Do you see anything a little creepy in this photograph? I took it at the old
homestead in Martinsville on Friday night. A friend was trying to recollect the
layout of the rooms there, so I took a shot of the wall with the cameo
silhouettes of my brother and me (above and to the right of the lamp; they were
rendered by an artist at Walt Disney World in May 1975). The dark room on the
right is the dining room. Hanging on the far dining room wall is a framed, oval
mirror, and... yes... when I looked at the photo on my phone screen, I clearly
saw what appeared to be the reflection of a human figure — where there could not
possibly be a human figure.
For a scant few seconds, I was pretty
creeped out. Then — almost to my disappointment — I realized there was some
shmutz on the phone screen that happened to be slightly reflective and perfectly
positioned to create a weird illusion. What you see above is actually a
Photoshop rendering of what my eyes saw. I’m posting the actual photo, sans
shmutz, just below.
But for that one brief moment, my face at first just ghostly turned a whiter
shade of pale.
