Aug 11 2008
High School Ghost Video
The ever-present video camera is creating a new form a “paranormal” news. Anytime anything even slightly strange occurs on a video surveillance camera someone is likely to cry “ghost.” The local news media will eat it up. They will interview a bunch of people and then choose the most sensational nonsense to air. The video will find its way onto the internet, and it will zip around the ether for a few days, finally fading from the public’s short attention span.
Last year we were told there was a blue ghost haunting a gas station. The video shows a fuzzy blue blob bouncing around the image. For some people, the fact that the image was the slightest bit unusual and could not be instantly explained was enough to trigger the argument from ignorance – I don’t immediately know what that is, therefore it is something paranormal, perhaps a ghost or angel. For those with more of an inclination for critical thinking, it was a small mystery to be solved – but the assumption was that it was something physical and therefore knowable.
It turns out that the blue blob was an insect crawling on the lens of the camera. Close examination of the movement of the blob convincingly shows it to be very insect-like. The movement never went behind anything in the field of view, so it was closer to the lens than anything else in the shot – consistent with something on the lens. The blue color may have been just an artifact of the digital camera, but the area around the camera was painted the same electric blue, and so it could have been due to reflected light.
The new video is taken from a security camera at Asheville High School. What it shows is a shadow in one doorway appearing to move briefly from left to right, then a pause, then a shadow above that door, and then shortly later a shadow in another area moving from right to left. This short video is a composite of the relevant images.
Watch this news report. It’s painful. The reporter presents the story as if it is a straightforward story of an “apparition”. She consults a “paranormal expert” and essentially treats the story as if she were talking to a scientist about something mundane. The logical fallacies are flying – primarily the confusion of unexplained with unexplainable combined with the argument from ignorance. Apparently it was not necessary to talk to a skeptic or someone with common sense.
In the other news report (linked above) a teacher at the highschool, Martha Geitner, made this brilliant assessment:
It’s a ghost! Of course it’s a ghost! It’s the ghost of some former student who is really angry with his teacher and has come back to get back at the teacher, and he’s just making himself known at this time.
The paranormal expert was also confident (not even a “maybe”) that it was “definite paranormal activity.” What they are saying is that there is no possible mundane explanation. They are also assuming that ghosts exist, and that this shadow is in fact a ghost. There is nothing about the shadow that is at all specific. Even though several people claim it looks like a small child or person, it’s just a blob. The reporter in the second news story claims that the ghost “transforms” it shape.
Here is a vastly simpler explanation. The shadow is a shadow. That means there is something moving around the rotunda in the video, but not walking on the floor. Whatever it was triggered the motion detector on the camera. It seemed to be moving about in a chaotic pattern.
My guess – a bird. The custodian said he wanted to say it was a bat – that’s a good guess also. A small flying creature, out of the view of the camera, close to the lights and casting a morphing blobby shadow. The custodian said that the shadow was not shaped like a bat – do these people live in the same world I do? Haven’t they seen the way light and shadow can play across a floor, especially as seen through a low-res overexposed camera. Something close to a light source can cast a shadow much bigger than it, and it can be very distorted and indistinct.
Take a look at the short composite video again – it certainly looks to me like something flying around.
But I could be wrong. It could be something else. It could have been an actual intruder. I doubt it, but I don’t have a real good sense from the low quality video what the actual layout of the building is, where the lights are, etc. The news reports were incredibly useless – in addition to the absolute inanity of the reporting they didn’t do any actual investigation or give us information we could use to try to figure it out ourselves. How about some shots of the physical space, show us where the light source was, do an experiment to see if you can reproduce the effect. Something useful.
The news reports were nothing but mind candy for idiots, which is apparently what they think of their viewers. I have come to expect this from local tv news, but this video was picked up by CNN. They at least pretend to be an actual news organization.
The story of fluff, is how they would defend their shoddy reporting. They are just presenting the story and their viewers can decide for themselves – which is code for “we are not going to do any actual critical analysis or investigation” and “we know it’s dumb but it sells, now get away from me kid, you bother me.”
I know the story is fluff. The content is not important. What is important is the ability to think clearly and logically, and constantly feeding the public credulity and nonsense is counterproductive. Sure, it’s just business and they have the right to put out what sells (and I have a right to criticize them for it). But then they have to put aside any pretense to journalistic integrity or quality.
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19 Responses to “High School Ghost Video”
Looks to me like another bug on a lens. So out of focus it is hard to say what you’re seeing.
Steve,
more bizarre nonsense from Hollywood. It could be a nice piece for the podcast. There is a huge post hoc ergo propter hoc plus magical thinking.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7551683.stm
Looks like a bug to me as well, or something similarly small and close to the lens, preventing focus and causing the amorphous, diaphanous image seen.
