Seeking a Ghost via Web Cam 74
dogberto writes "It seems that people are using a web cam for everything these days. Starting with a web cam to watch the daily lives of people in their rooms. Now, it seems that the folks at The Evansville Courier & Press have decided to install a video camera in the 114 year old Willard Library to give internet viewers a chance to spot the legendary ghost (a.k.a., the "Lady in Grey") via this Ghost Cam. CNN was the first I saw running an article. The Willard Library link gives some more background on the ghost.
"
Re:I've got a plan.... (Score:2)
Rename! (Score:5)
The great JPEG Blur search of Halloween '99
BTW, I've already submitted my faked ghost sighting, I put my slashdot username on the picture and recommend any /.'ers with some time to waste to do the same. Damn it, we want verifiable ghost cams!
Re:Of course Slashdot readers aren't critical (Score:1)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Re:Proof positive... (Score:1)
I believe Adobe implement this kind of technique in the Photoshop software. The can get the license info from an image created or edited in Photoshop.
Illusions (Score:1)
I will suspend disbelief for a moment... (Score:1)
After all, this is supposed to be an incorporeal entity, is it not? And thus why assume it would actually emit or reflect any kind of electromagnetic energy, light/infrared/radio waves included, at all?
Humans, from a believer's view, are a hybrid - part material, part spirit. Ghosts are sprit entities. Who knows hows much control they have over their own universe? They might manifest a material essence, or they might circumvent material-space entirely. The way an "image" of a ghost can be projected onto human consciousness is considerably different than the way an image appears to an optical device. The ghost might be able to set up an image directly on the optic nerve. Ghosts could even selectively appear to some people and not to others. The trouble with paranormal investigation is that, when you add this enormous X nature of the "spritual" world to your analysis all bets are off.
Even if you belive in ghosts, the idea that you could candidly "catch" them using a device intended to record material phenomena is nonsensical.
- The Count
Christ almighty... (Score:2)
Ugh. (Score:1)
Webcams for everything (Score:2)
Say you are a college student, and you are going home for the weekend. However, you also want to see what your rommate does with your stuff while you're gone. THAT, I think, is a much better use of a webcam than taking pictures of a library and then adding gaussian blurs in the shapes of people.
Now, I haven't tried this myself (yet) and I believe that taking jpegs every 5 seconds, even with checking for differences would fill up space pretty quickly given that if you have a curtain flapping next to the window that would generate enough motion to store the image... so don't try this without vast amounts of space.
Pink Elephant Blow Jobs (Score:2)
Re:GhostCam (Score:1)
Ghostly cam images (Score:3)
While that would explain a lot of stuff, I'm afraid the jury is still out on ghosts for me. Never believed in the stuff until I lived in my last house. Footsteps, doors opening themselves, and other assorted weirdness generally associated with haunted houses occurred daily. The all time best was when a deadbolted door we never used opened itself just out of sight. When we went to check it, the door was open and the bolt was still sticking out of the door. I'm keeping an open mind, but I'm glad I don't live there anymore.
Skippy
Checking photos for genuine status (Score:5)
There are a lot of ways to post a photo that you have created but not stored, and still tell whether it was unmodified when you get a copy back from an untrusted reporter.
Off the top of my head,
Also, Photoshop has a digital signature filter which works on similar methods. I think it has lots of redundant information so that it won't break down with lossy compression (or even print-then-scan cycles). It was intended to FIND photos, not to DISCARD photos, that may be from a given source, such as porn CD-ROMs stockpiling illegal scans of Playboy (C) artwork.
GA Tech Library (Score:5)
Georgia Tech [gatech.edu]'s Library is the perfect setting for a ghost story. When one first walks into the place, they feel a sense of age without glory, as if the building is in the process of dying. It is heightened by the creaky wood staircases, the cramped little restrooms set in odd places, and the sealed-off stairwell with water-corroded paint that can only be seen by looking out the right windows in another stairwell.
