Films attributed to have been affected by hauntings

Tags

image manipulation, Paranormal

Quite a few of these have been doing the rounds which is why I thought it warranted some research.  In going into some detail I’ve found that they actually appear quite lame so, where did the link to these “terrible deaths” come from? Was it pure co-incidence or did those very superstitious people in the acting/film world let their imaginations run away with them? Does this

ATUK (I’d never even heard of THIS one!)

STEPHEN JOHNSON tells us: “The most haunted movie in history isn’t a horror flick. It’s not The Omen, The Mummy, or Maid In Manhattan. The most haunted movie in film history is ATUK, an unproduced middlebrow comedy that has been kicking around Hollywood development hell since 1971.

Based on the novel The Incomparable Atuk, Tod Carroll’s screenplay tells the story of an Inuit from Alaska who stows away on an airplane, lands in New York City, falls in love, and presumably learns a little something about himself. Little in this benign high-concept screenplay suggests a legacy of carnage, but ATUK is said to be responsible for the premature deaths of John Belushi, Sam Kinison, John Candy, Chris Farley, Phil Hartman, and Michael O’Donoghue.”

http://www.blumhouse.com/2015/11/23/atuk-the-cursed-screenplay-that-killed-john-belushi-chris-farley-and-more/

I’m not convinced there’s anything to this “haunted film caused deaths” scenario. There’s a reasonable chance that any 3 or 4 happenings close together, in spite of being co-incidental, will be viewed as “spooky”!

Three Men and a baby I’ve previously discussed in my blog

https://skeptissimma.wordpress.com/2015/10/26/three-men-and-a-baby-or-is-it-a-ghost-film-hoax/

As I explain there: “It’s unfortunate that this is yet another instance where hoaxes just get perpetuated by people who blindly believe what they read on the internet, without caring to do a simple internet search which would explain the truth of it.

As ever, Snopes (a wonderful resource for researching and debunking!) has the full information as http://www.snopes.com/movies/films/3menbaby.asp

American Horror Story (2011)

Yet another photo which gets trotted out every once in a while:- girls suspended from walls with the shocking title “Picture said to be from a Russian mental institution, 1952.” People are SO gullible! It’s a film goddamit!

The scene in question was actually inspired by a performance of Bela Bartok’s “Duke Bluebeard’s Castle” featuring Pina Baush. During  the performance, a series of women seemingly were able to hang in the air while facing a wall (there were holes in the wall helping keep them in place.) You can read all about it on my blog:

https://skeptissimma.wordpress.com/2015/04/06/picture-said-to-be-from-a-russian-mental-institution-1952-no-actually-a-still-from-american-horror-story/

Return to Babylon (2013)

Most of the websites that refer to this are quite sensationalist in their reporting so I’m not going to use them for reference.

It would appear that nothing untoward was noticed during the filming process. It was later, at the post production stage, when the shots were being reviewed that actors‘ faces were reported to be be seen “morphing” into grotesque shapes.

If you carry out a google search for ‘morphing software‘ you’ll find numerous references to apps and computer programs that are designed to provide this function.

CGI techniques and Photoshopping (the application of computer graphics to create or contribute to images in art, printed media, video games, film etc.,) are now an accepted and important component of the film industry) making this easily achievable in post-production.

A quick look at the film’s release date, 11^th August 2013, and I’m already thinking “that’s a good hoax to advertise the film!”  Because it was photographed with a hand-cranked camera, and scored with music of the roaring twenties, I suspect that viewers misconstruted this film as one made decades earlier.  It’s shot as a silent film stringing together th elives of the most famous, and infamous, stars of the 1920s including Rudolph Valentino Gloria Swanson, Clara Bow, Lupe Velez, Fatty Arbuckle and William Desmond Taylor.   Personally, I consider the hype to be just a good bit of advertising to get people to watch the film.  If you can find anything to prove something paranormal was involved, then please, DO let me know!  In the meantime, you can read more about that film here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_to_Babylon

The Exorcist (1973)

Many tragedies, injuries and deaths reportedly occurred during the filming and post production of this film. These caused a number of setbacks during filming, almost tripling the amount of production days and the final cost.