I’m a North Carolina resident, albeit in the eastern end far from Ashville, which is in the Blue Ridge Mountains in the western end of the state. I can tell you that like most southern states, there is no lack of insects here, though only one is required for the bug hypothesis. Surveillance cameras typically have a little red or white ‘power on’ light near the lens, which attracts flying bugs. Where there are flying bugs you will find spiders and webs. Where you have flying bugs and spiders you have yet another candidate for the ‘ghost’ image – North Carolina is the small lizard capital of the world*.
Dr. Novella’s indictment of the local press’ handling of this ’story’ is spot on, and this particular case was among the most egregious examples of media pandering to gird the bottom line of ad sales and profits.
I’m considering writing a letter to the governing school board expressing concern over that teacher’s breathless – and mindless – endorsement of ghosts without the slightest reservation or investigation.
On a lighter note, do we suppose her assessment, that this was the ghost of an angry former student come back to wreak vengeance on teachers, was more a reflection of her inner fears and frustrations as a public school teacher than a interpretation of the blob imaged by the camera? Methinks she’s hearing footsteps, ghostly footsteps…..
*Side Note: I won’t bore with the details of how but I accidentally turned a running leaf blower on a small 8″ long lizard crawling up the brick face of my home. It immediately froze and hung on for dear life, so immobilized I was able to hold the blower in one hand and reach out with the other to pick it up, right off the wall. It bit me, of course, so I granted it immediate parole.
After watching the video on the local news website, I decided to take a look at their homepage too.
Sure enough, they’ve got more pseudoscience to drive us crazy, right on the homepage:
“Psychic-Led Team ‘Blind Driving’ Central Fla. To Find Missing Girl ”
http://www.local6.com/news/17154890/detail.html
I’ve just got to say: as an emergency worker, this sort of stuff just kills me. It’s a waste of time and precious resources – not to mention the fact that these scam artists actually take credit for the hard work of all of these men and women who dedicate entire days or weeks at a time to search for a missing person.
And don’t even get me started on how much training it takes to make a cadaver dog… Really, now – I’m disgusted by this. Unfortunately, it was probably some foolish emergency management coordinator who brought the psychic in, in the first place. ugh…
Yeah, I am definitely on the insect wagon on this one too. Probably a moth judging by the size of it, and by its speed and erratic movement.
I think the shadow is only the illusion of a shadow. If you imagine a part of the insect going thick-thin-thick with a bright light behind it – like I have tried to illustrate below – the thin part will be mostly invisible, and the apparently disconnected lower part will look like a shadow. The blurriness of the object also suggest that it is something out of focus, probably very close.
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Conclusion: Probably a moth fluttering around the sphere protecting the camera.
I just watched the videos and I find it unbelievable how anyone can take this seriously as compelling evidence, or let alone even jump to the conclusion of anything paranormal.
I first watched the brief shortened video with just the relevant footage to observe without bias being introduced from what others believe they saw. At no time did I see a baby that was claimed in the news stories, or anything more than a distorted shadowy blob. The lady creating the story about the vengeful spirit looking for revenge on a teacher is just ridiculous.
I agree that it is simply some object moving around in the rotunda. My first instinct was that it was a shadow of an intruder moving around behind the camera, but after watching it a few more times I’m starting to agree that it was some kind of bird or bat fluttering around. (Which is not improbable, my high school had several bats which lived in the gymnasium and would occasionally cause trouble for the students and officials) However, quality is always poor with these standard surveillance cameras so I wouldn’t mind seeing some better pictures of the rotunda to get a better picture of what I’m really looking at here.
Regardless I find no reason to resort to the paranormal to explain this situation. In a way, its not only aggravating that news reporters picked this up and just threw it out there, but also that school officials have fallen back on the paranormal position when something possibly more sinister is at play here. Instead of looking for the logical explanations, such as birds/bats/insects in the building or possibly an intruder in the building and then taking the appropriate measures to fix the problem, they’ve fallen back on a position which gives them a reason not to do anything at all.
Yep, you guys have it as a bug. I posted my analysis on the SGU blog, which I am copying below. The extra bit of detail which you guys probably noticed but didn’t explicitly describe is that of the overlap of the blob image between light, background areas and darker, more foreground areas, as well as its lack of respect for the spacial geometry of the building.
[To Evan Bernstein on The Rogues Gallery post:]
Talk about irony, Evan, teacher Martha Geitner, who is certain the image is of the disgruntled ghost of some hypothetical dead student, is a literacy coach at the high school! Gahhh!
