The Ghost of Boothill Graveyard

This photo is listed on many Best Paranormal Photo websites although it is one that would be easily duplicated. Yet the photographer, Terry Ike Clanton, insists the person in the background was not there when he took the photograph.

"This is the photo that changed my opinion about ghost photos," says Terry Ike Clanton, recording artist and cowboy poet. Clanton took this photo of his friend (in the foreground) at Boothill Graveyard. The photo was taken in black and white because Clanton wanted Old West-looking pictures in 1880-period clothes. Clanton took the film for developing to the local Thrifty Drug Store and was startled when he saw an image of a thin man in a dark hat among the gravestones. The man’s height seems to suggest he is either legless, kneeling... or rising up out of the ground.

Clanton believes the figure is holding a knife. "We thought this was a tie at first, but after further review, it appears to be a knife," Clanton says. "The knife is in a vertical position; the tip is located just below the figure's right collar. If you're not convinced that something is weird here, look at my friend's shadow in the photo. It appears to be going back slightly to the right of him. The figure in the back should have the same shadow, but it doesn't!"

Defining Shadow People (Pt. 2)

There are no current scientific tests to prove the existence of shadow people or what they might be. There are , however, many theories attempting to explain the phenomenon. These include:

1. Optical Illusions? Brought on by physiological or psychological circumstances, drug use, side effects of medication, schizophrenia or sleep deprivation. The brain incorrectly interprets random patterns of light and shadow as familiar patterns such as faces and human forms. (See 5.10.10 blog entry: Do You See What I See? on matrixing).

2. Time Travelers? Could people from the future have found a way to time travel and be visiting us in the form of shadow people?

3. Ghosts? Shadow people may be only one more type of ghostly manifestation along with ectoplasmic mist, orbs and apparitions.

4. Demons? Accompanying feelings of malevolence and darkness lead researchers to theorize that shadow people might be possible demons.

5. Astral Bodies? Author and lecturer Jerry Gross claims we all travel out of our bodies when we sleep. Could shadow people be the essences or shadows of people having out-of-body experiences?

6. Hypnagogia? Also known as "waking sleep," hypnagogia is the physiological state when a person is between sleep and full consciousness allowing for subconscious perceptions which could include the "seeing" of shadow people.

Next Up: Ghost Hunters of Asheville Tours' experience with the shadow person phenomenon. Coming in Defining Shadow People (Pt. 3)!