The Ghost of Curtis Johnston

When Corey Carlsonn uploaded a photo of himself to Instagram, he was shocked to see that there was an extra...person?...in the photo with him. Standing behind his right shoulder, it appears that there is a woman in a white nightgown with long, black hair. This transparent, ghostly image obviously wasn't noticed when the photo was being taken.

Corey, however, believed he recognized who the ghostly woman was. It seems that in 2001, a woman named Curtis Johnston went missing from the house in which the photo was taken. An added insert of the woman in question is provided for comparison, and sure enough, she is clad in white and does have similar long, black hair.

Unfortunately for the paranormal world, both the ghostly image and the mysterious back story can be completely debunked.

Often the old adage of 'if its too good to be true, it probably is,' applies to these types of full body apparition photos. A quick search of any number of the great ghost app databases (I used Ghost App Ghosts) showed that the ghostly image is a pretty popular image that can be found as a part of several of these hoax apps. Here's our culprit in the menu of one such app known as Ghost Cam by AlonsosSOFT for Android devices.

Now, to be fair, there are times when people believe they have a legitimate haunting. To try to 'prove' that haunting they might fake a ghost photo. Or, a friend or relative might try to prey on their gullibility, and try to trick them with a hoaxed ghost photo, building on the belief of a haunting, or a spooky past incident. But, as I've already mentioned, that just wasn't the case with this story.

The woman referred to as Curtis Johnston is actually named Girley Riley, and she didn't go missing. She simply passed away. The photo used of her to illustrate the similarities to the suspected ghost was taken from the Well Spring Ministries 'In Loving Memory' page. So where did the name Curtis come from? Apparently, someone named Curtis Johnston also passed away and was featured in the church's memorial section. However, since a photo wasn't available, only his named appeared beside the photo of Girley.