Actress Ellen Burstyn, who played Regan’s Mother in the film, has been quoted as saying “there was an enormous amount of deaths connected with the film” and went on to tell that there were nine deaths connected to the movie in all (connected or just co-incidences?)

One of these deaths was actor Jack MacGowren, who played Burke Dennings and died at the age 55, a short time before the film was released. His character also died in The Exorcist, and it was the last role MacGowren played.

Two other actors also died shortly after filming, as did several of the crew.

The actor Jason Miller, who played Father Karras, had a strange experience during the film’s production. Early into production, Jason Miller was eating his lunch and reading some lines for the day’s scenes, when he was approached by a Jesuit Priest. The priest handed him a medallion of the Blessed Virgin and told Miller “reveal the devil for the trickster that he is, he will seek retribution against you or he will even try to stop what you are trying to do to unmask him.”

Several of the crew, Blatty included, recall seeing objects move about on their own accord on occasion, notably the telephone that was used to communicate between the set and the production house. The receiver would rise off the hook on its own, before falling to the floor. On one of these occasions Blatty was sitting right next to it. 

Eerie feelings were felt by all during the filming of the movie. With so many odd events taking place, the film’s religious technical advisor, Thomas Bermingham (also religious supervisor on The Amityville Horror and Amityville 2) was approached to perform an exorcism on the set.  Question – he may have been an adviser but what “qualification” did he have that entitled him to carry out such a task, whether it be deliverance or exorcism? A quick look at IMDB advises that this gentleman as Reverend or Father Thomas Bermingham and credited as an actor! The Exorcist: However History Today tells us:-

“The project was sufficiently plausible for three Jesuits to give their services as technical advisors to the film; two of them, William O’Malley SJ and Thomas Bermingham SJ, even acted in it (playing Father Dyer, a friend of Karras, and the president of Georgetown University respectively).  However,  the web site  of Penn State’s Department of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies mentions him thus:-

The Reverend Thomas Bermingham, S.J. Scholarship in the Classics was created by Penn State’s football coach, Joe Paterno, honoring his high school Latin teacher.  The Bermingham Scholarship provides recognition and financial assistance to full-time Penn State undergraduate students enrolled or planning to enroll in Greek and or Latin studies in the College of the Liberal Arts at University Park. Bermingham Scholarships are awarded on a competitive basis.   I’m presuming his ceremony of exorcism allayed any fears that those working on the set had had.

As previously mentioned in this article, stage, tv and film people are notoriously superstitious so it’s no wonder that their sensitivities, knowing that they’re working on a horror film, and that the book of that film was based on a true story.  

The novel was inspired by a 1949 case of demonic possession, an exorcism that Blatty heard about whilst a student in the class of 1950 at Georgetown University. A little more research (good old Wikipedia to the rescue, yet again) revealed that the  Exorcism of Roland Doe was the story which set the ensuing events in place.  Some time in the late 1940s, Roman Catholic priests performed a series of exorcisms on an anonymous boy but this was documented under the pseudonym ‘Roland Doe’ or ‘Robbie Mannheim’.  The boy, said to have been born around 1935, so presumably as young as 7 or 8 years, was the alleged victim of demonic possession. The events were recorded by Raymond Bishop, one of the priests in attendance, and the supernatural claims were those reported in the class which Blatty attended in 1950!  

Conclusion

Of course, I’ve just skimmed the surface here, and there are numerous other films rumoured to have been jinxed – it seems to be part of the course with horror films.

I wonder whether this is good for bums on seats marketing ploy, or just down to over-active imaginations.  I’m not able to state categorically one way or another so am still open to rational debate but, to conclude, here’s a list for a little light reading:-

http://flavorwire.com/520130/10-horror-movies-that-were-really-cursed

 

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Ghost pictures and how to spot the fake

Tags

Elsie Wright, Ghost apps, Harold Snelling, image manipulation, Paranormal, photo ‘manipulation, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, smartphone apps

Presumably you’ve read about how models’ pictures can be Photoshopped to make the ladies appear more ‘shapely’ than they are in real life.

