Ghosts and Hauntings

A photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park for the topics of spirit photography / ghostly images / haunted houses (post up to 3 images on any combination of these themes) . Representatives from the spirit world have seemingly materialized just in time to sing "Happy Birthday" in what is actually just a double exposure. See my Ghosts and Hauntings album for more spooky photos.

A real photo postcard showing a picnic scene with a ghostly double exposure.

A poses by a Christmas thing photo (anything holiday) for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. A double-exposure snapshot of family members posing by a Christmas tree makes for a haunting holiday image. Date and location unknown. I'd like to take this opportunity to extend best holiday wishes to all my Theme Park friends! Thanks for all the amazing photos you've posted this year, and thanks, too, to Angelica for all her work in keeping such an interesting and fun group going! Here's to more of the same in the New Year!

A photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park for the topics of spirit photography / ghostly images / haunted houses (post up to 3 images on any combination of these themes) . Ghostly images of semitransparent kids and a grinning bunny make for a haunting scene in this undated snapshot.

A trick or treat photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. Although my copy of this stereoscopic card doesn't include any publication information, versions posted on Flickr are titled "The Haunted Lovers" and were published by Littleton View Company in 1893 (see Photo_History's The Haunted Lovers Stereo Card and depthandtime's The Haunted Lovers ). For the full stereoview card, see The Haunted Lovers (Stereoscopic Card) :

For information about this stereoscopic card, see The Haunted Lovers :

Something "mysterious" for the the Vintage Photos Theme Park . This photo was identified as a " spirit photograph " when I bought it at an antique co-op in 1994. Handwritten on the back of the photo is the following: "Camp Silver Bell, Mountain Springs Hotel, Ephrata, Pa." Camp Silver Belle was a Spiritualist group founded by Ethel Post-Parrish , a medium whose Indian spirit guide was named Silver Belle. The group held lectures and meetings at the Mountain Springs Hotel in Ephrata, Pa., and published a schedule of programs as late as 1976 (see Silver Belle Presents Lecturers, Teachers, World-Famous Psychics, 1976 ). Eventually, however, the group became inactive, and the hotel fell into disrepair. Today, the facade of the old hotel remains , but the rest of the hotel site was demolished in 2004 to make way for a Hampton Inn hotel and an Applebee's restaurant. So what is that strange haziness hovering above the audience? An ectoplasmic manifestation from another spiritual realm? Hokum conjured up by sleight of hand and camera? Or just an odd yet coincidental defect in the film or developing?

A haunted house photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. There's no question that the house in this undated real photo postcard was haunted. We can see that an ectoplasmic substance was flowing down from the roof of the house and drifting toward the men and women below. I don't want to think about what happened to the unsuspecting group when the ectoplasm reached them. In addition, the radiating beams of energy visible in the lower right-hand corner could only have emanated from a ghostly orb just out of camera range. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the orb drifted right through the front door of the haunted house, startling the photographer and causing the photo to be off-kilter. Of course, some investigators are likely to dismiss this clear-cut evidence of haunting as a light leak or some other imperfection in the photo, but I think that the malevolent nature of these paranormal manifestations is obvious. I'm sad to report that I don't have any further information regarding the fate of the photographer or the individuals in the photograph.

Here we see a happy group of tourists innocently posing for an amusing souvenir photo. While fifteen men, women, and children look on from their seats on the wagon, two women and a man hoist the apparatus at the front and foolishly pretend to pull the vehicle. Little did they know that their frivolous action would cause a ghostly tendril of energy--apparently invisible to the naked eye--to sweep in and engulf the unwitting souls there on the wagon, leaving them oblivious to their fate. Or maybe it's just a light leak. (A light leaks photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. Take a look at A Light from Above and Lost in the Mists of Time for more leaks.)

Strangely out-of-focus, bow-bedecked, unsmiling girls, awkwardly holding hands, surrounded by trees and fallen leaves, with a puzzling misty whiteness visible beyond the trees. Yikes!

Sometimes it's hard to tell.

A trick or treat photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. Handwritten on the back: "Hostetter Farm oats field." This photo doesn't feature a Children of the Corn scenario like Deborah Lundbech's delightfully spooky If You Grow It, She Will Come... , but I wouldn't want to see these sinister Grown-Ups of the Oats coming through the field toward me!

A real photo postcard of four little children standing on the beach. The blotchy image gives the scene a ghostly appearance.

A flaw in this real photo postcard makes it look like a lightning bolt--or some other strange light from above?!--has singled out this little girl, who for some inexplicable reason seems to be sitting by herself on a chair in the middle of a field.

A double exposure photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. This real photo postcard captured a group of six women posing for a photograph on a porch (note the porch columns to the left and the slatted wooden ceiling above the women). The two women at the front of the group--both seated and wearing hats--apparently did not realize that their doppelgängers were silently gliding along the ceiling above them.

A mother and son-—along with a tree and wrapped presents-—seem to be materializing out of the ether in this Christmas double exposure. For other haunted holiday happenings, see The Ghosts of Christmas Past and The Ghosts of Easter Past (below).

A blurry but charming photo for the Vintage Photos Theme Park. A double exposure featuring a cute kid with a big smile sitting in the foreground along with a ghostly mom and the kid's blurry doppelgänger lurking in the background. The photo is dated 1949 in the lower right-hand corner. For more charming blurriness, see Misty Shores of Memory and Fuzzy Dog .