Although skeptics insist ghosts are unreal, there are many ghostly encounters that seem to present startling evidence to the contrary. One such incident is presented in the book "The Telltale Lilac Bush and Other West Virginia Ghost Tales" by Ruth Ann Musick (1965, 28-30). The story is indeed spine-tingling, but is it true as well? I first began to investigate the case for my book "Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings" (1995).
"Help"
Musick's narrative, titled "Help," relates how "Doctor Anderson" was awakened by a knock at the door "just past midnight." He found on his doorstep a girl of twelve or thirteen who was dressed in a blue coat and carrying a white muff. She implored him to hurry to "the old Hostler place," where her mother was desperately ill, and then she darted down the road. Anderson picked up his doctor's bag, quickly saddled his horse, and hurried on his way until "he saw the glow of a lamp in the old Hostler house."
Finding a bedridden woman inside, the physician put wood on the dying fire and set to work to treat her fever. When she had rallied, he told her how fortunate she was that her daughter had fetched him. "But I have no daughter," the woman whispered. "My daughter has been dead for three years." Anderson described to her how the girl had been dressed; the woman admitted that her daughter had had such clothing and indicated where the items were hanging.
Thereupon, relates the narrative's final paragraph, "Doctor Anderson strode over to the closet, opened the door, and took out a blue coat and white muff. His hands trembled when he felt the coat and muff and found them still warm and damp from perspiration."
How do we explain such an event? Well, first we remember to apply an old skeptic's dictum: before attempting to explain something, make sure it really happened.
Another Version
As it turns out, a book by Billy Graham contains a remarkably similar story (1975, 2-3), wherein the implication is that the little girl in the tale is not a ghost but rather an angel:
Dr. S.W. Mitchell, a celebrated Philadelphia neurologist, had gone to bed after an exceptionally tiring day. Suddenly he was awakened by someone knocking on his door. Opening it he found a little girl, poorly dressed and deeply upset. She told him her mother was very sick and asked him if he would please come with her. It was a bitterly cold, snowy night, but though he was bone tired, Dr. Mitchell dressed and followed the girl....
As "Reader's Digest" reports the story, he found the mother desperately ill with pneumonia. After arranging for medical care, he complimented the sick woman on the intelligence and persistence of her little daughter. The woman looked at him strangely and said, "My daughter died a month ago." She added, "Her shoes and coat are in the clothes closet there." Dr. Mitchell, amazed and perplexed, went to the closet and opened the door. There hung the very coat worn by the little girl who had brought him to tend her mother. It was warm and dry and could not possibly have been out in the wintry night....
Could the doctor have been called in the hour of desperate need by an angel who appeared as this woman's young daughter? Was this the work of God's angels on behalf of the sick woman?
Graham provides no documentation beyond the vague reference to "Reader's Digest", which in any event is hardly a scholarly source. In fact, I soon discovered that the tale is an old one, circulated in various forms with conflicting details. For example, as "The Girl in the Snow," it appears in Margaret Ronan's anthology of "Strange Unsolved Mysteries". While Graham's version is of implied recent vintage, that by Ronan is set on a "December day in 1880." Whereas Graham states that the doctor was "awakened by someone knocking on his door," Ronan tells us "the doorbell downstairs was ringing violently." Absent from the Graham version is the suggestion that the little girl was a ghost, not an angel; for example, Ronan says the child looked "almost wraithlike in the whirling snow," and that "at times she seemed to vanish into the storm...." In Graham's account, the doctor is credited with simply "arranging for medical care," while Ronan insists Mitchell "set about at once to do what he could for her" and "by morning he felt that at last she was out of danger." Although both versions preserve the essential element that the woman's little girl had died a month before, Graham's version quotes the mother as saying, "Her shoes and coat are in the clothes closet there," while Ronan's has her stating, "All I have left to remember her by are those clothes hanging on that peg over there." Indeed the latter account does not describe a coat and shoes but states: "Hanging from the peg was the thin dress he had seen the child wearing, and the ragged shawl" (Ronan 1974, 99-101).