Also, the WSPA reporter, Connie Legrand, said that the images are “perplexing for skeptics”. Perplexing?! Really? Here’s a perplexing question: Where are those skeptics in your report? Not a word.
Here’s my analysis, brief as it must be from the evidence available in the CNN report: It’s a bug on the camera’s dome. The out-of-focus blob is not a shadow cast by anything in the brightly-lit areas, because it can be seen in some frames to simultaneously overlap some background areas that are bright and some that are dark. It overlaps parts of the image that are at different distances from the camera and are in different planes, and it does not bend at those intersections as a shadow would do. This is a very out-of-focus object very close to the camera.
OK, now let’s set up a betting pool on how it takes before some woo-ster declares it’s the ghost of a bug on the lens……..
I’ll put $100 on “within 24 hrs”
Yeah, it might be a bug. I noticed that the “shadow” overlaps the overhang, which would mean it was not an object further from the camera than that – but, It seemed to me that there was overexposure above the doorways from light reflected off the floor. So I could not rule out that the shadow was just being reflected to these areas as well.
That’s why I just said that some better images and a little experimentation in the area would have been nice.
I can’t believe I actually scooped you on this one. Naturally your post is better but a man can dare to dream can’t he.
http://skepticshockblog.blogspot.com/2008/08/grainy-security-camera-footage-baffles.html
I posted just last night on the phenomenon of celebrity death triads. Talk of who is next after Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes is all over the internet right now. I’ve seen predictions from Samuel L. Jackson to Paul Newman. You’ve probably covered this topic before though.
Oh, damn. This might have been my fault. I was astrally projecting my mind at the time, and the camera probably caught my roving spirit as it was crossing through the ether. My bad.
i wish i went to that school because you would have a reson accepted by the teaching board to not go to school “please sir, i know it’s my long lost spirit i clensed at the psychic meet coming back to haunt me PLEASEEEEEEEEE” then he/she goes home and eats twinkies and plays halo *suckers*
then again i really am glad i had a higher education where the people entrusted with my development and education weren’t lacking in critical thinking or any form of intelligence.
[...] High School Ghost Video Another great lesson in skeptical thinking from Steven Novella. [...]
“Mind candy for idiots”
Brilliant…
No question it’s something near the camera itself. In frame 4 the shadow is split between the door and the frame yet does not cross in to the door. In frames 6, 7, and 8 the shadow crosses the floor near what looks to be the main entrance, the doors themselves, and what appears to be a light source in the room where the camera is. Also, this whole thing is 12 frames of video covering a time period of less than 2 minutes. Hell, it could be a bit of dust getting blown around on the camera lense. There are so many possibilities that make more sense than ghost.
[...] to Neurologica for the tip. Their link is here. (Although Dr. Novella seems to think it was a bird. Spider, I tell [...]
Thanks for the tip, Dr. Novella! I’m no entomologist, but I’m fairly sure that this is a spider crawling on the camera. The “shadow” supposedly cast by the figure is in fact the spider’s front-left leg. Perhaps Bug Girl could help us out.
Dr. Novella is a nicer guy than I am. I knew that CNN stopped pretending to be a real news source years ago.
In fact, I wish everybody could have the experience of being interviewed and seeing themselves in print or video later. It would make a news skeptic out of anybody.
Having a strong interest in cultural anthropology I am facinated by this string of responses. It is interesting that when confronted with an experience we all immediately seek to do two things:
1. we seek to explain the event in a way that is compatible with our personal and collective worldview.
2. we seek to marginalize those who would offer deviant explanations for the same event.
My worldview does not easily allow the paranormal as an explanation so i agree that it must be a bug of some sort close enough to the lens to be distorted beyond easy recognition.
I am, however, keenly interested in explaining the need to marginalize those who are deviant by the use of labels such as “idiots” and “ignorant” in the above responses is an effort to discredit those who hold such views, without actually disproving their premise, and enhance our own position, without offering any real support for our own.
This reinforces and secures our worldview and reaffirms our understanding of what is possible and true. However, I am not sure that by doing this we are being true to the values, beliefs and assumptions that mold and shape our own rational and logical approach.
Many People who live within the culture of African tribal society will keep the area around their hut meticulously clean, even sweeping the dirt to a high hard polish daily. Garbage and human waste is disposed of away from the hut.
They do so to avoid illness and death.
We are OK with that but we applaud such behavior based on an understanding of germs and viruses. They on the other hand believe that any trash around their homes offers an opportunity for the spirits of recently deceased ancestors to cause them harm through illness and death.
They call our explanation ignorant and we call theirs primitive and childish.