Ghost Pictures And The Stories Behind Them

Taken in 1919, this picture is a group portrait of Sir Victor Goddard's squadron. In the back of Goddard, positioned on the top row, fourth from the left, can be seen the face of another man (shown in the zoom circle). It could be the face of Freddy Jackson, an air mechanic who had been accidentally killed by an airplane propeller two days earlier. This photograph was taken the day of his funeral, and members of the squadron easily recognized his face.

The Borley rectory writings on the wall is one of the most interesting manifestation of the famous Borley rectory haunting, which was probably the first case of ghost hunting in history. They believed the writings had come from a young deceased catholic woman who wanted her body to be discovered and receive a proper Christian burial ceremony. She was trying to communicate with Marianne, wife of the Reverend Lionel Foyster, the couple living in the rectory in October 1930. We can read "Marianne... please help get" and "Marianne light mass prayers". Marianne wrote that she couldn't understand some of the writings. Learn more about The Borley Rectory Hauntings.

Sybell Corbet took this photograph of the Combermere Abbey library in 1891. The figure of a man can detected in the chair to the left. It is believed to be the ghost of Lord Combermere, a British cavalry commander in the early 1800s. Lord Combermere died in 1891, having been struck and killed by a horse-drawn carriage. At the time Sybell Corbet took the above photo, Combermere's funeral was taking place!

On November 19, 1995, Wem Town Hall in Shropshire, England, an old building built in 1905, was destroyed by fire. Tony O'Rahilly, a local resident, took photos of the spectacle from across the street. One of those photos shows a small, partially transparent girl standing in the doorway. Neither O'Rahilly nor any of the other onlookers or firefighters recalled seeing the girl there. Dr. Vernon Harrison, a photographic expert and former president of the Royal Photographic Society, examined both the print and the original negative, and concluded that it was genuine.

Terry Ike Clanton took this photo of his friend at Boothill Graveyard, who wanted Old West-looking pictures of himself dressed in Clanton's 1880-period clothes. Among the gravestones, just to the right of his friend, is the image of what appears to be a thin man in a dark hat.