Demon?

[Tweefo]

My local paper (Middelburg Observer) came up with a story involving a Domenie, Occults and Demons. Very serious. (Picture attached). Of course I sent a letter to the paper explaining that we look for patterns, and that the marks on the leopard as well as the puzzle pieces combine to create a "face". I guess if it was a "nice" looking face they would have called it Jesus or some other sort of Revelation. Now they call it a "demon" and this was confirmed by a local Domenie and the whole comunity is warned against the Occult that is taking over the world. The paper will probably not print my letter.

[bluegray V]

That is quite a reach. Reminds me of the whole backward masking hogwash. Truthfully, that figure to the right of the leopard (or is that a meerkat?) looks much more sinister without the need to invert the image (inverted image attached).

[wandapec]

explaining that we look for patterns

Well done.

Reminds me of the whole backward masking hogwash.

I agree. Funny, I listened to Brian Dunning's When People Talk Backwards podcast on Saturday. He breaks it down quite nicely.

[bluegray V]

That was fun. Thanks for posting the Brian Dunnings link

[Tweefo]

Here is another one from my local woo-woo paper. It looks like some reflection. Any ideas?

[bluegray V]

There does seem to be a hand there, but it could be anything. Most probably a double exposure. Can you maybe scan a larger picture to see better?

[Tweefo]

Here it is. I scanned less of the picture but at a slightly higher resolution. Don't know much about photography but I think Bluegray is right - a double exposure

[Anacoluthon64]

It’s difficult to tell from the scan exactly what produced the effect, a difficulty that is aggravated by the pixellation from the CMYB colour separation that newspapers require for printing photographic images.  Does the report say whether the original picture was taken with a digital or an ordinary film camera?

Other possible explanations include a dirty lens, an emulsion smear, old and/or damaged film and/or print paper, or perhaps an unusual lens flare, maybe even a hoax, whether deliberately or accidentally arrived at.  The effect resembles a human hand, but one can even make out the faint upper half of a person’s “face” further up in the wispy part of the effect.  One shouldn’t point this out to the newspaper, of course, because those who already see one ghost might be frightened witless by the thought of two in the same photo.

'Luthon64

[Tweefo]

No, it does not mention the type of camera. Thanks for the explanations, I'll pass it on to the paper but of course they will not print it. News of a ghost (with picture!) is a story - debunking of a ghost (no picture) is not.

[Anacoluthon64]

I neglected to mention that if the picture was taken with a digital camera, the effect may have been produced by a damaged CCD unit.  Not so long ago, one of our (early-model, 1.7MP) digital cameras started taking strange photos with odd and mysterious-looking distortions and smudges, produced by a malfunctioning CCD.  It was fun until the camera gave up the, er … uhm, ghost completely…

'Luthon64

[bluegray V]

Mmm, do you still have some pictures that you can share that was taken by that damaged CCD?

[Anacoluthon64]

Can’t remember offhand, but I’ll report back later once I’ve had a look.

'Luthon64

[Anacoluthon64]

Nope, it looks like we deleted the distorted photos but there are still a bunch of CD archives to examine.  Maybe some luck will be had there.  To give an idea, the distortions looked somewhat like a watercolour painting might look like after a broad brush soggy with water had been applied over it several times more or less down the middle from top to bottom.

'Luthon64

[Anacoluthon64]

We found two pictures (so far) that show the weird effects from the wonky CCD.  Each original is just over 1 MB in size, so I had to reduce them to fit the 256 kB attachment size limit.  As I recall, the first picture was taken in our kitchen.

'Luthon64

[Anacoluthon64]

Here’s the second one, taken in our garden, I think.

'Luthon64