This is the famous “purple streak” photo taken at Gilson Road Cemetery at about 10:30 p.m. on Friday, 5 November 1999. The picture has not been enhanced or altered in any way, except slight compression to reduce load time.
I did not see anything like this magenta streak when I was taking the photos. I did see sparkles during most of my photos, similar to the remnants of a firework display, after an enduring firework has exploded.
I also remember feeling as if something had rushed past me, and I said aloud, “What was that?” But, so many odd things happened that night, I didn’t think much of it.
The photo shown above was one of the last that I took, the first night I visited Gilson Road Cemetery. I was one of six people who went there, on an informal “ghost hunt.”
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Gilson Road Cemetery, Nashua, NH
5 November 1999, about 10 p.m.
This cemetery is well-known for being “haunted.” Local legend claims that an Indian battle was fought here in early Colonial times. There are also tales of a murder that took place in a home that was once within the cemetery’s stone walls, and the house was later burned to the ground. After that, the property was turned into a cemetery.
This cemetery is incredibly haunted, with massive residual energy hauntings. It has enough activity to be a portal cemetery. 18 out of my first 56 photos show orb/ghost/energy anomalies. Click here to read about our experiences at Gilson Road Cemetery.
Technical info:
This was photo #21 on a 36-photo roll of Kodak Max 800 ASA. It was taken with an Olympus point-and-shoot camera, the AF-1. Photo #20 is nearly identical.
(I usually take two photos in close succession, so that I can use one as a “control” in case of a lens flare or other reflection. The two magenta-streaked photos were taken about five seconds apart.)
Every other photo–before and after–on this roll is normal, with no streaks. You can view the photos before and after, to compare.
The photo with the headstones, frame #19, was taken about two minutes before the two streaked photos. The photo with the man (“Alan” in my story about that night) is frame #22, was taken about five minutes after the streak photos. He was not nearby when I took the streaked photos.
These streaks in frames #20 and #21 are on the negative too; this was not a printing error. The streaks do not extend outside the frame. There are no splashes of chemicals or other distortions on the negatives.
Also, it is impossible to take double exposures with this camera.
The film was developed and printed at a grocery-store photo service: Shaw’s, Nashua, NH.
As a photographer I have seen these color streaks in many photographs. Usually they are due to old age film or film that has been exposed to heat or near the end of a film roll, static electricity can also cause this.I have had a lot of trouble out of kodak max film.
iso 800 film is more sensitive than iso 100 and is great for night photos, but also more sensitive to static and high temperature. If this was taken with a plastic framed camera that was placed in a pocket or a nylon case then you have created the static charge.
Hi Clint,
You’re right about the static effect. However, I’m always careful to handle cameras and film so static is not an issue. If I put the camera into a pouch, it’s cotton flannel, never a synthetic or synthetic-blend fabric. I never put my camera into a pocket or a nylon case, either.
(My father had a basement darkroom, so I was raised around cameras and film handling. I’ve seen what happens when people — including me, as a child — don’t handle film correctly.)
That roll of film was new, the photo was in the middle of the roll, and — unless the film was exposed to heat during shipping to the store where I bought it — the weather was far too chilly for a heat issue. I put the camera on the car seat next to me; never near the heating vents in the car. (And, if heat was involved, I’d expect it to affect the film on the outside of the roll before the middle of the roll.)
A photojournalist was with me the night that photo was taken. She studied the photo and the film, afterward. It’s one reason why she became fascinated by this kind of research; she was looking for an explanation, too. She’d worked in a film processing lab for awhile, and she kept looking at my film and the picture saying, “That can’t be.”
I generally avoid ISO 800 film because it edges too much towards grainy results. I’ve used it, but today I prefer ISO 400 or sometimes ISO 200, though the latter can miss a lot of detail in low-light environments.
Thanks for posting this, to alert others to the static and temperature issues. The more people learn about cameras and photography, the better!
Cheerfully,
Fiona
You should see the photos that I have from Gilson Rd. And the experience that we (me and the people i was with) had had that night! There was something NOT so nice in the air that night!!!
Hi Hayley,
Thanks for letting me know about your photos. I’ll be in touch in a couple of months, when I’m caught up on my books and will have time to study your photos. I’m sure they’re astonishing!
Cheerfully,
Fiona