If that last sentence made no sense to you, here’s a brief explanation before we go any further:-

Photoshop is a computer software program that gives the user advanced image editing capability that lets you enhance, retouch, and manipulate pictures. The picture below shows you a before and after of a picture of Britney Spears in 2013.

So, with a little bit of technical jiggery-pokery aided by some nifty software, the image that adorns newspapers and promotional material is a computer enhanced version of the lady in question.

The software is inexpensive and easily available to purchase as are similar programs by other software companies.

At this juncture I’d like to point out that image manipulation like this is nothing new!

The first documented photo ‘manipulation’ happened back in 1917 with the case of the Cottingley Fairies.

The picture with “cut out” fairies.

The Cottingly fairies could only have happened because of the fact that the two girls, Frances Griffiths (9 years old) and Elsie Wright (16 years old), realised they could use a camera to fake a picture showing fairies. Elsie’s father, Arthur, was a keen amateur photographer and had his own darkroom. Arthur knew of his daughter’s artistic ability and that she had spent some time working in a photographer’s studio and he dismissed the figures as cardboard cut-outs.

Two months later the girls borrowed his camera again and this time returned with a photograph of Elsie sitting on the lawn holding out her hand to a 1-foot-tall gnome.

Exasperated by what he believed to be “nothing but a prank” and convinced that the girls must have tampered with his camera in some way, Arthur Wright refused to lend it to them again. His wife Polly, however, believed the photographs to be authentic.

At this time, photography was in its infancy and most people had little experience of cameras so the idea of faking a photo hadn’t yet been conceived (other than the two girls whose idea it was).

Elsie’s mother attended a meeting of the Theosophical Society in Bradford and at the end of the meeting Polly Wright showed the two fairy photographs taken by her daughter and niece to the speaker. As a result, the photographs were displayed at the Society’s annual conference in Harrogate, held a few months later.  There they came to the attention of a leading member of the Society, Edward Gardner.

Gardner sent the prints along with the original glass-plate negatives to Harold Snelling, a photography expert. Snelling’s opinion was that “the two negatives are entirely genuine, unfaked photographs … [with] no trace whatsoever of studio work involving card or paper models”. He did not go so far as to say that the photographs showed fairies, stating only that “these are straight forward photographs of whatever was in front of the camera at the time”. Gardner had the prints “clarified” by Snelling, and new negatives produced, “more conducive to printing”,  for use in the illustrated lectures he gave around the UK. Snelling supplied the photographic prints which were available for sale at Gardner’s lectures.

Author and prominent Spiritualist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle learned of the photographs from the editor of the Spiritualists’ publication Light. Gardner and Doyle sought a second expert opinion from the photographic company Kodak, who declined to issue a certificate of authenticity. The prints were also examined by another photographic company, Ilford, who reported unequivocally that there was “some evidence of faking”.

In 1983, the cousins admitted in an article published in the magazine The Unexplained that the photographs had been faked, although both maintained that they really had seen fairies. Elsie had copied illustrations of fairies from a popular children’s book of the time, Princess Mary’s Gift Book, published in 1914.

They said they had then cut out the cardboard figures and supported them with hatpins, disposing of their props once the photograph had been taken.

Now I’d like you to have a look at the following webpage, by Mashable, which is about trick photography entitled 1850s-1950s, Photoshop before Photoshop – 100 years of manipulating images without computers.http://mashable.com/2015/02/19/before-photoshop/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-main-link

The Silent Screen

I realise that this next bit is less about the paranormal and more about the history of cinematography. However, the pioneers of the film industry were the first to realise, and experiment, with the moving image.  Yes they started out as films to entertain and offer a little escapism for the viewing public but film directors realised they could use film to show action that audiences had never thought possible.  

