecting from the flash being close to the camera lens or flash turned off.

its endless

8

[sinewave]

Typical stories are.

1. "I was a sleep and i woke up and i saw" = You most likely they had just dreamt it or they were half a sleep when they think they saw it.

2. "I didn't sleep for two days and I saw" = sleep deprived. halucinate.

3. "My friend told me this video/photo and it is an eye opener" = They didn't see it, they only believed their friend who is just pulling their leg or they just making it up.

4. "I have this superpower!" = Yet refuse to prove it because they can't do what they claim.

5. "Any one give me your opinion on" = 9 out of 10 threads ends up with the original person telling a story and just want positive reinforcement and not asking for opinions.

6. "My dead relative/friend called me" = Amazing story yet they never tell us what the phone number was under. Most likely it is a automated telemarketer who auto dials

7. "I hear ghosts talking to me on the phone" = Most likely a crossed/poor signals or just a defective/cheap phone or terrible phone service.

8. "i caught it on my phone" =ends up a ghost app where a picture is inserted.

9. "I caught it on camera" = Most normally it's dust reflecting from the flash being close to the camera lens or flash turned off.

its endless

8

There are any number of reasons why people would say they experienced something paranormal. Some are normal perceptual miscues or stress-induced hallucinations. Others are due to mental illness or disease. Others to the usage / withdrawal effects of medications. Anti-depressants and other brain chemistry changing drugs (legal and otherwise) for example are known to cause some perceptual flakiness. Some people are prone to suggestion or are otherwise primed to have an experience due to religious or spiritual beliefs. Of course there is always the fact that some people just make s#1t up. Before any alternative explanations can be considered, all of these mundane possibilities must be eliminated. It is difficult if not impossible to reasonably apply these to anecdotes.

Edited October 27, 2013 by sinewave

[CatFromHell]

By the same token, Discount those things, Some people do see things they / you can't explain. I'm someone who believes in ghosts and have experienced things i can't explain, Even though i'm pretty level headed and have tried to explain them away, I wouldn't expect you to believe me just as i haven't believed others, Unless i've seen something myself i won't believe them, I just know what i've experienced without the help of drugs, Mental breakdowns etc. We are all different and I dont believe this pic is genuine for one minute. Thats not to say ghosts don't exist at all and anyone who claims to have seen one is mentally ill etc. I think its just one of those those things that will never be proven either way. And if it is ever proven ghosts do/don't exist, What do we move on to then? But yeah, Thats not a ghost.

Edited October 27, 2013 by SheWomanCatTypeThing

[JesseCuster]

Typical stories are.

1. "I was a sleep and i woke up and i saw" = You most likely they had just dreamt it or they were half a sleep when they think they saw it.

2. "I didn't sleep for two days and I saw" = sleep deprived. halucinate.

3. "My friend told me this video/photo and it is an eye opener" = They didn't see it, they only believed their friend who is just pulling their leg or they just making it up.

4. "I have this superpower!" = Yet refuse to prove it because they can't do what they claim.

5. "Any one give me your opinion on" = 9 out of 10 threads ends up with the original person telling a story and just want positive reinforcement and not asking for opinions.

6. "My dead relative/friend called me" = Amazing story yet they never tell us what the phone number was under. Most likely it is a automated telemarketer who auto dials

7. "I hear ghosts talking to me on the phone" = Most likely a crossed/poor signals or just a defective/cheap phone or terrible phone service.

8. "i caught it on my phone" =ends up a ghost app where a picture is inserted.

9. "I caught it on camera" = Most normally it's dust reflecting from the flash being close to the camera lens or flash turned off.

its endless

8

10. "I have this amazing photo/video of a ghost but I don't know how to upload it to the Internet from my iPhone despite several different methods being explained to me by the forum members / it's on my friends phone and they're currently serving onboard a nuclear submarine in the Arctic ocean for the next six months so I can't upload it." = I made it up.

