Ghost at Hampton Court Palace

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http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2003/WORLD/europe/12/19/hampton.ghost.ap/story.ghost.ap.jpg

LONDON, England (AP) -- Are there ghostly goings-on at Henry VIII's palace, or is that hazy image of a fellow in fancy robes just a bit of Christmas cheer?

Closed-circuit security cameras at Hampton Court Palace, the huge Tudor castle outside London, seem to have snagged an ethereal visitor. Could it be a ghost?

"We're baffled too -- it's not a joke, we haven't manufactured it," said Vikki Wood, a Hampton Court spokeswoman, when asked if the photo the palace released was a Christmas hoax. "We genuinely don't know who it is or what it is."

Wood said security guards had seen the figure in closed-circuit television footage after checking it to see who kept leaving open one of the palace's fire doors.

In the still photograph, the figure of a man in a robe-like garment is shown stepping from the shadowy doorway, one arm reaching out for the door handle.

The area around the man is somewhat blurred, and his face appears unnaturally white compared with his outstretched hand.

"It was incredibly spooky because the face just didn't look human," said James Faukes, one of the palace security guards.

"My first reaction was that someone was having a laugh, so I asked my colleagues to take a look. We spoke to our costumed guides, but they don't own a costume like that worn by the figure. It is actually quite unnerving," Faukes said.

The palace, built in 1525 on the River Thames 10 miles west of central London, is a popular tourist attraction and some of the guides wear costumes of the Tudor period.

Wood said she was hoping people would come forward with similar stories and try to explain the figure.

The palace has been the scene of many dramatic royal events, and already is supposed to have a few ghosts.

King Henry VIII's third wife, Jane Seymour, died there giving birth to a son, and her ghost is said to walk through one of the cobbled courtyards carrying a candle.

Her son, Edward, had a nurse called Sibell Penn who was buried in the palace grounds in 1562. In 1829 her tomb was disturbed by building work, and around the same time an odd whirring noise began to be heard in the southwest wing of the palace.

When workmen traced the strange sounds to a brick wall, they uncovered a small forgotten room containing an old spinning wheel, just like the one Penn used to use.

Henry's fifth wife, Catherine Howard, condemned for adultery, was held at the palace under house arrest before her execution at the Tower of London. An 1897 book about the palace says she was reportedly seen, dressed in white and floating down one of the galleries uttering unearthly shrieks.

The palace was once a prison for King Charles I, who later was beheaded, and then home to his nemesis Oliver Cromwell, who briefly ruled when Britain was for a short time a republic.

― Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 19 December 2003 21:38 (twenty-two years ago)

It's the Crow!

― Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 19 December 2003 21:44 (twenty-two years ago)

How the hell are you supposed to know from that picture?

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 19 December 2003 21:54 (twenty-two years ago)

here's a wider shot

― El Santo Claus (Kingfish), Friday, 19 December 2003 21:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Whatever it is, kill it. Oh, that's not possible because it's ALEADY DEAD...

― andy, Friday, 19 December 2003 21:54 (twenty-two years ago)

Well, clearly they should close the premises until rid of this possibly dangerous spectral scoundral.

― Michael Daddino (epicharmus), Friday, 19 December 2003 21:56 (twenty-two years ago)

I saw it on Richard and Judy. Not very convincing, but still spooky.

― pete s, Friday, 19 December 2003 22:03 (twenty-two years ago)

ANybody read _Timeline_? I long how they take the time to mention several different horridly gruesome & profane ways that british heads of state have met their end, usually at the hand at other britons...

― El Santo Claus (Kingfish), Friday, 19 December 2003 22:05 (twenty-two years ago)

here's the wider shot again:

http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20031219/capt.lon11012191426.britain_royal_ghost_lon110.jpg

― Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 19 December 2003 22:24 (twenty-two years ago)

It's Michael Wincott!

― Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 19 December 2003 22:24 (twenty-two years ago)

It's still not very convincing, I mean you can't even see through him!!

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 19 December 2003 22:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I think it's Death from Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey.