S. Weir Mitchell
Variant Tales
There are many other versions--or "variants" as folklorists say--of the proliferating tale. Of the five others I discovered, all feature the physician S. Weir Mitchell, but only two suggest the time period. Unlike the Graham (1975) and Ronan (1974) versions, which have the garments in a "clothes closet" and hanging from a peg, respectively, four of the other five variant tales say the clothes are in a "cupboard"; one has them in a "shabby chiffonier" (Edwards 1961, 52). There are differences in the clothes: Colby (1959) lists a "little dress" and "tattered shawl"; Edwards (1961) a "heavy dress, hightop shoes," and "gray shawl" with a "blue glass pin"; Hurwood (1967) "all the clothes the child had worn when he saw her earlier"; Tyler (1970) that exact same wording; and "Strange Stories" (1976) "her shoes and [folded] shawl."
No doubt there are still other versions of the story. Variants are a "defining characteristic of folklore," according to distinguished folklorist Jan H. Brunvand (1978, 7), since oral transmission naturally produces differing versions of the same story. In this case, however, Brunvand notes that many of the variants are explained by writers copying others (Tyler from Hurwood, for instance) but adding details and making other changes for literary purposes (Brunvand 2000, 132). In any case, Brunvand (1981, 21) observes that when there is no certain original, the multiple versions of a tale provide "good evidence against credibility." But was there an identifiable original of the Mitchell story?
Brunvand (2000, 123-36) followed up on the tale (with some assistance from me). Eventually he turned up a couple of versions that supposedly came from Mitchell himself. One was published in 1950 by R.W.G. Vail, then-director of the New York Historical Society:
One day in February, 1949, Dr. Philip Cook of Worcester, Mass., while on a visit to New York City, told me this story which he had heard the famous doctor and writer S. Weir Mitchell tell at a medical meeting years ago. (Dr. Mitchell died in 1914).
"I was sitting in my office late one night when I heard a knock and, going to the door, found a little girl crying, who asked me to go at once to her home to visit a very sick patient. I told her that I was practically retired and never made evening calls, but she seemed to be in such great distress that I agreed to make the call and so wrote down the name and address she gave me. So I got my bag, hat, and coat and returned to the door, but the little girl was gone. However, I had the address and so went on and made the call. When I got there, a woman came to the door in tears. I asked if there was a patient needing attention. She said that there had been--her little daughter--but that she had just died. She then invited me in. I saw the patient lying dead in her bed, and it was the little girl who had called at my office."
Brunvand (2000, 123-36) also turned up an interesting letter from the Mitchell papers. Dated November 2, 1909, it had been written to Mitchell by physician Noel Smith of Dover, New Hampshire. It read:
S. Weir Mitchell, M.D.
My dear Doctor:--
Please pardon my intrusion upon your valuable time, but--as I should like the truthfulness, or otherwise, of what follows established, I have taken the liberty of addressing you.
A travelling man, a stranger, accosted me a few days since at one of our principal hotels, knowing that I was a physician, asking me if I believe in the supernatural, communications with the spirits of departed friends, etc.--I assured him that I had never experienced any personal observations or manifestations that would lead me to any such belief. He then related to me the following story, vouching for its authenticity.--He was a member of some organization, I think, in N.Y., and they had lectures now and then upon various topics. One evening it was announced that prominent men were present who would in turn relate their most wonderful experiences. You was ["sic"] the first called upon, and you stated that you could tell your most wonderful personal experience in a few words. You went on to say that you were engaged in writing late one evening in your library when somebody knocked three times upon the library door. This was thought to be very strange, as electric bells were in use. Upon opening the door, a little girl, about 12 years of age stood there, having a red cloak for an outer garment. She asked if you were Dr. Mitchell, and wished you to go at once to visit her mother professionally, as she was very ill. You informed her that you had given up general practice, but that Dr. Bennett lived diagonally across the street, and that you would direct her to his door, which you did. In a few moments the raps upon your door were repeated, and you found the girl there a second time. She could not obtain Dr. Bennett's services, and urged you to accompany her home; and you did so. She conducted you to a poor section of the city and up a rickety flight of stairs into a tenement house. She ushered you into a room where her mother lay ill upon a bed. You prescribed for the sick lady, giving her some general directions for future guide, and assured her that it was only at the very urgent and persistent efforts of her daughter that you were prevailed upon to come to her. The woman said that that was strange: that she had no daughter--that her only daughter had just died and her body reposed in a casket in the adjoining room. You then looked into this room & viewed the remains of a girl about 12 years of age, while hanging upon the wall was a red cloak.
