Really strange photo

Last Monday I attended an auction where I bought a stand-up, life sized, Elvira. Remember her? She was hostess on a TV series that specialized in horror and weird shows. I brought her home and cleaned the dust off. Then I removed the, now useless, badly torn, cardboard back and replaced it with a stiff sheet of foamboard so the old gal would stand up straight. While I was finishing it up I got the bright idea that it would make a good gag picture if I stood it at the head of our front stairs to the second floor. So I took the figure and positioned it in the turn in the stairs near the top. I then went to the bottom of the stairs and using my digitale camera I snapped a picture. I could tell by the monitor that the picture looked weird, even apart from Elvira. Well, I noticed the battery warning light was on so I went where we keep fresh batteries and put new ones into the camera. Then I went back to the foot of the stairs and shot another picture up the steps at Elvira. Again, when I checked the camera monitor I saw the same smokey abboration that was in the first one. Thinking my camera must be going bad, I stepped into the Livingroom and shot a picture of the fireplace, then one of my little black schnauzer and another of our grey Schnauzer. All of those three shots were clear as a bell; much to my relief. So ,"I again went to the foot of the stairs and shot a third time up the steps. The anomalie was still there, not as pronounced as before; but still there. So I got my film camera and shot a couple pictures to see if it shows up on film. It will be awhile before I can get the film processed. Then roughly half an hour later I tried again to shoot up the front stairs. This time the shot was clear. But this isn't the end of it. My wife was on Auction Zip.com looking up local auctions when she came to an ad by an auctioneer we know quite well. My wife got excited and startted montioning me out of my comfortable chair in the den to come over and see something she had brought up in that ad on line. Reluctantly I got up and went to see what was so interesting. In the pictures this fellow had on line was an old antique foot pedal organ. The picture showed the same anomalie that my stairs shot had. All of his other pictures were bright and clear. In checking with the auctioneer I was informed that he couldn't get a clear picture of that d**n organ. He'd have thought his camera was at fault but all of his other pictures both before and after were just fine. So he put the bum picture of the organ on site becauase you could see what it was in spite of the "smoke". So I guess it wasn't Elvira that caused this anomalie. My stairs pictures are simply faded out by what looks like swirls of smoke. Really weird. Anybody out there have any kind of explaination?

Mystery of the overhead light

Those of you who have followed this blog for a while will remember that my wife and I moved into this house back in 1979 we had a terrible time keeping a mirror in the downstairs bathroom wall over the sink. That mirror would wind up on the bathroom floor (once it was found in the hallway outside the bathroom). It was never broken, though you would have thought going over the porcelian sink would have damaged it). We finally gave up because no matter how securely you put that mirror up; down it came. So I placed a full length mirror on the door for my wife. Several years later I came into an unexpected small inheritance and my wife and I decided to replace the old bathroom. It had been added to the house as this house was built in 1857 when such plumbing was outside. It wasn't hard to remove and we replaced it with a nice modern structure. My wife insisted on a fairly fancy medicine cabinet with mirror and, frankly, I was apprehensive about putting it up over the new sink. But it stayed in place and has now for several years. But that is not now the problem. This new bathroom has lights on either side of the medicine cabinet and an overhead light. Actually, if I had known then what I know now, the overhead light would have been excluded. The side lights would have been quite adaquate. An electrician who wired the bathroom first installed the overhead light. Everything was great for the first few weeks. Then I noticed the overhead light was askew. I took off the globe and inspected it. I found several loose screws and remarking to my wife I was surprised the electrician was so sloppy in his work on the light. I tightened the screws and everything was fine for a week or so and then that light was again askew. This went on for several months. I got tired of continually reattaching the overhead light and I started really ramming those screws home. Didn't help, within weeks the light was askew. I just let the blamed thing go and it slowly went further and further askew until it was hanging by its attachment wires. So today, I hauled out the short ladder and discovered the long screws that secure the base of the light to the crossbar that is securely screwed into the ceiling joist were totally unscrewed and lying in the insulation in the lights base. How could screws that long completely unscrew and be lying in the insulation? I put the light back up. I screwed those bolts so tight I bent the bar. But I really expect to see it dangling off the ceiling in a week or two. Any contractors out there tell me how two long bolts can come totally unscrewed all by themselves? My wife says that whatever was playing games with the mirror is now playing games with the overhead light. Maybe she's right.

Dogs again

This afternoon as I was coming down the rear stairs, I distinctly heard the pad of paws. I turned and looked back, expecting to see one or both my dogs. There was nothing on the stairs but me. This has happened before; but it never fails to get my attention. It sounds so real. A friend suggested "rats", heaven forbid. but I doubt that. It would take a whale of a rat to make that much noise coming down the stairs; besides if it wasn't on the stairs making that sort of sound; where would it be? We haven't had a lot of footsteps this year but the animal steps seem to be making up for it. By the way, both of my dogs were asleep in front of a fan we have on the floor of the kitchen.