The bare flourescent light tubes are covered by parallel, flat plates in the shape of a half-arc that stick down like small guillotines. The large atrium formed by floors 1 and 2 of the West wing is duplicated on floors 3 and 4 (like the old identical-room-switcharoo trick). The building incorporates at least 6 different architectural styles among its operative stairwells: one of them is straight, small, narrow, and creaky; another is constructed like a huge, tomato-green spiraled tube that secretly snakes down towards the basement.
The East wing is two or three floors taller than the West wing, and from here one may peer down on the oldest of campus buildings. The light behaves differently on these floors... the sunlight traces shadows through ancient, hazed-over glass. Even when I stand there, beholding it with my own eyes, the scene appears impossibly faded, like one of grandma's wedding pictures (or maybe some JPEG compression artifacts).
The building has many secret places. Most striking are the many locked rooms that appear randomly scattered throughout the floor plans... their practical purposes forgotten. In this one particular room, statues and busts can be seen through the darkened glass. If I remember correctly, the entire top floor of the East Wing is closed to the public, accessible only to invisible research librarians.
Finally, the building stands at the highest geographical point on campus. "The Hill" was of strategic significance during the civil war battle that this region of Atlanta saw.
Funny, though... Nobody here is creative enough to make up any stories about it. That's Tech for you...
Stephen Bennett
Re:One of the funniest.... (Score:2)
from a site like this; someone with an imagination can look
at a poor quality photo and see anything. Anybody interested
in for real ghost photos, check out Dave Oester's excellent site at:
http://www.ghostweb.com
They are doing some *serious* work in that direction, and besides
archives of photos, also offer a wealth of info.
.... (Score:4)
The Camera does have some issues (Score:1)
Nifty Idea! (Score:2)
Re:Holy Schnikies! (Score:4)
I leave it as an exercise for the reader to find the URL for the Loch Ness web cam.
Of course Slashdot readers aren't critical (Score:5)
At first glance it seems as though this is some public service to people who are ghost-seeking folks. But, then you scroll down and see ad banners and (at least to me) it all clicks. They want tons of people to spend their entire day sitting on their web site looking at the "ghost cam" as it refreshes every 30 seconds, building up tons of impressions. Okay, don't think I'm pretending that 90% of Slashdot readers didn't realize this.. but for those of you who are too skeptical to even go look at the Ghost Cam (or when everyone wakes up in the morning in the US and the site dies), I think my explanation is pretty valid.
Another thing that's interesting is that all of the "comments" on the proof page seem strikingly similar. Without knowing anything else I'd say that most of them were fabricated. Who knows? I think I have an extreme aversion to anything on the Net with a central theme of "ghosts". Except maybe GhostView.
Ghost (Score:1)
Oiy (Score:1)
I mean, what is the point? It is like watching a ghost on video or 'real life UFO footage', you as the watcher, just can't believe it unless you're actually there (due to the number of hoaxes out there).
still, this site is still worth a quick look and a laugh.
I wonder what else the camera will catch? (Score:2)
Nothing new (Score:5)
GhostWatch [irelandseye.com]
Ghostwatcher [flyvision.org]
I believe there is even a Loch-ness monster cam @
"Offical Lochness Site [lochness.co.uk]
Re:I wonder what else the camera will catch? (Score:1)
yowza (Score:2)
Chances are it's a celebration of photoshop, not a ghost.
thoughts (Score:3)
Seriously, I really doubt that any of these images found can be drawn to an exact conclusion. First of all, the camera simply doesn't provide suffcient quality images for one to really verify the presence of a ghost. Also, I looked at the "proof" section and noticed nothing out of the ordinary in any of the pictures. Maybe this was because these pictures were even more blurry and grainy the live webcam shots, but all I saw were random colored arrows pointing to blurs.
And as someone said earlier, how do they judge whether a picture is fit for proof or not? I bet you could easily blur or anti-alias a section in photoshop, draw a few colored lines around it, post, and you'd have yourself a spot on the page. I think some of us
Yeah I know this is mainly a little just for fun project, but still I'd like to see some level of realism here. Maybe it's just years of watching Unsolved Mysteries, but I think paranormal investigation is an interesting (even if it seems like a crock) field and should be given some credit. A bunch of random people posting blurry quickcam shots isn't going to prove anything, rather it would further damage the credibility of any legitimate efforts to locate paranormal activity (I think there are some, regardless whether the activity is really ghostly or logically explained).
