Gilson Road Cemetery – What IS this?
Mar 19th, 2008 | By Fiona Broome | Category: Ghost photos & eerie images, Nashua and vicinity
Ghost photo from
haunted Gilson Road Cemetery, Nashua, NH
Fiona’s comments: This real “ghost photo” was taken at Nashua’s Gilson Road Cemetery when we were researching ghosts and hauntings. It’s one of our favorite “What is this?” pictures.
I took this ghost photo with a $6 disposable Fuji camera. On that night, a group of us were testing inexpensive cameras to see what an amateur could expect when taking photographs at random in a haunted location.
By the time I took this photo, the fog was just starting to roll in. We could see clearly without a flashlight, and many of our cemetery pictures were normal, but the mist became a factor later in the night.
We took two identical shots at every spot, and the photo immediately before this was almost entirely black and crisp.
The photo after this one was also sharp, with no evidence of humidity or fog. No one was smoking. There were no houses nearby when this picture was taken, so there was no risk of woodsmoke from a fireplace, either.
(Since then, a subdivision has been built immediately across the street from this cemetery.)
What is this weird, swirly mist…? Is that a gravestone to the right?
It should be, because that’s what the camera was pointing at.
We’ve had dozens of letters from readers, suggesting everything from a ghostly finger to the Virgin Mary. This is our most popular real “ghost photo.”
Whatever it is, it’s weird. And cool. And yes, this is real. It’s not altered from the original film print in any way at all.
I don’t think that it’s scary, but some people do. In fact, it reminds me of an old InfiniteFish background, in a way.
Camera: Fuju disposable Quicksnap, 800 ASA
Developed at: One-hour processing, Shaw’s Royal Ridge, Nashua
Location: Gilson Road Cemetery, Nashua, NH
When: 26 Nov 1999, about 5 p.m.
Read more about Haunted Gilson Road Cemetery.
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I dunno about everyone else but I look at the picture and I sort of see a sad looking man with a locked-jaw hunched over.
I would say this is probably condensation on the camera lens, a picture of the ‘the fog was just starting to roll in’, or some other manifestation of moisture in the atmosphere. This is a good example of a picture that you want to know the dew point, temperature, and weather conditions at the time. Without that information, no one can even begin to debunk this very interesting picture.
As far as what I see, it does kinda look like Rosarch from the Watchmen.
Bobby, thanks for your comment. It wasn’t condensation on the lens. If it was fog, it was fleeting, as other photos didn’t show that. Humidity, dew point, temperature, etc. — and how each affect every camera you use — are all factors that every serious ghost photographer needs to research.
This is one reason why I warn people that, to evaluate any ghost photo, they need to have been there when the picture was taken. I’m covering the basics in my upcoming book, Ghost Photography 101. The biggest surprise, as I took photos to illustrate fake orbs & anomalies as illustrations, has been how difficult it is to create convincing anomalies with smoke, camera straps, pollen, dust, and so on.