― pete s, Friday, 19 December 2003 22:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I mean this is more like it. This one was tested by the bbc in the '80's, and found not to be a double exposure. I nearly crap myself every time I see it.

http://www.castleofspirits.com/monk.jpg

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 19 December 2003 22:34 (twenty-two years ago)

more here:

http://www.castleofspirits.com/ghostphotos.html

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Friday, 19 December 2003 22:38 (twenty-two years ago)

The ghost of Christmas yet to come?

― Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 19 December 2003 22:39 (twenty-two years ago)

why are ghosts scary?

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 20 December 2003 00:14 (twenty-two years ago)

i mean like at all?

"ooh ooh i shall put my insubstantial hand through you!"

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 20 December 2003 00:18 (twenty-two years ago)

you laugh now, Mark, but when you wake up in the middle of the night tonight to find a GHOST standing beside your bed, then you will be sorry.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Saturday, 20 December 2003 00:23 (twenty-two years ago)

i will be pleased

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 20 December 2003 00:23 (twenty-two years ago)

no one ever stands by my bed :(

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 20 December 2003 00:24 (twenty-two years ago)

hey, isn't that the dude from Scream? How's that supposed to be scary?

― Catty (Catty), Saturday, 20 December 2003 00:26 (twenty-two years ago)

it is actually quite scary. The skeletor picture is scary too.

Why is it always assumed that the ghosts are of famous people? Like ooh, it's Jane Seymour and not the beaten and belittled maid whose name nobody knows....

― Catty (Catty), Saturday, 20 December 2003 00:28 (twenty-two years ago)

I went and looked at that castleofspirits site, and the pictures were all rubbish and not scary... except the page about the old woman in the car, where the picture sounded so scary I had to backpage before it loaded.

― DV (dirtyvicar), Saturday, 20 December 2003 00:33 (twenty-two years ago)

you are all softies

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 20 December 2003 00:35 (twenty-two years ago)

haha i will probbly have a horrible nightmare now

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 20 December 2003 00:35 (twenty-two years ago)

the house my mum and dad lived wz haunted acc.the people who lived there before - a "man in black" - but none of *us* ever saw him

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 20 December 2003 00:37 (twenty-two years ago)

"lived" = "live in now"

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 20 December 2003 00:37 (twenty-two years ago)

That first pic was all too clearly someone holding a cig right in front of the lens.

― Gear! (Gear!), Saturday, 20 December 2003 00:38 (twenty-two years ago)

Pash, check this out. It's (supposedly) the voices of ghosts implanted directly onto audio tape, below the frequencies of the human voice. Scary. As. Shit.

― Prude (Prude), Saturday, 20 December 2003 03:08 (twenty-two years ago)

See, DV is absolutely correct about the pics on that site, or just about all ghost pics, or just about all pics of any "supernatural phenomena" yuo care to name. They are nearly all rubbish. Like, at that site it's like 'here's a pic I took of a SCARY APPARITION walking across the street, and the pic actually shows somebody walking across the street, or the hampton palace pic, above. In what way could this not be a pic of someone wearing funny clothes - or a goth perhaps - closing some doors? I don't actually believe in any of this stuff, but I REALLY WANT TO b/c if it were true, it would be really thrilling & interesting and it could poss shake the foundations of yer belief system, or something like that. Like that giant anaconda photo I found a couple of months ago, The pic was RUBBISH, it was just a big snake, photographed from the air. Or conceivably a little snake photographed from a chair. Or I read some crap or other about the cutesy sea serpent that lives off the pacific northwest. Someone found one (dead haha) in the belly of a whale, and took photos! w00t! so I googled (google "cadborosaurus" if you can be bothered) and again, these photos are supposed to prove what, exactly? Some big black stringy-looking thing? What I want to see is something like a TV reporter blabbing on in some english stately home, and suddenly the spectre of ann boleyn looms in the background like the KILOPH34R WOMYN in that scene in "the woman in black" that made my skin feel like it was trying to crawl off my face. Or, someone does some piece to camera on overfishing in the atlantic, and a fukcing plesiosaurus surfaces in the water behind him/her. Or something like that. Bah, the 'supernatural' = a total fucking let-down, and it will probably deliver the goods at about the same time as my bloody valentine or guns & roses do.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Saturday, 20 December 2003 14:06 (twenty-two years ago)

Prude, apparently someone fairly recently had an evp module made for their modular synthesiser!! (I don't know who it is, or what their music sounds like, sorry!!)

