Alton Anomalies

The Story

Sent in by Shawn Amador:

I'm an 'unofficial ghost hunter'......... LOL! I took these pictures in/at two buildings that have been officially declared as haunted by professional ghost hunters in Alton, IL.

Analysis

Looking at the first picture, I can see how one might interpret the form on the balcony as a ghost.  After all, it seems terribly out of place and almost has the look to it like it's a child peeking out of the rails to get a look at the photographer.

I, however, see two things about this picture that might debunk it.

The first thing is that the mysterious figure is glowing the same color as the window to the far right of the balcony.  Looking at the structure of the building, it looks like the "ghost" is actually standing where the balcony door is.  My guess is that the "ghost" is actually light coming through the door's glass window and colored by a curtain.

The second skeptic objection to this photo is simply the fact that the subject (the ghost) is so far away.  A subject at this distance could be a ghost, a cat, a person in a costume, or a window and it's almost impossible to tell.  Plus, going into a place and knowing its history and then seeing something like that appear on film, it's not a small leap for your brain to make to automatically think, "Wow, it's a ghost!"  It happens to all of us... even me!  I thought I captured an entity at the St. Augustine Lighthouse in Florida until I realized that the figure was actually just a mark on the wall which was picked up in another picture.

As for this photographic phantom, I cannot say for sure but I don't think it's an actual ghost.  The source of this haunted photo is a little more down to Earth.

The second photo features a wispy object in the window above the rocker.  While the first photo was hard to debunk completely, this one is simple -- take a look at the glass on the corners of the window and you will notice that they are distorted, possibly by age.  This distortion in the glass creates light anomalies in it which are reflected back into the room and interpreted as something odd on camera.

What we're looking at is nothing more than a reflection.

Conclusion

Picture #1 -- Probably not a ghost, but I'll give it a 5 percent chance that it might be.  Picture #2 -- Not a ghost.

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