Méliès’ fantasy film “A Trip To The Moon” showed a capsule being fired from a large cannon at the man in the moon, with the rocket landing in the moon’s eye. The film was one of the most popular films of the early years of the twentieth century and heralded an interesting future for cinematography which brought Buster Keaton, Keystone Cops and Charlie Chaplin to our cinema screens.

The Talkies

We know that The Jazz Singer was the first movie with sound. Fast forward to the 20th Century.  We’re used to seeing films like 2001, Independence Day, Avatar and Interstellar. These films look so real and yet we know they were filmed in a studio and special effects were added using Computer Generated Imagery (CGI), blue screen, scale models, animatronics, pyrotechnics and 3D. Film makers have been experimenting and pushing the boundaries of what can be produced on film. No doubt you will have seen many SciFi and horror films where the supernatural/paranormal has been the storyline – The Shining, The Exorcist, The Ring, Paranormal Activity to name just a few.  The technology is not just the domain of those making blockbuster movies, software to create special effects is readily available for anyone with a PC, laptop, tablet or other computing device, including mobile phones.

Returning to the present

With the proliferation of smart phones and their ability to add ‘apps’ (applications i.e., programs) it is not surprising that photo imaging programs have become available for these, too.

Smart phones (they all have cameras now) have, as standard, basic image editing capability like adding a sepia effect, creating a negative view or making the picture black and white.

However, there are programs that will ‘enhance’ pictures that you take – you could add borders to your photos or create a montage but, more specifically, there are ‘ghost apps’ freely available for both iPhone and Android.

Since you are reading this document, it is a foregone conclusion that you have an interest in the paranormal and it is likely you will have seen, either in Facebook groups, through Google searches or on dedicated paranormal websites, videos and photos purporting to show one or more ghost images.

If you are going to deal with this topic objectively and rationally, you should seek to eliminate the obvious, e.g., the possibility that a picture has been doctored by superimposing an image on an otherwise ‘normal’ looking photo.

I would suggest you use as reference material the excellent FB page that RiPA HQ (Research into Paranormal Anomalistics) have put together called “Has that pic been app’d?” which you can find at https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.474504212650788.1073741831.135752936525919&type=1

New in 2015: Adding a Facebook group who are on the case too and worth a look is you’re doubting a photo https://www.facebook.com/FakeGhostPhoto

A short explanation on EXIF meta data written and reproduced here with kind consent of Leon B:-

Every digital camera attaches an explanation, or record, of each photograph taken. It is attached to that photo as a secondary file internally, on that photo. It’s found by clicking on “properties”. It includes information like: camera brand/type, file size, f-stop, whether the flash was used, etc. Some also include the Geo coords.

When a photo has been manipulated, as we see a lot of in the paranormal field, that data will usually replace the original data. Sometimes the exif will only state that it is simply a jpeg, with some other non-camera data, such as the date and time.

In the case of editing software, such as ExifTool, there will be a “composite” annotation, which is not part of the camera’s exif meta data. Facebook compresses any photos and replaces the meta data with its own (raising concerns of ownership and privacy!). Transferring a photo, via email or texting from your phone, will also compress the photo with the same affect. The larger files, using cameras with 10+ megapixels can potentially cause even email transference to be compressed.
In a nutshell, the metadata on exif files, attached to all digital photos, is the easiest way to determine authenticity. The last program to affect that file will leave its signature.

Images: exif data straight from a photo taken on my phone, and data taken from a photo downloaded from Facebook.

 

 

Addendum 20/09/15

To corroborate my comments regarding pictures and hoaxes (separately or together!) I today came across this very useful information:

https://theconversation.com/six-easy-ways-to-tell-if-that-viral-story-is-a-hoax-47673

Addendum 23/02/16

I’m not alone in my concern with the ways in which technology is used to ‘enhance’ a picture by adding or hiding elements.  Whilst we know photoshopping of celebs is all too common, it’s becoming that much harder to identify a real picture from a clever hoax  The blog Neuralogica addresses like-minded concerns: http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/identifying-real-or-fake-images/

In particular, what is now going to be called into question is the future of photographs  or videos used as evidence in court in the case of a crime.  If we are now able to so skilfully treat pictures and videos so that they look, to all intents and purposes, to be totally real, there is an argument that these may no longer be acceptable in a court of law.