Oh well, I bet there is no ghost in the library, because by now she would definitely have gone up to the camera and gave everybody the finger in an attempt to look leet.
GhostCam (Score:1)
Maybe they should have the camera snapping gifs, then we will see how many ghosts are spotted!
One of the funniest.... (Score:3)
However, if you read Carl Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World Science as a Candle in the Dark", specifically the chapter on "baloney detection"...
I think that you will see that this is bunk. People that cannot apply skeptical thinking to things such as these frighten me more than the existance of a real ghost would!
Fortunatly, there seem to be a good number of skeptics on Slashdot.
But on a lighter note: Its all hallows eve! So we might as well have fun with it.
GHOSTBUSTERS (Score:2)
The books start to slide forward then the whole shelving
unit topples over and almost crushes the team under a ton of
books. They jump to safety.
VENKMAN
Nice.
(out loud)
Hello...
Spengler looks at his meters and silently points at a dark
aisle intersecting the one they're in. The team inches toward
it.
SPENGLER
It's here.
They stop at the corner.
INT. THE DARK AISLE -- DAY
The team peeks around the corner and looks toward
camera.
THEIR POV -- DAY
An ethereal presence is hovering between the stacks about
four feet off the ground. It seems to waver on the edge of
being and non-being, then a large legless, headless torso
begins to emerge.
Re:yowza (Score:2)
--
I FOUND LADY GREY! (Score:1)
I don't want to go around ruining the contest for everyone, so I didn't submit it to the contest. I'm sure everyone will have a lot more fun if they still have a chance to win. however, my evidence is obvious and incontrovertible.
I've taken the liberty of adding a few arrows pointing toward the mysterious and beautiful apparation... she's sitting in a chair at the back of the room, reminding us all that there is life after death, that we are more than just another species of animal, that if we all close our eyes and wish hard enough, we'll become more than sex-crazed beasts hiding behind the silly mask of irrational spiritualism, possibly copulating and passing on our genes before dying and being recycled into nutrients for other forms of life! the answer is right before your very eyes!
Behold! [geocities.com]
Interesting... (Score:2)
At least one of these pictures (blurry near the camera [courierpress.com]) really looks pretty good. I can see the arms holding a paper on the desk. Enlarge it in The Gimp if you have to, and compare it to any other picture. I did.
Of course, it could be faked. It looks like there's nothing to stop that. But I checked it against another file, the JPEG headers look the same (creator info and stuff) and the file size jives, too. So maybe it's real. Or maybe everyone uses Photoshop to fake their ghost pictures. :)
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pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
Re: (Score:1)
Explain this (Score:4)
Someone ought to crack this box (Score:1)
Imagine someone crack this box and replace the webcam video by a fake video showing the ghost, wouldn't that be a cool crack?
Re:fakest one i saw (Score:1)
A better option would be to have a 'Submit' button where it automatically saves that picture for review, instead of relying on people to send the pictures in. That would take out one layer of allowing people to fake entries.
---
pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
They'll still need a Ghost Trap. (Score:1)
Seriously, though, "ghost photo's" have got to be one of the easiest things in the world to fake, even more then UFO's. I bet I could whip up some spectacular specimens right now, and I've only got Photoshop 5.02 on this rig. Certainly better then what's on the Art Bell [artbell.com] ghost page, at any rate.
Re:Ugh. (Score:1)
You lump anybody doing paranormal research together
and call them "ridiculous", and naurally expect that
everybody reading this is, in a fit of narrow-mindedness that
rival your own, lumping the folks of Evansville together
as "Dumb Hicks".
The "Grey Lady" is a well-known phenomenon. WHAT it
is or is not has yet to be determined.
Nobody is more skeptical than the people that investigate
this sort of thing. But at least they aren't narrow-minded.
