This ghost photo was sent by Lisa Alexander of lisaalex@juno.com.
Lisa said, "Last Friday I took a group of sixth graders to Washington, DC for a class
trip. I take this trip every year, and remembered that you can't take
regular pictures of most of the things in Washington due to the fear of the
flash fading the old paintings and documents. I borrowed my dad's digital
camera, brought with me three 64 mega bite disks, and turned the flash
function off whenever we were inside. (I found last year that the pictures
were not as good when the flash was on.) I took roughly 135 pictures and
deleting 9 due to people walking in front of the camera. Every picture came
out exactly as expected given the environment that we were in except for
one."
"Attached is the picture in question. I had gone up the back elevator with
one of the students in my group who was in a wheelchair and had to wait for
most of my group to come up the front steps. As we were waiting, we took
several pictures, both with normal disposable cameras and with my digital
camera. We were taking pictures of the paintings and statues in the rotunda.
All of these pictures came out exactly. I noticed that the group had made it
in and were walking towards the statue room, I believe that it's the Senate
side. I quickly took a picture and noticed after the picture took that an
Asian woman walked close by me. I deleted the picture off the camera, took
another 10 steps back from my group and looked both ways before taking the
picture again. Once I heard the click, I quickly walked to catch up with my
group. There was no one left in the rotunda but my group. I didn't even look
at the picture until days later downloading."
"I was downloading the pictures on Wednesday night when I noticed it. I about
hyperventilated when I saw it! At first I said it was something wrong with
the camera, so I downloaded it again. I then called several people I know
who have digital cameras to ask if it was possible to double expose digital
pictures. I then emailed them the picture and asked for them to tell me how
that happened. No one could give me an answer."
"I would have believed the explanation of the man walking quickly through the
group, but my group was walking quickly. If that were true, then they would
have been "transparent" also! Also, the man doesn't look like he's walking
quickly at all. He has his hands behind his back with a bland expression on
his face. If he was in a hurry, he would have had different body language.
Also, my camera definitely focused on the man. Everyone, including the
statues I was trying to take the picture of, are blurry. The camera focused
on him. If he was moving he would have been just as blurry as the rest of
the people."
"I also know that there wasn't any other people between my group and me
because we were the last group to be let in the statue room, letting the
smaller groups ahead of us. (We had 46 people with us and we tend to
overpower people.) The double exposure doesn't work for me, either... tons
of people, including our tech specialist here at the school, told me BEFORE
they saw the picture that it's impossible to double expose digital pictures."
Dr. Dave's Notes:
Lisa is right, digital cameras cannot double expose onto the same frame, it is impossible. She was using no flash, I believe she captured someone who may be associated with this area. Perhaps one of our viewers might be able to identify him.
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