I am curious to know, doctor, whether you ever had any such experience, or any approach thereto. Hence these words. Let me say right here that Mrs. Smith anxious believers and disbelievers in the supernatural assail him with letters. He has written some fifty to lay this ghost. How could he predict a day when he would be taken seriously?
So there we have it: Mitchell's oblique confession that he had simply conjured up a ghost tale, filled it with literary verisimilitude (semblance of truth), and sent it forth. Later, as Brunvand (2000, 129) notes, Mitchell was "chagrined to find the public believing that he was presenting the story as the literal truth." Mitchell--like the Fox Sisters whose phony spirit communications spawned the modern spiritualist movement (Nickell 2007, 39)--discovered that the genie could not be put back into the bottle.
References
Brunvand, Jan Harold. 1978. "The Study of American Folklore". New York: W.W. Norton.
. 1981. "The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings". New York: W.W. Norton.
. 2000. "The Truth Never Stands in the Way of a Good Story!" Chicago: University of Illinois.
Colby, C.B. 1959. "Strangely Enough" (abridged). New York: Scholastic Book Services.
Edwards, Frank. 1961. "Strange People". New York: Signet.
Graham, Billy. 1975. "Angels: God's Secret Agents". Garden City, New York: Doubleday.
Hurwood, Bernhardt J. 1967. "Strange Talents". New York: Ace Books.
Mitchell, S. Weir. (1891) 1909. "Characteristics". New York: Century.
Musick, Ruth Ann. 1965. "The Telltale Lilac Bush and Other West Virginia Ghost Tales". Lexington: University of Kentucky Press.
Nickell, Joe. 1995. "Entities: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings". Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books.
. 2007. "Adventures in Paranormal Investigation". Lexington, Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky.
Ronan, Margaret. 1974. "Strange Unsolved Mysteries". New York: Scholastic Book Services.
"Strange Stories, Amazing Facts". 1976. Pleasantville, New York: The Reader's Digest Association.
Tyler, Steven. 1970. "ESP and Psychic Power". New York: Tower Publications.
Create a curious to see the form of a ghost in the photo, maybe 15 pictures of this interesting views. It is the photographs and the most popular choice due to have spread everywhere. The photos are said to have been analyzed, and so far not found any element of manipulation or something.
1. "The Brown Lady" of Raynham Hall
This photo diiambil in 1936 at Raynham Hall, Norfolk, England. Portrait of "Women's Chocolates" is very popular and is considered the best ever ghost fotao taken. Growing rumors that the ghost of Lady Dorothy Townshend, wife of Charles Townshend, 2nd Viscount of Raynham, who lived in Raynham Hall, in the early 1700s.
Rumorsnya, Dorothy, before marrying Charles, was the lover of Lord Wharton. Charles suspected Dorothy infidelity. Although Dorothy was buried according to records in 1726, but there are suspicions that the funeral was a fake, because in fact that Charles had locked his wife in a place hidden in the house, until finally she died several years later. Later, Dorothy's ghost haunts the house frequently.
2.favorites Chair
Known to be very loving Archie Bunker chair. He used to spend much time to sit in her favorite chair it. He did not allow anyone to sit there. He died in 1891. At the time, a photographer took pictures of the library room where the chair Bunker located. While seiisi house was in the feeds of Lord Combermere a distance of four miles from there. When photographers take pictures of the chair, he was surprised to see a man sitting there. Head and arm lakii men it showed. Keisi house, it is believed that the spirits of his master who was sitting in her favorite chair.
3.Comeback Freddy Jackson
This photo could menggerkan British Royal Air Force in World War I. Freddy Jackson, a mechanic first squadron, Royal Air Force who served at HMS Daedalus tenure, died hit by a propeller plane in 1919. Two days later, when members of the squadron took a picture together, the results, Freddy's face emblazoned on the photo. He was smiling next to her friend's ear. All her friends know it is Freedy.
4.Ghost at the National Museum, Greenwich, England
Photos taken in 1966 is now becoming very popular. Rev. Ralph Hardy, a retired clergyman from White Rock, British Columbia, interested in creating images in space ladder Queen House National Museum in Greenwich, England. The result, apparently in the picture there is a man whose body was foggy middle of the stairs holding the railing with both hands.
Photo experts, including those from Kodak, performed an analysis of images and clich'e to say, photogravure is authentic. Ralph says she is not able to explain these figures because when photographing nobody, no man who climbed the stairs.