Re: No. 2 - there was a thread here recently if I recall correctly where someone described the things they saw after being awake for up to 48 hours but denied it could be sleep derivation hallucinations because staying awake for 48 hours because of game playing binges was normal behaviour for them. That's like saying you didn't crash your car because you were drunk because you regularly drive while drunk and haven't crashed before.

Edited October 28, 2013 by JesseCuster

[sinewave]

By the same token, Discount those things, Some people do see things they / you can't explain. I'm someone who believes in ghosts and have experienced things i can't explain, Even though i'm pretty level headed and have tried to explain them away, I wouldn't expect you to believe me just as i haven't believed others, Unless i've seen something myself i won't believe them, I just know what i've experienced without the help of drugs, Mental breakdowns etc. We are all different and I dont believe this pic is genuine for one minute. Thats not to say ghosts don't exist at all and anyone who claims to have seen one is mentally ill etc. I think its just one of those those things that will never be proven either way. And if it is ever proven ghosts do/don't exist, What do we move on to then? But yeah, Thats not a ghost.

Belief for belief's sake is fine. Most believers won't cop to that though. Some try to push dodgy evidence and pseudo-science as fact.

[Brian Topp]

Re: No. 2 - there was a thread here recently if I recall correctly where someone described the things they saw after being awake for up to 48 hours but denied it could be sleep derivation hallucinations because staying awake for 48 hours because of game playing binges was normal behaviour for them. That's like saying you didn't crash your car because you were drunk because you regularly drive while drunk and haven't crashed before.

There has been around seven other threads with the same story.

[sinewave]

I once rode a double century (200 miles in a day) in 90 degree heat. By the end of the ride the frame of the bicycle ahead of me was wiggling like it was made of rubber. Of course it really wasn't but my brain sure thought it was.

[JesseCuster]

I once rode a double century (200 miles in a day) in 90 degree heat. By the end of the ride the frame of the bicycle ahead of me was wiggling like it was made of rubber. Of course it really wasn't but my brain sure thought it was.

I have long suffered from insomnia and have worked shift work on and off. It has ****ed with my head at the best of times. Hallucinations at odd hours were (and are) common enough occurrences that I didn't (and don't) think strange of them.

I worked a few years on 12 hour night-shifts. I regularly fell asleep at work on the job. When it's 4am and you've been on the job for 8 hours with 4 hours to go and your job is to supervise an industrial oven where the ambient temperature hits 40-50c even at night during the winter, it's hard to keep your mind on the job and stay awake. I was awoken by anyone from my immediate supervisor to the factory manager on a regular basis. Hallucinations in my experience were not unknown at 4am when your working those kind of hours and sleeping those kind of hours and you're struggling to stay awake in the work canteen at 5am during your tea break.

[sinewave]

I have long suffered from insomnia and have worked shift work on and off. It has ****ed with my head at the best of times. Hallucinations at odd hours were (and are) common enough occurrences that I didn't (and don't) think strange of them.

I worked a few years on 12 hour night-shifts. I regularly fell asleep at work on the job. When it's 4am and you've been on the job for 8 hours with 4 hours to go and your job is to supervise an industrial oven where the ambient temperature hits 40-50c even at night during the winter, it's hard to keep your mind on the job and stay awake. I was awoken by anyone from my immediate supervisor to the factory manager on a regular basis. Hallucinations in my experience were not unknown at 4am when your working those kind of hours and sleeping those kind of hours and you're struggling to stay awake in the work canteen at 5am during your tea break.

Yeah, sleep deprivation is bad. I've seen some stuff under stress too. Things moving, people who are not there.

[Brian Topp]

I have long suffered from insomnia and have worked shift work on and off. It has ****ed with my head at the best of times. Hallucinations at odd hours were (and are) common enough occurrences that I didn't (and don't) think strange of them.

