In the first half of the 19th century, the camera and photography were invented. These discoveries made it possible not only to preserve images of real people and events, but also for a moment to penetrate into the world of the unknown and mysterious.
And overstepped this line in 1862, the American amateur photographer William Mammler, who once decided to photograph himself. In the middle of the room, he placed his bulky camera on a tripod and took a seat in front of her lens.
When he developed the photograph the next day, he saw something in the photograph that made him immediately contact the police department. The statement in which he asked for an investigation, in particular, included the following lines: “I was in the room and in the whole house completely alone, filming myself. In the woman on my right hand, I recognized my cousin Sarah Mammler, who died in this apartment 12 years ago.”
In this photo, a middle-aged man sits on a chair, staring intently into the lens. He is dressed in the fashion of that time. His hands are in his lap. And behind him on the right side is a miniature translucent lady in a white dress. Her left cheek is pressed against Mammler's temple. The woman's pale face is clouded with a hidden sadness, and deathly pain and longing is seen in her eyes.
This unique photograph, along with the negative, has been repeatedly subjected to the most scrupulous research by photography professionals, including police experts in New York. And every time the picture was recognized as authentic.
This photograph, in fact, was the first to depict a representative of the other world. Since then, several thousand spirits and ghosts have been recorded on plates and photographic films. However, only 197 of them are considered original. But it is precisely these almost two hundred photographs that put scientists before the question: what is actually depicted on them - ghosts, spirits, phantoms, clots of psychic energy?
Well-known among paranormal researchers, physicist William Crookes (1832-1919), who at one time headed the British Society for Psychical Research, with the help of a woman-spiritist Florin Cook, repeatedly summoned from the other world the ghost of a certain lady who called herself the daughter of the famous pirate John King for experimental research - Kathy.
Moreover, all the stages of its appearance are captured in many photographs that are currently kept in the London Museum of Spiritualism.
Promotional video:
In the 1920s, a book by the English researcher F. Smith "Ghosts and Poltergeists" appeared in many bookstores. In it, the author placed an amazing picture, which at first glance did not represent anything special: a little girl is standing on the sidewalk at full height. And to the left of the child, a barely visible, dry old man perched on bent knees. He looks straight into the lens with a tender look and, putting his hand on the girl's head, smiles mysteriously. And the caption under the photo says the following: “This photograph was taken in 1922 in the American town of Inverk. In addition to the girl, her uncle, who died 11 years earlier, is also in the picture. At the moment when the shooting was carried out, none of those around him saw.
In the same book by F. Smith, there are several other interesting photographs: for example, a photo of a car taken from a distance of about two and a half meters. An elderly gray-haired man is at the wheel of the car, and a thin old woman is perched in the back seat. She is dressed in a dark coat, she has a light scarf around her neck, and glasses on a pointed nose.
It turns out that this photo, in addition to the man driving, also depicts his late mother-in-law. And the picture was taken by the man's wife, Mrs. Mabel Chinnery from the English city of Apitch, after laying flowers on her mother's grave. When the next day Mabel showed the film, she noticed in the car the figure of her mother, who had died several years ago.
Several experts who have studied the strange photograph in detail, unanimously declared that it is genuine …
In September 1936, Lady Townshend invited a professional photographer to her Rainham Castle in Norfolk to take some photographs of her mansion and the surrounding area. When the necessary photographic equipment was prepared for work in the front hall, a slender translucent female figure in an old-style brown dress suddenly appeared on the wide staircase in front of the amazed gazes of the photographer and his assistants.
The ghost moved very slowly, so the photographer was able to take a pretty good shot of the strange lady. Subsequently, to establish the authenticity of the image, the negative and the photograph were handed over to military experts, who, after careful examination of the photograph, came to the conclusion that it was not a fake. Moreover, they found that the photograph depicts the ghost of the so-called Brown Lady, who has been visiting Rainham Castle 2-3 times a year for seven centuries …
The popular English magazine "Maxim" also paid tribute to the fashion for photographs of ghosts: in 1977, a rare photograph of a cherry "Bentley" appeared on its pages, at the wheel of which there was a translucent, like a mirage, but nevertheless clearly visible figure of a young man of years 25-30, dressed in an expensive suit.
This photo was taken by the owner of the car, 27-year-old Londoner Timothy Upper. “I bought this Bentley quite recently and in memory of this important event decided to take a picture of the car in front of my office,” the puzzled young man explained to reporters. - When I developed the film, I saw the outline of a man at the wheel of a car, whom I had never seen before. I turned to the editorial office, and it was explained to me that this was a ghost, and most likely the person who was hit by a car at the same place a year ago”…
In October 1990, at the famous Austrian high-mountain resort in Tyrol, Englishman J. Todd photographed his comrades at the dinner table. When, after resting, he returned to his homeland and printed Tyrolean photographs, then in one of the photographs, besides friends, he saw another person. It was a mysterious girlish figure that seemed to hang in the air right in front of George's friends sitting at the table …
Another snapshot depicting a mysterious human figure was published in October 1991 in the British Sunday magazine. In the photo, which was taken on New Year's Eve in London's Covent Garden hypermarket, in addition to the Webb family - parents and their little daughter, the image of a transparent schoolgirl in a black dress was clearly visible, as if woven from cobwebs.
Vernon Harrison - at one time the head of the Royal Society of Photographers - after scrupulous examination of the photograph, authoritatively declared that it was genuine …
Bernatsky Anatoly