Addendum 02/04/16

There’s an FB page that debunks pictures by showing that a ghost app has been used, so well worth a look at https://www.facebook.com/GhostAppGhosts/

However, I’ve come across a website called Obsidian Dawn who generate photoshop brushes, one of which is entitled “ghosts”.  I’ve created a document with each of the images the app provides as a handy reference tool:

www.obsidiandawn.com ghosts-photoshop-gimp-brushes

Smartphone Apps

Some examples of the type of apps you can find on GooglePlay and iTunes:-

Android
GhostCam Spirit Photography

“The best spirit photography app on Android market. Prank and fool your friends easily with mock up haunted ghost photo.”

Ghost camera allows you apply ghosts to your photo select from gallery,  or you can use phone’s camera to take new ghost photos.

Apple

Ghost Capture You can manipulate any photo from your iPhone photo album. After choosing an image, (or taking a new photo directly through Ghost Capture) select a ghost to superimpose onto the photo. Choose from creepy Victorian children, faceless torsos, Civil War soldiers, ghostly orbs, and more. After placing the ghost, adjust the size, rotation, and transparency to achieve the optimum effect.

Ghost Effects Wanna freak out your friend with a picture with ghosts in it? You should try Ghost Effects.

Ghost Effects lets you add horrible ghost effects to camera or pictures.

Take a photo with your friends with a ghost right behind them and send it to them, and wait to see their reaction.

They will get the chills and you will have a good laugh.

Panoramic Photos capture demons from hell?

With the advent of the smart phone it’s not just apps that you can download that can mislead the less tech savvy!  

A recent picture was captured by a schoolgirl at Hampton Court Palace and featured prominently on many daily papers, professing to show the “ghost of the grey lady”.

Not a ghost at all, just the girl’s phone camera having difficulty processing the image cocrrectly!

However, gullible the general public were the simple truth is that the girl was, in all probability, using the “panoramic” setting on her phone and the phone couldn’t cope with a person moving out of shot.  It’s discussed in detail by the Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/ghost-of-the-grey-lady-at-hampton-court-how-image-aliasing-allows-iphone-cameras-to-photograph-spectres-10069536.html

Panoramic photography is a technique of photography, using specialised equipment or software, that captures images with horizontally-elongated fields of view. It is sometimes known as wide format photography. The term has also been applied to a photograph that is cropped to a relatively wide aspect ratio, like the familiar letterbox format in wide-screen video.

If the explanation sounds boring, the outcome of using this feature is anything but!  Please have a look at Bored Panda’s panoramic photo fails and have a good laugh.

A brief discussion of orbs

It is appropriate, at this point, to mention photos and videos that I have no doubt that you will come across, showing “orbs”!

Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orb_(optics) defines these as unexpected, typically circular, artifacts that occur in flash photography —sometimes with trails indicating motion—especially common with modern compact and ultra-compact digital cameras.

Orbs are generally understood to be produced from retro-reflection of light off solid particles (e.g., dust, pollen), liquid particles (water droplets, especially rain) or other foreign material within the camera lens. Please refer to my blog post entitled “Cameras, Orbs and Lens Flares” which deals with this topic in greater detail.

You are advised to read about these in order to familiarise yourself with the phenomenon. They are most commonly seen when viewing a photo but not at the time of taking it. There are people who attest to having seen orbs with the naked eye.

Whilst some pictures that you will find during your paranormal research are likely to have been tampered with using the techniques highlighted above, there are some photos where there is no explanation for what appears on a picture.

http://strangeoccurrencesparanormal.weebly.com/orbs-explained.html explains the phenomenon well.

Ghost videos
Akin to what has been mentioned above, there are numerous videos on Youtube and paranormal websites attesting to paranormal activity – poltergeist activity, inexplicable noises and actual sightings of ghosts, shadows and strange beings.