Bookcase sneezes

Last post I said I didn't expect any activity until Autumn. I guess I was a bit premature. Last Thursday my wife and the older dog were in the library, my wife using the computer and the dog snoozen beside her chair. I was directly across from my wife in the Den working on a drawing with the younger dog sitting with her nose almost touching the TV screen in the far side of the room. The TV was turned low as the dog follows the action not the sound anyway. The younger dog is a TV freak whereas the elder male could not possibly care any less. Anyway, it was relatively quiet when the southern wall bookcase sneezed. It wasn't my wife, it wasn't the sleeping dog it certainly wasn't me or the other dog. "The book shelves sneezed", my wife said, "Did you hear that?" " The bookshelves?" I replied, I figured it was her. "I didn't sneeze" she protested. Hurriedly I jammed on a pair of shoes and quickly left by the western side door of the house, ran around back and checked out the area where those bookshelves front the exterior wall. Nothing, nobody anywhere to be seen. Had someone sneezed outside the house I doubt we would have heard them anyway unless a window was open and we haven't been able to open a window into the Library in years. I came back in reporting nothing to report. "What area of the bookcase did the sneeze emminate from?" I inquired? Pointing at the second glass door from the west or directly south of where she sat, "There". We've been through this before. Several years ago, while being visited by a friend we all heard the bookcase cough. This was during winter and we had a good coating of snow on the ground. The friend remarked, "I think we have some snoops". He wanted to go out and try to track them down; he thought he knew who they probably were. So we left, this time by the eastern rear door which opens directly out behind the eastern wing of the house where the Library is located. There was not a trace of footprints in that virgin snow, not even animal tracks. This time there was no snow. I drilled behind the bookcase shortly after the first episode to see if I hit any hollow areas; I didn't. We do not know who or what coughed then and we certainly do not know who or what sneezed this time. One interested party suggested that perhaps we have or had an animal in the walls that caused the sneeze. For those of you who are not familiar with this house, it is brick and it would seem an opening large enough to admit a raccoon would be easily spotted. I won't say it couldn't have been an animal; possibly that is the answer. But how?This house, built in 1857, has solid brick walls several bricks thick. The early builders plastered (what they used for plaster back then was pretty close to concrete by todays standards) right over the brick, The floors are local hardwood and we have found that the use of wood studs in this house, originally, was pretty sparse except for the floors and the dumwaiter shaft. The roof has huge walnut rafters as well, but not much wood in the walls except for rooms that were added. If there are hidden areas in the house that I haven't found they must really be well concealed. We have 5 hidden (rooms)actually not big enough to be rooms but great places to conceal loot. Two of them are filled with insulation (Blown in insulation filled these speces before we were able to determine where in heck all of that insulation was going) There is one innerwall tunnel that leads from a crawlspace under the stairs all the way up to the attic but the exit in the attic was closed off and plastered over, from the looks of it, very early in the houses history. So I suppose anything is possible.Old houses can be a lot of fun....if you're not easily scared.

Took photos midnight June 20th Longest day

Using three different cameras; one digitile and two loaded with film, I took a series of pictures primarily in areas where "disks" and lights have appeared in the past. I haven't sent the films away as yet, as they are not fully used. I ran a visual on screen check of the photos on the digitile and did not detect anything much. On one photo, taken outside, I have a few blots and I probably should print it but I'm fairly certain they will turn out to be insects.If anything unexplained does show up on any of the pictures I will report it here. Otherwise the house is still very quiet. Nothing unusual to report. I don't really expect any activity until autumn.

Third film

The third film came back some time ago. I just hadn't reported on it. Primarily because there was nothing to report. The pictures were clear, well defined, boring. I took pictures of different rooms in the house including the "Noahroom" which we had just replastered and repainted. No pictures show the strange disk shapes that appear on pictures taken on Halloween nights or the one occassion when they appeared on photos taken on the shortest day of the year. I recently sent away another film. My cameras are loaded and ready for the night of June 21st (longest day); I plan on using both film and digitile for that one. If nothing appears on those, well, it won't be too awful long til Halloween again. Still no one has any explaination for these strange round clear disks that appear only on special nights, but not in all photos. Dust reflection has been ruled out. Any ghost hunters out there have any idea what we are getting here? Or anyone else, for that matter?

Still experimenting

I recently went to an auction. One of the items that came up was a boxful of cannisters of color print film with a speed of 200. The film was dated 2004, there was 14 of them. I suppose because it was so far out of date no one bid on it. I took a chance and got it all for $1.00. Being a semi professional photographer in my younger years, I realized that film stays good unless subjected to temperartures above 90 degrees for extended periods of time. I also know that film that is refrigerated will last almost indefinitely. So film in a climate controlled store would be good a long time past expiration. I immediately took one of the rolls and placed it in a camera and shot the whole roll at everything in sight. I shot the whole roll and got it ready to mail to be developed. The roll came back perfect. The pictures were mundane to the point of boring but the quality was quite good. There were no unusual globes or disks or funny light points. With film this cheap I figured now would be a good time to shoot areas where the strange disks had shown up before. My second roll of cheap film came back photographically perfect and I had some good dog pictures and some out of doors blossoms that were quite attractive. But there were NO disks, globes of light or anything else strange. I just sent away film three, it hasn't returned yet. If Beltane hasn't passed yet; I want to try some photos of the interior of the house during that period. I gotta look it up.But so far, I've only had disks show up in photographs taken on Halloween and on the shortest day of the year and they showed up on both film and digitile images. I read a report on one of those paranormal sites that felt they had proved that these "globe" artifacts were actually dust particles or some such. They had used an old stereo camera and shot around an old house said to be haunted. They got globes but the globes only showed up one or the other of the stereo photos. Never on both at the same time so they felt they had proved their case. I feel otherwise because if the globes were caused by dirt why wouldn't the same dusty mote be picked up by both lenses? There is only one flash, not two. Besides their examples are white globes. I have taken pictures in areas of dust and got these globes as well. I know they are dust flashbacks. But the anomaly I have been picking up in this house only on special nights is not a white globe but rather a perfectly circular clear ring. My processing company cannot explain it and a local professional photographer said he had never seen anything like it. So until I get a logical answer I'll continue to try getting them and record the dates they show up.