Portsmouth house, Portsmouth, NH
October 1999, about 11 a.m.
This photo was taken outside a Portsmouth private residence. While living in that house, I saw two ghosts and experienced considerable poltergeist phenomena. I took several photos of the house in late October 1999, to illustrate my pages about this very haunted house.
When I had this film printed and examined the photos, I kept returning to the photo shown above. Something about it didn’t seem “right.” My attention was drawn to what seemed to be window reflections of the old lilac bush in front of the house.
The following day, I decided to enhance the image with my computer, simply making it larger so I could determine what was bothering me about the picture. That enlargement appears below:
Either this photo looks like a man looking to the right, with longish hair and 19th-century dark sunglasses, or it looks like a reflection of lilac leaves. Nobody seems undecided about this photo!
If you’d seen the male ghost in that house, you’d recognize the window reflection right away: That’s our ghost. He has a broken-looking nose, a scar under his right cheekbone, and his hair is thinning on top.
In spectral appearance, he was about 5’5″ tall and stocky. He looked like a hastily-groomed, slightly British version of Buffalo Bill… sort of. When he wasn’t wearing sunglasses, he had average no-particular-color eyes, somewhat tanned skin, and slightly sunbleached brown hair. He favored brown clothing, usually wore a suit, rarely buttoned his jacket, and he always seemed in a hurry to go nowhere. When I took this photo, I had the sense that someone was at the window, but I didn’t notice the man’s face.
It seemed reasonable that the current residents of the house might have been peering out at the strange woman taking photos of their house. I don’t put any significance on my discomfort at the time.
Read about our experiences in Portsmouth – real ghosts, private home
Camera: Olympus AF-1, point-and-shoot
Film type: Kodak ASA 400 b&w film, 35mm
Negative shows: Same image. Nothing unusual.
Developed and printed by: Shaw’s Supermarket overnight photo service
The thing is, when I looked at this picture I immediately saw a sinister face with pointy teeth! What you see as a moustache, I see as an opening of a mouth. I see the face looking towards me, not a profile like you see. It appears to me that its looking towards the left. But thats what I see. I do see what you see also, but my first reaction was sheer shock of a more sinister face there. And from what you have told story wise of the spirit, I see it as more menasing then nice & from the 60′s.
Me too.
When I first saw it it looks like a smirk on his face before I read the rest of your post. I wasn’t looking for a beard and it took some time to see what you were seeing. Then after looking harder at it I saw your drawing in the photo. But then it changed again with the ‘scar’ looking like a mouth giving a kind of shocked expression.
Wow, that is one huge head. Not really, what you are seeing is a reflection from the tree/bush outside of the window against the backdrop of the white wall.
Clint,
Thanks for your views. Different people have different opinions of this image and — as I said — either you see it (and understand why the apparent image is significant) or you don’t.
For skeptics, it’s just the reflection of the lilac bush. If that’s all you see, that’s fine.
Fiona Broome
I hope it’s okay to weigh in here. I do understand that this image has significance for you, and that you have had experiences here that you felt were paranormal. But I must say, this looks like a reflection of the lilac bush to me. The ‘face’ is not a humanly possible one. And by that, I mean it is a stretch to consider the configuration of the reflection as one. We can find ‘faces’ in pictures where we see two dark things above a linear thing = eyes above mouth, etc. We are sort of hard wired to find ‘faces’ and recognize them in patterns.
I wish the photo posted here could have been scanned at a higher resolution, but because it isn’t, it’s not possible to clarify what information there is there. I’m assuming you were using Tri-X or TMAX film, or a non-Kodak equivalent? This is grainy stuff, unfortunately, so sometimes finding anomalies in the grain is difficult.
Best to you. I’m enjoying your site!
Lynn
Lynn,
Comments like this are always welcomed here.
I agree that the face is not humanly possible, but that’s the point. I’d consider this matrixing except that the image is a near perfect match with the apparition seen inside the house.
This is simply one of those “either you see it or you don’t” photos that will delight some, amuse others, and provide ample fodder for skeptics… everyone wins!
Cheerfully,
Fiona
I’ll have to agree with your sketch, Fiona. He may have had his nose pressed against the window. But a bush is a bush and I don’t see any limbs or leaves. We really don’t know whether a ghost can alter their size or not. Looking at the top picture again. The face is way above the bush No way it can cast a reflection or shadow upwards. You’re below the window and the bush..
Im sorry I do believe in ghosts, I do, but this to me is just our brain making shapes out of non sense , I dont think its anything ghostly .. Just shadows and light
my frist inpression was seeing a person with the beard but after looking a little harder i got the impression of a demonic skull with it mouth open and can make out teeth and it also looks like a smaller image of a man on the left side bottom. its a very interesting photo but then again i’m not trained for looking for paranormal images in photos but i am working on it.
I too cans ee what you see.