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Saturday, 20 December 2003 14:11 (twenty-two years ago)

"Cadborosaurus" - the famed and feared chocolate dinosaur? Tastiest extinction ever

― Markelby (Mark C), Saturday, 20 December 2003 15:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I did google it and as with most sea serpent stories where ppl are sceptical I think "Well, why ever not?" I don't see why such things shouldn't exist, the sea's a big place. I don't feel the same way abt Nessie. Arthur C. Clarke put the likelihood of unknown animals existing in the oceans cf in lakes pretty well when he said "I can imagine a brontosaurus existing in, say, the Matto Grosso, but not in Central Park or Kensington Gardens".

― MarkH (MarkH), Saturday, 20 December 2003 15:55 (twenty-two years ago)

It's still not very convincing, I mean you can't even see through him!!

I've read that most ghosts don't actually look translucent, so that would be a point in the video's favour over all those see-through ghost photos. God knows how people *know* that ghosts are actually opaque, but there you go.

Why *aren't* there more ghosts on security cameras, anyway? So many places (esp. old castles, country houses, etc) have them now you'd expect there to be LOADS of ghost videos.

― caitlin (caitlin), Saturday, 20 December 2003 16:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Ghosts and hauntings are slips in the time-space continuim, provoked by traumatic or stressful events. Often someone with (often latent) "sensitive" or clairovoyant talents can trigger the manifesttations. though they are always present, much as piece of holographic film awaits the laser to touch it. How do I "know" this? I am actually a fisherman from Atlantis named Agboolah, and I reside in the left breast of a milkman's wife on the 43rd astral Plane.

But seriously, that is a spooky photo.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 20 December 2003 16:08 (twenty-two years ago)

I have kind of freaked myself out after looking at that site for ages.

― Ronan (Ronan), Saturday, 20 December 2003 16:11 (twenty-two years ago)

I also read (in a Lyall Watson book, I think) that someone has suggested that ghosts are mostly visible in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum. We don't see ultraviolet very well, but we're more sensitive to it in our peripheral vision than in the centre of our field of view; which is why you're more likely to see ghosts, etc. "out of the corner of your eye".

― caitlin (caitlin), Saturday, 20 December 2003 16:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Has anyone else actually seen the fil of "the woman in black" btw? It's kind of hokey in a way, but at the same time it's easily the most scary thing I've ever seen on tv!! We saw the play as well, and that gave us ph34r, but that film, oh man, I couldn't sleep afterwards!

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Saturday, 20 December 2003 16:15 (twenty-two years ago)

I am really enjoying looking through these photos. I wish I'd had a camera when I saw my ghosts. Though I'd bo worried that, like at the start of "Ghostbusters", the ghosts might react to being photographed by turning into a pair of hideous skulls leaping towards me.

― Markelby (Mark C), Saturday, 20 December 2003 16:15 (twenty-two years ago)

What did you see markelby? See, I have seen in my life one or two weird & hard to explain things - most relevantly, once I was the passenger in a car driving through West Boldon in Tyne & Wear, and I was looking out of the window, and I saw this woman walking along the footpath, and she just vanished. She was there, then she was gone as I looked at her. That's a fuckign weird one, don't you think (I am not making this up, and I have never taken one hit of acid in my life har har)

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Saturday, 20 December 2003 16:20 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm still really sceptical I'm afraid. Maybe it's because there have been so many occasions when I've seen stuff that looks odd but it's just tricks of the light etc. There was one occasion when I saw what appeared to be a human figure morph into a bollard. It was of course a bollard all along, but as it was night-time and the shadows fell on it in a certain way it looked like a person until I got closer.

