SAMMI'S STORY

Hello!

I love your site and was just perusing through the pages on the net and happened to come across it by accident. I was looking at the article describing what is and what isn't a ghost photograph and thought I'd share a very interesting experience I recently had. Before I begin I'd like to state that I took photography courses for 4 years so I usually find a way to explain away strange phenomena in a photograph based on what I know is possible.

This past summer some close friends of mine got married. A few weeks before the wedding they had a combined party to celebrate with friends. The party took place at a friend of theirs house who I had never been to before. It was outside, next to a pool, about 10 p.m. There were about 20 people there I would guess.

The bride-to-be had just gotten a new camera (an elph) and was a little camera happy and taking pictures of most of the guests. In one picture she took I was the central person while my boyfriend and another friend leaned into it.

A week or so later when the photograph was developed they called us to say that there was a ghost in the photograph. I believe in spirits but I still laughed it off and said I'd look at it the next time I was over their house. No big deal.

When I first saw the photograph I didn't see anything but what I thought was probably smoke from a cigarette and a slight double exposure. I was wearing a T-shirt with a logo and the letters on the shirt were doubled up less than a quarter of an inch to the right. My friends insisted though and as I pulled the picture further away (at their instruction) I saw a face in the upper left hand corner. The face is clear, smiling, and looking to the left. I went as white as a ghost (pun intended - lol).

I would also like to point out that the "smoke" and the face are completely different colors and seem to be in no way related to each other.

Because of the clarity of the face normally I would pass it off as a double exposure and think no more of it. Most photographers would do the same. What makes this photo remarkable is that the face bears an absolutely uncanny resemblance to my mother who has been dead since 1986. She died young and she died tragically and by some accounts, mysteriously. I had only just turned 6 years old at the time.

I would like to say that I do have a slight resemblance to my mother and that is acknowledged, obviously. However there were no other pictures taken that night of me and the face in no way resembles the pose I was taking in the one photograph that was taken of me. Nor was there anyone else at that party who even remotely resembles me or my mother.

Even still, I have little memory of my mother and have only seen photographs to remind me of her appearance so after my initial shock I began to doubt myself. I myself have very few photos of her so I managed to take an enlargement of the photograph off of their hands and I'm lucky to have done so because they guard the photograph, and another with strange anomalies in it, like the holy grail for some reason. I showed this photograph to my mother's mother and she immediately identified it as my mother and began to cry.

Another picture in the roll was strange too. In the picture is an acquaintance of mine and her boyfriend. At first glance it appears as though this picture was taken in brilliant sunshine and the sun is also brightly glaring off of her blonde hair. That is, until you realize that this photograph was taken at night, outside, with no other source of light other than the flash.

I had never before and never since been aware of my mother's spirit. The only explanation I have of her appearance in that photograph is that I was going through an extremely rough time and she wanted to let me know she was around even if I hadn't ever before thought so.



Thank you and take care!  -Sammi