You only have to think back to films like Paranormal Activity, White Noise and Poltergeist, which depict “paranormal” events taking place. In big screen films we know they’ve used high tech equipment to carry out this wizardry. However, ‘home-made style’ videos are just as easy to produce, using low tech solutions, using fishing wire (invisible from a distance) or out of shot humans to move items so that they appear to have been moved by an unseen force.

Edit 28/01/2016 Came across a youtube video by Eric Biddle which I’d like you to view Obejects move by themselves (sic) since it shows some quick demonstrations of how easy it is to make objects appear to move “by themselves”.

A particular video that I watched on Youtube some time ago, purportedly showed evidence of paranormal activity in a living room.  The video camera was placed at one end of a through-lounge, showing a sofa on the right of the picture, furthest away, a window with full-length curtains in front of which was an armchair.  The video did not show the whole room, both walls, left and right, were out of shot.  The video captures the curtain behind the armchair being moved.  After a delay the sofa is up-ended by being pushed from behind so that it’s back tips forward onto the floor.  In my opinion, these  “effects” were all achievable by a person out of sight of the video camera. I’ll have to find that video and post it so that you can see for yourself.

 

Edit 07/12/2015 Facebook post of a children’s entertainer/magician whose video shows how expertly videos can be edited to show us the most amazing things that AREN’T possible but are fun to watch. https://www.facebook.com/ChuttiVikatan/videos/648673875235158/

 

 

 

 

Picture said to be from a Russian mental institution, 1952? No! Actually a still from American Horror Story!

Tags

Cameras, image manipulation, Paranormal

Girls “climbing” or suspended half way up a wall – touted on the internet and various paranormal groups as being photographic ‘evidence’ of the paranormal.

Although various comments said it was obvious the girls had one foot in a recess enabling them to look as if they are suspended in midair against the wall, none actually recognised that this was a still from a horror series from America.

A little research (I found it so easily I’m surprised that this hadn’t been previously debunked by others!) found International Business Times’ review partially reproduced below.  Simple proof that it’s another fine example of cinematography and nothing more.

American Horror Story’ was created by the co-creators of `Glee’, but the shows have little in common besides that. The show revolves around the Harmons, a family of three, who move from Boston to Los Angeles in order to reconcile past anguish. What the Harmons don’t know is that the house they’ve moved into is haunted. But it’s not haunted by Casperesque friendly ghosts – it’s haunted by demonic creatures. The creatures have a history of not only spooking the house’s residents but also devouring them. After living in this house, family patriarch and psychiatrist, Ben, may need a shrink of his own.

First episode date: October 5, 2011

However the following text (the link from which it’s taken is also given below)

Detention” was released on Aug. 6 and immediately got fans of the FX mini-series into an excited frenzy. The 17-second video featured eight girls in black and white facing a wall … while floating in the air. In the background a chilling voice sang the line, “There is a house in New Orleans,” from the song “House of the Rising Sun.”

Immediately sending shivers down the spines of viewers, it appears that “American Horror Story” had some inspiration for “Detention” – German performer Pina Bausch. In 1977 Bausch performed a piece called “Blaubart” (or in English, “Bluebeard”) with the recording of Bela Bartok’s “Duke Bluebeard’s Castle.” During her performance, a series of women seemingly were able to hang in the air while facing the wall (there were holes in the wall helping keep them in place).

A photo taken from the performance began to make its round on Twitter thanks to @TerrifyingPics. But the Twitter account got a little creative about the performance still. It carries the caption: “

“Picture said to be from a Russian mental institution, 1952.”

The photo was subsequently posted on Reddit  where users immediately dismissed the idea that mentally ill people in Russia have the ability to levitate. Instead they unearthed Pina Bausch’s 1977 performance.

You can read the whole article here http://www.ibtimes.com/american-horror-story-season-3-spoilers-detention-promo-coven-mirrors-pina-bauschs-blaubart-1401183