― MarkH (MarkH), Saturday, 20 December 2003 16:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm sure that with a lot of paranormal phenomena, like anything else, there's a small grain of truth buried under a mountain pile of horse manure.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 20 December 2003 16:27 (twenty-two years ago)

supposed sightings of ghosts were more commonplace pre-electric lighting because candles and lanterns flicker and don't provide light throughout an entire room the way electric lighting usually does, giving ample opportunities for tricks of the light.

― MarkH (MarkH), Saturday, 20 December 2003 16:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Yup, I agree about the grain-of-truth-under-mound-of-bollocks thing.

I tend to be in two minds about paranormal phenomena. On the one hand, I keep saying "um, is there any proof of what's happening, how and why?" On the other hand, I know paranormal phenomena *can* happen, even if we don't know why, because I've experienced them myself (when I was a teenager, I used to have clairvoyant dreams).

― caitlin (caitlin), Saturday, 20 December 2003 16:29 (twenty-two years ago)

does it really make sense categorising stuff as paranormal on the one hand and scientific on the other?

I'd be interested to hear abt yr clairvoyant dreams tho, Caitlin.

― MarkH (MarkH), Saturday, 20 December 2003 16:33 (twenty-two years ago)

I remember when I was in Irish college (summer camp type thing where kids go to learn Irish) here, as a Ceanaire, basically someone who makes sure the kids there speak Irish, one year I was put on a course at this school in Longford. Anyway as we were standing in the yard one day one of my friends pointed out that one of the windows had bricks on the other side of it. It also had glass which was totally different from all the rest of the windows, and each pane was a different type.

We asked one of the Priests who lived on the campus what the story was and he told us that when it was a boarding school, one of the students killed himself by jumping out the window. And then, so he says, the window kept being found to be broken from the inside, he claims they repaired it several times and it would always be broken again in a short time, so they built bricks around it and took the room out of use, pretty much.

We tried so so hard to get into the room and we managed to get to the door one day, but it was locked and that was that.

Nonetheless the story still fucking terrifies me, especially when I think of the school photo on the wall with the guy in questions face in a slightly bigger bracket in the corner with a sort of RIP blurb.

― Ronan (Ronan), Saturday, 20 December 2003 16:34 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, I've had lots of hallucinations whilst in a car late at night (thankfully not while driving) Examples I remember = man in white coat morph into a bollard (yes!! me too!!), Giant anvil floating in the sky, pointy arrow painted on road rising off the road surface and heading my way, as if to spear me through the chest. The last one was really embarrassing, b/c I panicked, and went AAAAAA!!!!!
and the driver was like 'what's the matter' and I had to say er nothing.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Saturday, 20 December 2003 16:42 (twenty-two years ago)

(x-post ronan - brrrr)

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Saturday, 20 December 2003 16:43 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah it really is chilling thinking about it! there goes my sleep tonight

― Ronan (Ronan), Saturday, 20 December 2003 16:47 (twenty-two years ago)

I think I get more dazzle from looking into bright lights than the average person. Of course, it is very difficult to know for certain, but I get so much and it goes on for so long afterwards that i can't believe that other ppl get as much as me otherwise ppl would talk about it and they hardly ever do. But anyway, somtimes it can form itself into noticeable shapes which are more apparent when I close my eyes or go into a darkened area. When I was at uni, I went on a night hike from Bristol to Bath with some friends which went along the route of a closed railway line. When I was walking through a tunnel I was convinced there were other ppl walking in front of me but when we emerged I was actualy in the lead with everyone else behind me. I am sure that the dazzle effect was what I was mistaking for human figures in front of me.