I worked a few years on 12 hour night-shifts. I regularly fell asleep at work on the job. When it's 4am and you've been on the job for 8 hours with 4 hours to go and your job is to supervise an industrial oven where the ambient temperature hits 40-50c even at night during the winter, it's hard to keep your mind on the job and stay awake. I was awoken by anyone from my immediate supervisor to the factory manager on a regular basis. Hallucinations in my experience were not unknown at 4am when your working those kind of hours and sleeping those kind of hours and you're struggling to stay awake in the work canteen at 5am during your tea break.

Last year during the christmas holidays, I worked 60 to 70 hours per week. One week I worked 8am to 4am, come back the next day at 8am to do the same shift for four days straight. The store always got trashed and we were all told (policy meant to be asked) to say. On the last day of my fourth day, I was complaining to my manager that there still customers in the store. He looked around and say "where?". When I had arrived to the store the next day at 10am, a district manager came in and heard an assoicate talk about me "Going mental" and he looked at the schedule and sent us home.

[moonshadow60]

But I don't even see anything resembling a person behind her. All I see is a blob. Could be a person, could be a lot of things. I know that when I saw a ghost, it was clear as a bell to me. I thought he was a living human, until he just blinked out. That and he moved as though there was a strong wind pushing at him and it was the middle of summer and there was no wind, kind of clinched it.

[seeder]

Imagine this if you will, you're feeling totally fine, totally normal, sitting reading alone, and suddenly a voice says :

“Please don't be afraid. I know it must be shocking for you to hear me speaking to you like this, but this is the easiest way I could think of. My friend and I used to work at the Children's Hospital, Great Ormond Street, and we would like to help you.”

Understandably TOTALLY freaked about hearing voices and seeing nobody, she heard it again at other times, until eventually she was told to have a brain scan, which she arranged, and they found a brain tumor and brain stem inflammation... which had never been diagnosed or suspected!!

and I quote another snippet:

The voices came back.

This time, they told her that she needed immediate medical care, and should return to England right away. She returned, and the voices gave her an address to go to; her husband was good enough to humor her, and actually took her to the address just for reassurance. It may not have been that reassuring when it turned out to be the CAT-scanning department of a large London hospital, and that as she arrived, the voices told her to go in and have a brain CAT scan.... [The voices] informed A.B. that she had a brain tumor.

and

The surgeon suggested an immediate operation to remove the tumour, a decision the voices agreed with. ‘They said they would have preferred the operation to be done at the National Hospital, Queen Square, London, because they specialised in neurological diseases. But because she was already at the Royal Free Hospital, they told her to have the procedure done there because it was urgent,’ Dr Azuonye says.

After the operation, and when the woman had recovered consciousness, the voices returned one last time, to bid her farewell. ‘We are pleased to have helped you,’ they said, before bidding her goodbye. ‘It is a miracle,’ says Dr Azuonye. ‘The patient regards herself as being helped by a guardian angel.’

Read the whole interesting story

http://michaelpresco...ll_in_your.html

another version

http://www.neatorama.com/2008/04/07/ghostly-voices-tell-woman-of-brain-cancer-miracle-or-madness/#!mW8OB

And the story was in the British Medical Journal so its a serious story

http://www.bmj.com/c...t/315/7123/1685

So Ghosts? Guardian spirits? or insightful hallucinations? You decide

eta: A full discussion on this woman with more links

http://www.abovetops...thread913875/pg

.

.

Edited October 28, 2013 by seeder

[moonshadow60]

That would be a spirit, and I suppose it's possible that she heard a spirit, but more possible she somehow knew that she had a brain tumor and the "voice" confirmed it. I do think the lady truly believed in a spirit telling her that she had a brain tumor and that she followed through on what she was told. That is the important part of the story for me. She got better. I only heard a disembodied voice once, when I was 7 and my Mom and I were at the cemetery after my Dad was buried. We both heard his voice saying his nickname for her clearly two times. He sounded very sad and alone.