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Mysterious 'ghostly' face of child appears in mobile phone photo of teen pals
Last updated at 18:07pm on 25.01.08At first glance, it seems to be an ordinary snap of a group of young people.
But look more carefully and there appears to be an extraordinary, ghostly presence among them.
Peeping out between the knees of two of the girls is the face of a child.
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Ghostly: A ghoulish child stares back as a little girl cries in Matthew Summers' photo
The eerie image - clear enough to show a pair of eyes, a nose, a mouth and hair - was captured by 17-year-old Matthew Summers on his mobile phone as he and his friends were preparing to go out.
"I zoomed in to my sister's mate's little sister who was crying and I saw a face,"
Matthew said. "You can see all the facial expressions and everything.
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Mysterious: The floating face can can clearly be seen at knee height between two girls
"Usually when you see pictures like that it's a blur but this one is really weird.
"I was really shocked because I don't believe in that stuff."
Matthew took the picture in his sister's friend's front room in Billingham, Teesside.
"I've sent it to my girlfriend and she thinks it's a bit weird," he added.
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Haunted: Matthew Summers took the mysterious photo on his camera phone
His photo joins a long line of apparently paranormal snaps. The most memorable in recent times was a cloaked figure photographed standing in a doorway at Hampton Court Palace in 2003.
However, Ciaran O'Keeffe, a parapsychologist on Living TV's Most Haunted show, has a more down-to-earth explanation for the "child" in Matthew's photograph.
Dr O'Keeffe said: "As human beings we're very good at finding a pattern in randomness and related to that we're good at finding faces in randomness. The term for this is pareidolia.
"First it was ink blots, then things like clouds in the sky and now mobile phone pictures.
"There is no ghost in this picture, just the coincidental effect of pixelation and darkness and light which combine together."
Reader views (16)
Here's a sample of the latest views published.
dude thats so photo shopped u can see the bloody halo effect
- Sup, Pony canada
So easy to fake, so not worth considering.
- Kerry Flitter, Maldon
Hah, if you look hard enough you can see that it's just what the guy said, pixelation etc. Or maybe it's photoshopped?
- Ceige, Adelaide, Australia
Odd i heard that this picture was taken in hampshire, and i have also heard that somebody in wales has been claimimng that they took the picture.
- Cc, uk
This ghostly party photo was said to be taken in the either Omagh or Strabane areas of County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. The mother of one of the girls in the photo sent it to my mobile number some weeks ago as she knows I do paranormal investigations. Now there is a lot of confusion as to where the photo was actually taken? Can you throw any light on this for us as the mother now feels someone is playing some kind of a joke on her daughter Heather who IS in that photo.
Where was the photo really taken? I would be truly delighted for any helpful info you can throw my way.
- Roddy Breslin, Omagh, County Tyrone
That picture is awesome. I don't for a moment believe it is a picture of a ghost, but it did give me a chill before my rational mind prevailed.
- Jason, UK
The photo scared me too, have you see the state of some of the women in it?
- Bob The Builder, London
Maybe its the ghost of chav-mess present?
- Daveb, london
Any history on the house itself?
- Steve Evans, Malta
That photo scared me, the little girl looks lost and alone. It's scary to think ghosts from the past that lived in our homes roam about still, creepy!
- Laura Roberts, greenwich
Funny the ghost face looks like the child walking just out of shot.
Its probably just a floating image of the childs face before it started crying as the pic was taken, its quite common to see this.
- Frank Ryan, Woodford, Essex
There is a lot about which we know very little, and ghosts may be one of them! Who knows?
- Shirley, London
Well at least it hasn't been faked, this lot look as though it took their combined IQ to work out how to operate the camera, so photoshop's right out of the question.
- C Havtastic, London
Has anyone else noticed a 2nd supposed 'ghost' on the enlarged pic behind the 'girl' - there are clearly another pair of eyes!
- Sonja, London
It's just like the photo the other day of the 'creature on Mars', Dr. O'Keeffe is right, it's just the mind being creative. If ghosts are out there, with millions upon millions of photographs being taken around the world every day we would be capturing images of ghosts by the thousand every day. Clearly this is not the case otherwise this photo wouldn't be 'news'!
- Chris, London
Some people will believe anything. This is more likely due to a bug/glitch in the mobile phone image processing chip or software.
- Marc, Harrow, Uk