― MarkH (MarkH), Saturday, 20 December 2003 16:49 (twenty-two years ago)

Here's an odd anecdote my father told me about a few times:

One day, when my father was in the military, he was sleeping in the barracks with two other people present. He dreamt he had went to another building on base to visit a friend and spoke to him. When my dad woke up, the phone rang and he answered. It was his friend from the other part of the base. His friend was rather surprised to hear my dad speaking and said he had just seen and spoke to my dad a few minutes before, just as he had done in the dream. Sleep-walking was ruled out because there were two others present who were awake while my dad was sleeping. Apparently a whole crapload of instances like these have happened to my dad's side of the family.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 20 December 2003 16:52 (twenty-two years ago)

That photo of the hooded scary figure by the alter, I actually remember the tv programme where they did image amanipulation on a bunch oif alleged ghost photos. One of them showed a blurry figure crouching in front of another altar, and when they enhanced it, it was actually the church cleaning lady, probably blurred by a long exposure. You could see the dust pan next to her. The picture above, though, actually passed all the tests for fakeness, double exposure etc, which is of course no proof of its veracity, but it does add a bit of a chill when you look at it. It's a real fucking horror! Imagine seeing that looking at you! Instant grey hair, I think.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Saturday, 20 December 2003 17:01 (twenty-two years ago)

I remember watching the program, seeing all the pics they tested (they let on beforehand that one passed their tests) and thinking please don't let that be the one and of course it was. Sleepless nights followed.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Saturday, 20 December 2003 17:02 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm trying to work out whether the white vertical line is an altar cloth or its arm.

― MarkH (MarkH), Saturday, 20 December 2003 17:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Pash, I posted about it here - if that doesn't take you to the post, it's the last in the thread.

― Markelby (Mark C), Saturday, 20 December 2003 17:22 (twenty-two years ago)

Ah man, I SO want to believe in ghosts. It would be ace if there was loads of cool stuff outside our knowledge, and I don't mean at the edges of our knowledge, I mean, slap bang in the middle of it. As was said above, it would change everyones beliefe system, and it would be fantastic. However, does anyone actually do any proper reserach into all this? No. Why not?

Its like that show on the telly, Most Haunted or whatever its called. The spend 20 minutes with that dodgy scouser speaking on tongues, another twenty minutes of people being scared (generally that annoying presenter, who really doesn't have the constitution to be presenting something like that) and all of two minutes actually looking at the evidence that they've collected in one night. One night? They need about a fortnight to get some proper data. The program would be greatly enhanced if they changed it into an Open University program and put it on BBC4.

― Johnney B (Johnney B), Saturday, 20 December 2003 17:40 (twenty-two years ago)

Television is the worst medium to get facts of any sort from.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Saturday, 20 December 2003 18:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Prude, apparently someone fairly recently had an evp module made for their modular synthesiser!! (I don't know who it is, or what their music sounds like, sorry!!)

Really? How does that work?

― Prude (Prude), Saturday, 20 December 2003 19:21 (twenty-two years ago)

pash, i'm so not looking at that site. now that i'm at my parents place i'm living in a basement in the middle of the woods. i already find it dark and spooky as it is, and i think looking at ghost pics would prevent me from sleeping at night!

― colette (a2lette), Saturday, 20 December 2003 21:19 (twenty-two years ago)

Mark H: I will email you about my dreams some time over Christmas - it will give me something to write about and take away the Christmas boredom :-)

― caitlin (caitlin), Sunday, 21 December 2003 11:46 (twenty-two years ago)

ok Caitlin, that's really great. I look forward to it. Somebody recently gave me a scientific explanation for deja vu. Naturally I have forgottem the details....

― MarkH (MarkH), Sunday, 21 December 2003 12:08 (twenty-two years ago)

deja vu can be explained by the memory storing something and retrieving it quicker than the rest of the brain can process the information from visual cortex. It happens some times.

― Ed (dali), Sunday, 21 December 2003 12:18 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't get it now whereas I used to when I was a kid. Hopefully this means my brain is working better than it used to.

― MarkH (MarkH), Sunday, 21 December 2003 12:20 (twenty-two years ago)

All paranormal phenomena are most often associated with children around the age of puberty. Poltergeists, especially, are closely associated with teenage girls.

― caitlin (caitlin), Sunday, 21 December 2003 12:23 (twenty-two years ago)

yes, I remember seeing the Enfield poltergeist on TV. At one point its voice says "Why do little girls have periods?".

― MarkH (MarkH), Sunday, 21 December 2003 12:26 (twenty-two years ago)