A New Year’s Ghost? You Decide.
On New Year’s Day, as I typically do, I paid a visit to Hakusan Shrine in Niigata City to give thanks for the New year and to prayer for the health and well-being of my family and friends.
While standing near the open fire pit where some people were burning their good luck talismans from the previous year and other people were bathing themselves in the smoke that lifted off the old charms for good luck, I snapped this picture of my nephew. He was about to buy a dried squid and roast it over the fire.
Looking at the pictures I had taken, I noticed something strange about the people in the middle of the picture. Have a closer look.
The man’s body, and the woman’s as well, is half missing. One of his legs disappears into thin air, and the woman doesn’t have a face.
At first, I thought it was possible that there was just a glitch in my phone’s camera app. In addition to the strange distortions of the walking couple, the original picture has an odd line running through the sky above them (though the tree and the buildings between the couple and the sky seem unaffected).
Then I looked at the picture that I took only moments later. The same couple can be seen walking further along, but the man from the first Image is still not whole.
Have a look.
His right shoulder is missing, and where it ought to be, you can see the person in front of him holding a small children. Not only that, but a bundle or two of thin bamboo poles seem to be either appearing from or disappearing into his legs while a mysterious blue sneaker, seemingly attached to a foot and in motion, sits all by itself.
Japan is full of ghost stories, and there are many TV shows based on strange photos like this. Some people here would say that something is following that man, a spirit of some sort. Others might think the man himself is an apparition. And many would claim that this is nothing more than a camera glitch, or even some kind of photography trick, though I can assure you it’s no trick.
So what do you think? Is this a ghost? Is it a man who is about to meet an unfortunate accident of some kind? Or is it just a strange coincidence, the result of a faulty camera app?
As a long time paranormal investigator, I can say for sure this is nothing but "pareidolia":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia
The best and most likely answer here is that your camera is having issues which can be seen in the photos, the bamboo rod in the second image and the distortion in the first is a dead giveaway.
99.999% of paranormal activity is explainable natural phenomena, the .0001% you can't explain and you don't need to ask if it is paranormal or not, trust me.
That’s a good way of putting it.
I’ve never heard of the term pareidokia before but I’m definitely familiar with the phenomenon. It still seems odd that the same man is affected in both pictures and that only these two pictures have the glitch, but I do suspect it’s just the camera.
Though I have an open mind and wouldn't be surprised to meet a ghost, this is nothing more than a camera glitch, possibly caused by the soot in the air from the fire. The smartphone cameras are amazing, but they are also relatively cheap and easy to "trick". One of the tricks I like the most is spinning the phone as you take a camera, which results in an image where everything is bent in strange ways due to the way the sensor records the data.
Anyway, glitch, but a fun one. But... maybe the glitch was caused by a ghost!
I agree that it was most likely a camera glitch. I don’t think an apparition would have that kind of appearance. And the more I look at the pictures, the more I realize that the man affected by the glitch happens to be mostly in the same area of the canera’s frame. Originally, I thought he was off to the left in the second picture and out of the center of the frame, but he really isn’t. Of course, there’s still the question of why him?
Camera mishap coincidence!
Well only my take, sorry no ghost conformatiom from my side ;)
I am scared for that ghost of Nigata city. You are so fantastic to describe like ghost but reality is different. The first and second pictur are little bit scary, but the little boy near by is so delightful mood, which reveals that that was not a ghost. Thanks for sharing.
I don’t know what I think either Maya. Everything definitely seemed normal at the time I was taking pictures. I didn’t get any strange feelings. My guess is that it’s just some strange coincidence, though it seems like a very big and unlikely one.
I can’t quite accept that it’s an apparition either, but it’s a pretty strange image, and even stranger that the same man is affected by it twice in two different locations while his surroundings aren’t. I don’t know what to think.
it sure it is pretty strange and I have no explanation.
Those are definitely some odd images. There have been horror films where similar photos foretold bad events that would befall the person in the picture. Hopefully it was just two kindly ghosts back to mingle briefly with the living.
I’m familiar with those stories. It didn’t dawn on me to check the second image for peculiarities until today. Now I wish I had taken a slew of photos during those thirty seconds or so.
I think it is camera, but still an interesting thing to see.
You’re probably right.
Shocking Bro, may be its a ghost.
I like @titusfrost’s assessment:You wouldn’t need to ask if it were real. Its still pretty odd, though.