The Headless Camper
The Story
Sent in by Dan Beinfield:
Was out camping last night with 3 of my friends. when i got home and checked out some of the pics i came across this one of my slightly drunk friend and then noticed something in the background. at first i thought it was a picture of one of my other friends until i realised none of us were wearing anything even slightly similar to whatever this is.
Analysis
Oh, goodness. Who doesn't love the old story about a headless ghost searching high and low for his or her missing noggin? I know I've been listening to them for years and, I have to admit, it does look like the campfire visitor lurking in the background does appear to be looking for something.
Stories like this get engrained in our psyche every bit as much as creation or flood myths. The story of the Headless Horseman or some unknown campfire tale of some poor soul wandering the Earth moaning, "Where's my heaaaaaaad!?" are a part of who we are. That's why strange pictures like this often lead us to think of that particular cultural phenomenon.
However, upon closer inspection, you can see that this ghost is not headless. Although it appears that she (she looks like a she to me) is looking for something, her shoulders are just angled in a way and her back is bent in a way that simply hides her head from plain sight.
Still, there is the eerie footnote that the person in the background wasn't noticed by any of the three people in attendance, but there are a few things that I found about the story that was telling.
For one, alcohol was involved and it has been proven that alcohol - even in small amounts - can impair memory.
Dan says that there were three people at the campfire but one is unaccounted for. Given that the "slightly drunk man" appears to be wet, it's possible that the third member of the party might have simply changed clothes on the advent of rain.
I would even theorize that this could simply be someone who wandered through the camp. By the look of things, it was very dark, the fire was not bright, and it also looks foggy or even rainy (that's where that "spirit mist" comes from). I would not be at all shocked if someone walked by the camp unnoticed and unheard due to the weather, only to be captured by the flash of a camera. Along with the beers impairing memory, it's well within the realm of possibility that this headless ghost is actually a fully intact human being.
Conclusion
Probably not a ghost.
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