From the Editor

Apparitions at Fort Fairfield Middle/High School Gym?

By:  David Deschesne

Editor/Publisher, Fort Fairfield Journal

February 5, 2014

Last June I attended the Fort Fairfield Junior/Senior prom to take pictures for this newspaper.

   The photo at left was published on the front page of the subsequent issue of Fort Fairfield Journal.  I didn’t notice the purported “apparitions” in the photo until a few days after the paper went out.  Let me help you with more data on the pictures, and photography process in general so you can better understand what it is you’re seeing here.  I can assure you I have employed no camera tricks or “photoshop” here.  I have other things to do with my limited time.

My camera

   A note about my camera.  I do not use a cheap, department store camera.  I use a digital Nikon D300 with a Nikon lens.  For those of you who know photography equipment, you will know that is a fairly decent, upper-end camera.  For those of you who don’t, let’s just say it is a Cadillac in the camera world.  As you can see above, it takes excellent low-light pictures without a flash, with very little pixel noise.

About the picture

   Here are the specs on the picture, for those who understand photography:

Date:  June 7, 2013 8:38 p.m.

Dimensions (pixels): 3635x2588

Resolution: 300 dpi

Bit depth: 24

F-stop:  f/3.5

Exposure time:  1/3 second

ISO speed:  ISO 6400

Exposure bias:  +1.7

Focal length: 18mm

Flash mode:  No Flash

  I used a very sensitive 6400 ISO, with a fairly long shutter speed in order to get the picture exposed as well as it was without a flash.  Those who were at the prom will remember the gym was quite dark.  From my vantage point, it was too dark to even read a book.

   Now, a discussion of the images.

Motion Blur?

   The first thing that comes to mind is motion blur.  Motion blur occurs when an object is moving while the shutter is open and causes the image to blur from its start position when the shutter opens to its finish position when the shutter closes.   A photo taken at the prom the same evening as the picture above, with the same camera settings, shows what motion blur looks like with the 1/3 second shutter speed I was using at the time.  It looks like this:

This guy happened to be moving toward the D.J. booth at the time and clearly shows what motion blur would look like under the conditions I was shooting at.

   As you will see in the following pictures of the “apparitions” there was some motion blur, but also portions where the image has definite outlines and also areas where it fades away to nothing, becoming transparent.

   A careful examination of all the other pictures I took shows there are similarly-clothed people in the room, but that does not explain the apparent transparency of the apparitions. The photo of the apparitions above is the only one I got of them out of nearly two dozen taken.

   Now, for the close-ups.  Remember, the room was very dark, with only ambient lighting and the camera was on a very high light sensitivity setting.

“Apparition” #1

This apparition appears to be female so I will refer to in in the feminine.

  Her body exhibits no motion blur.  One of her legs appears partly solid, while the other fades into transparency, showing the floor and a black, cushioned folding chair outlined against the far wall around the position of where her upper thigh should be.  There is no motion blur of her legs.  Her torso area appears fuzzy and translucent, but does not show definite blur characteristics as in the previous photo of the guy moving toward the D.J. booth.  Her face begins to resolve itself, but remains undefined.  

Interestingly, her arm that she appears to be waving is neatly cut into two distinct pieces and shows no motion blur.  It appears to be actually cut obliquely at the elbow and the piece on the left could fit into the piece on the right since the cross sections seem to match.  

Here is a close-up of her arm: 

“Apparition” #2

This apparition appears to be male, so I will refer to it in the masculine.

   The first thing we see is a clearly defined, yet translucent, torso.  As the image is walking, the trailing leg is not motion blurred, rather it’s more of an undefined whispy image in comparison to the leading leg that seems to manifest itself as solid the closer it gets to what appears to be a very large, bulky work boot with no image blur at all.  This apparition was near the center court Tiger logo and is judged to be nearly seven feet tall.

  There does appear to be an arm lightly showing on this apparition, but a head is noticeably absent.  While there was another person there with a similar striped shirt in the background (I think it was Heather Cassidy) the two images are distinct and separate from each other.  Also, Heather was not wearing what appears to be the size 16 work boot the apparition is, which is shown enlarged below.    Are these an unwitting trick of lighting, ghosts, or partially collapsed waveforms of entities from a parallel universe? I don’t know.   I’m open to any reasonable explanation.

More Editorials by David Deschesne