5.Darn Backseat Drivers!
1959 Mable Chinnery went to the cemetery to visit her mother's grave. He took some pictures of his mother's grave, and then photographing her husband, who was alone behind the wheel.. How shocked she was when she saw the results of these portraits, there is someone wearing glasses sitting in the rear passenger seat. He is convinced, that day no one else, the figure that was in the back seat was her mother.
6.What Do You Want On Your Tombstone?
Occurred in 1996 when Ike Clanton took the portrait of a friend who was wearing a cowboy outfit, with a background cemetery Boothill Graveyard. They believe, at that time no one else around, they just simply exist. However, when negative washings, tanpam a mysterious man appears behind.
Ike Clanton says, if anyone, it was impossible he did not see it when taking a portrait of his friend. But he was not sure if a ghost was coming from the tombstone. But would-he would not have to believe it because it has been demonstrated foato. Actually the story of the ghost haunts site of Clanton is not new to shooting. So many scary stories about ghosts in the city.
7.Hantu who
Of all the photos I've seen a ghost (well, except for that one That I can not show at the present time), this one is hands-down the most Eerie. Probably the most disturbing too. I did not know about this one Until A Few months ago. Almost ten years ago, on November 19th, 1995, Wem Town Hall in Shropshire, England was engulfed in Flames and burned to the ground. As firefighters tried to stave off the Inferno a town resident, Tony O'Rahilly, took pictures from Across the street using a telephoto lens on his camera. There, rather clearly in one of the photos, is what looks very much to be a small girl standing in a doorway, with the brightness of the Flames behind her.
Almost all the photographs I have seen ghosts (though not all I can show you now), but this one picture I think the most scary, too disturbing. I do not know the existence of this picture, until about a few months ago. Story like this, almost 10 years ago, 19 November 1995, the great fire at Wem Town Hall in Shropshire, England.
As firefighters worked to extinguish the fire, one resident, Tony O'Rahilly, photographing the fire. He is photographed from across the street with a telephoto on cameranya wear. The result, on one photo, near the door, looking a little girl background flame burning building.
No one remembers when there was a little girl. To be sure, the photo and negative film images submitted on experts to do analysis and research. Concluded that negative image is also 100 percent original, no manipulation.
The question, what are the little girl ghost in flames? Apparently, the year 1677 in the Wem area, the fire that never happened meludeskan many houses made of wood. It is said that the fire was caused if a girl Jane Churm, 14 years, the careless use of candles.
Churm include victims who died in the fire, and apparently his ghost still haunts the vicinity.
But whether the figure of a little girl in the photograph is a ghost or not, difficult to ascertain. Or just fire smoke sekumpulkan shaped like a girl who happened at that site in the past has also been on fire and casualties. It's weird, but things far more bizarre than this much going du world, right?
8. Ghost in the Bachelor's Grove Cemetery, Chicago
This photo was taken at Bachelor Grove cemetery near Chicago by the Ghost Research Society (GRS). On August 10, 1991, several members of the cemetery side of GRS Rubio Woods Forest Preserve, a suburb of the city of Midlothian, Illinois. This cemetery was long considered the most haunted in the U.S., GRS karenanyatim comes to researching about it. So far there are about 100 reports about ghost sightings around there, including the case sounds strange, glowing ball, etc.. Teams in i then did some shooting. The results are truly bizarre, in the photo looks a girl who looks lonely. He was wearing white clothes sitting on the tombstone. Her body was like a see-through model and also an old-fashioned clothes.
9. "And the Sea Gave up the Dead Which Were in it.
I first saw this photo over twenty years ago. It was the first-"ghost photo" I ever Came Across and it still wigs me out to look at it. In 1924 James Courtney and Michael Meehan, two crewmen of the tanker SS Watertown, Were accidentally killed by gas fumes while cleaning a cargo tank. The crew of the Watertown - on its way to the Panama Canal from New York City - Buried the two sailors at sea off the Mexican coast. That was on December 4th.
On December 5th the first mate reported That the faces of Courtney and Meehan Were appearing in the water off the port side of the ship. Over the next days Trust Every member of the crew witnessed the faces Appear and Disappear, including the ship's captain. When he reported this to his supervisors after docking in New Orleans That it was suggested he try to photographs the faces. Captain Keith Tracy Bought a camera and the ship was soon underway again.
