Brennan’s Restaurant in New Orleans – Ghostly Ecto?

When there’s a normal explanation for a photo, I want to find it. Sometimes, I can’t discover a good explanation—not one that works for the setting and the circumstances, that is.

That’s the case with this photo at Brennan’s Restaurant on Royal Street in New Orleans’ French Quarter. The ecto-like form wasn’t visible to the naked eye. I only took the photo because I felt prompted to, and felt a little silly doing so.

I’ve written about Brennan’s Red Room ghosts.  The photo above is completely unedited.  (The quality isn’t great because I hadn’t expected to take a photo and only had my small, old camera with me.)

That picture was oneof several I took late in July 2005, shortly before Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, wreaking horrific damage throughout the area.

It was a clear night, drier than most July nights in Louisiana.  However, because it was July, I’m discounting the small orbs near the light-colored area, since they could be the result of humidity.

Instead, I’m baffled by the light area itself.

It was too hot to be using a fireplace, and Brennan’s kitchen was in another part of the building and fully enclosed.  There was no mist above Brennan’s, so that’s not a reflection of the street lights.

In fact, we didn’t see anything unusual when I took this picture.  It was one of those ‘gut feeling’ photos… that innate, perhaps intuitive feeling that something would show up if I took a few pictures.

We were across the street from Brennan’s, so my flash was too far away to highlight the air above the restaurant.

There were no skylights or spotlights that night, either.

If the light area were caused by something natural, we should have seen this ecto-looking area ourselves.

So, I’m not sure what the light area is.  It’s almost directly above the room where, years ago, workmen in Brennan’s saw a terrifying face outside the window.  (Those burly workmen were so frightened, they ran down the stairs and broke out through the locked doors.  They never returned to Brennan’s.)

Sometimes, anomalies in photos are simply odd.

There may be an explanation for this picture, but we can’t be sure.  For every ‘normal’ explanation,  at least three of us can argue convincingly that the normal explanation doesn’t fit the time, location, and conditions of the photo.

I’m reluctant to label this NOLA anomaly ‘ecto’ because it could be something else.  However, it’s the subtle kind of image that’s easily overlooked when you’re expecting orbs, a vortex, or something more dramatic.

For many of us, these subtle anomalies can be more interesting than the obvious ones.

MORE RESOURCES

Brennan’s “Red Room” ghosts (article)

And one of my podcasts about New Orleans’ French Quarter…