Ghost Photo: The Boy in the Abandoned School

 

If you spend as much time as I do perusing the internet and social media for paranormal content, you may have seen this photo before. It's been floating around since at least 2014, but has recently popped up in my news feeds a few time. And, since it's been a hot minute since I covered any sort of ghost photo here on the blog, I thought, "eh, why not?"  According to Reddit user Inthelionsmane:

“I grew up in a small, rural town in between mountains. A couple of years ago, they were tearing down an old elementary school. A guy my mom knew went in and took pics with his cell phone. When he uploaded them, this was one of the pics. I don’t believe in stuff like this at all. I just really don’t know how to explain it since it was a cell phone pic and I’m pretty sure that no one in my Podunk hometown knows how to make fake pics.”

More info from the Reddit post stated that the cell phone camera photo is a few years old at the time it was posted to the site, and commenters threw out ideas such as a CPR dummy or even just a piece of furniture that, through the magic of pareidolia (matrixing), resembled an armless child. I think I have a better explanation. I think it's a digitally altered image that used a phone app that was becoming really popular at the time. It was a free program available for I believe both iPhones and Android phones called Ghost Capture, and essentially it was a database of spooky images of 'ghosts' that you could insert into photos you already had on your phone. I had to go back and check, but the first time I blogged about this specific app was back in October of 2013, so it was definitely around when this was posted to Reddit! (See my post, FaceBook's Most Famous Ghost Girl). Also, never buy into the whole "I don't know how to technology!" excuse. Even us hillbillies from podunk towns know how to download free apps and use them, but that might not even be the issue here. As I've discussed in previous posts on these types of apps...sometimes people use them to try to trick others, and well, they fall for it. 

 Anyway, below is a screenshot of the app's home screen menu with some of the spooky selections. I've circled the image I'm convinced was used. Although it looks slightly different due to the poor image quality, you can clearly see the diagonal hairline and lack of arms. But, if you have a different idea, please let me know in the comments below, or find me over on Theresa's Haunted History Facebook!