Sure Enough, the faces appeared, and Tracy took six pictures, then secured the camera in the ship's vault. The camera was not removed Until it was taken to a commercial developer after docking in New York City. Five of the photos showed nothing unusual, but the sixth clearly showed what was said to be the faces of the two dead crewmen. No evidence of forgery or tampering of the film was ever discovered. The faces stopped appearing after a new crew was brought aboard the Watertown.
10.Ghost in Church
Reverend K.F. Lord take a picture of the altar at his church in North Yorkshire, England. But the result turns out, there is a high figure of great standing there. Photos and cliches have been examined by experts with seksasma photos, but they did not find any evidence that the photograph had been manipulated, or because of certain securities. The figure was very high, about 9 feet, its form as a rabbi in the past. However no one knows that there is a rabbi like that at Newby Church. Is this because of the effects of light or something else.
11.Ghost
Mrs. Andrews said a woman visiting the grave of her daughter Joyce, who died aged 17.Menurut Mrs Andrews, he did not see strange things when you take a picture her son's grave. But the result is staggering, because the picture was a small child who looked happy to play at her son's grave. Looks like a ghost child that knows the presence of Mrs Andrews, the proof, when ny Andrews photographed the ghost boy exposes his face to the camera.
Did it happen because of double exposure? Mrs. Andrews said there were no small children when she took the photo the tomb, he also did not know who the boy. He said, do not believe that the ghost is her daughter.
12.London's St. Botolph's Church Ghost
In 1982, photographer Chris Brackley photographing the inside of the Church of St. Botolph London. The result, in the church attic, looking vaguely disguised as a woman. According to Brackley, his knowledge, when the photo was made only three people in the church, tapitak single one of them was in the attic.
13.Church Ghost
According to Brad Steiger's Real Ghosts, restless spirits and haunted Places, Nowhere this photo was found, there was only one other photographer in the church Beside the person WHO took this picture. Neither of Them recalled seeing ghost or any flesh-and-blood person standing there Could WHO account for this image. Because the figure is all in black, it has been theorized That Could be the apparition of the churuch That minister.
14.Grandfather Ghost Standing Behind Grandmother
"The lady in the color photo is my granny," she says. "She lived on her own Until age 94, Pls her mind started to weaken and Had to be MOVED to an assisted living home for her own safety. At the end of the first week, there was a picnic for the residents and on their Families. My mother and sister attended. My sister took two pictures that day, and this is one of Them.
It was taken on Sunday, 08/17/1997, and We think the man behind her is my Grandpa passed away on Sunday WHO, 8/14/84. We did not notice the man in the picture Until Christmas Day, 2000 (granny Had since passed away), while browsing through Some loose family photos at my parents' house.
My sister thought it was Standard and Poor a nice picture of granny That She even made a copy for mom, but still, nobody noticed the man behind her for over three years! When I arrived at my parents' house That Christmas day, my sister Handed me the picture and said, "Who do you think this man behind granny looks like?" It took A Few seconds for it to sink in to. I was absolutely speechless. The "black and white photos show That it really looks like him". "
I do not need what Might Be a ghost's photographs to attest to this truth: when you're in love with that special one Someone, Will nothing stop you from being with that person. But it's still pretty nice to get a tangible confirmation of That Every once in awhile..
15.Railroad Crossing Ghost in San Antonio, Texas
A Strange legends surrounds a railroad crossing of San Antonio, Texas. The intersection of Roadway and railraod the track, so the story goes, was the site of a Tragic Accidents in Which Trust school-children aged Were killed - but on their ghosts linger at the spot and will from idled cars Push Across the tracks, even though the Is Uphill path. Andy and Debi Chesney's daughter and Some of her friends Had recently been to the the crossing to test the legend, and She took Some Photographs. Inexplicably, a strange, transparent figure turned up in one of the photos.
Lo railroad crossing of San Antonio, Texas, is already known to be haunted. It is said that once terrifying incident happened around there, where several school children were killed. It is said that their ghosts wandering around and often show themselves to people who pass there.
Apparently there is also simply refuse to believe that story without proof. Andy and Kate, the daughter of Chesney and some of his friends, curious and want to 'test' ceritahantu it. They also make some photos. But the result is remarkable, strange transparent shadow is found in one photo.