Re:GHOSTBUSTERS (Score:1)
Re:Of course Slashdot readers aren't critical (Score:1)
the market? Of *course* most of the stuff is circled
with Paint!
Evansville... (Score:1)
Re:jpeg artifacts (Score:3)
Re:thoughts (Score:3)
because of this, a blur in an picture will easily look like a face.
I wonder if people would report ghost sightings if they didn't know the library was haunted.
what about setting up a camera on a location where there are no ghosts sightings.
and tell the visitors there are ghosts and then you count how much reports you'll get from people who see ghosts in the blurs.
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www.sleepstation.com is more exciting (Score:3)
Heh, maybe it'll be revealed to be just another boring webcam that some cracker changed the URL to make into a ghostcam. Any cam is a ghostcam if you really try.
"Whoa man, did you see that spook in the Voyerdorm's bathroom? Yeah right there by Jamie's butt!"
Re: (Score:1)
Quantization error, anyone? (Score:3)
Most of the ghosts look more like JPEG artifacts (eg. ringing and smoothing) than actual ghosts. To make this a serious endeavor, they need to take the IR filter off the camera and set the JPEG quality factor to maximum.
The rest look like they were done in Photoshop. One of them [courierpress.com] has such sharp lines on the "blurry ghost area" that it seems to be a rather obvious fake. (If the blurry area were that sharply delineated in real life, then there would've been more artifacts in the JPEG.)
Given the nature of it all, this looks more like a PR stunt than anything else. Welcome to the Web 1999!
--Joe --Joe--
Comment removed (Score:3)
Image Analysis (Score:2)
I just remember reading Michael Crichton's Rising Sun which went into detail on image analysis etc as it related to video. The image would not be 'still' in the sense that even if nothing is happening on screen, due to the technologies, there will be inherent 'movement'. There are algorithms available which will allow real movement to be detected and so on.
JPG is a pathetic format for something like this which (being a bit of a skeptic myself) a skeptic could easily tear apart. At least bump the quality up to maximum. Having said that, I haven't seen any TIFF cameras around lately. :)
Re: (Score:1)
I was a card-carrying member of Willard Library! (Score:1)
'Twas just A.C. Clarke (Score:2)
It actually does neither of these as lots of old granite buildings (or whatever material it was) have no ghostly history and it ignores the photo evidence. Needless to say the jury is still very much out.
Re:One of the funniest.... (Score:4)
Most recently while driving home after a long whitewater kayaking trip (I had been awake for 2 days straight) I witnesses one of the shadows on the right of the road... Get up and walk across the road! Not only that, but my tired brain saw it as one of the Nine Riders in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings!!!
I swear to you that this is what I saw. Now, I don't for a moment believe that one of the Nine is out walking along the highway near my house. I do believe however that I was very tired and started to hallucinate. (Sleep deprivation causes such things, so sayeth my Psycology professors). Really, I should NOT have been driving under those conditions.
Now, after I saw this apparition I thought "Cool!", then I burst out laughing at myself. I don't think myself immune to hallucinations. I don't think anyone REALLY is. (If they were, LSD would have no effect on those people IMO.) Not that I have done LSD, but my point is that the human brain is a electro-chemical device. Minor changes in brain chemistry (for whatever reason) or simple changes in thought processes can radically alter how we percive our world. I have had other events similar (and creepier) than this occur throughout my life. I don't find the events reproducable, nor quantifiable under current scientific (Physical and Psycological) thinking.
I think its fine to believe in what you saw. Again, I am not doubting that you actually saw what you did, I am doubting that what you saw was explanied "only" by ghosts. There are other explanations.
As to the "poltergeist" you describe, there are many other reasonable explanations (other than hallucination). Occham's [sp] razor comes into play here: The simplest solution is probably the correct one. I won't proffer any explanations, I will leave it as an experiment for the readers of slashdot (those who understand the scientific method anyway) to come up with their own.
It is fine to believe in ghosts (or relgion, or magnetic therapy, or channeling, or crystals, or...) Again, many people believe in such things.
I however do not.
I believe (notice that believe is a key word here!
I just hope to see more skeptical thinkers in this world. A lack of skepticisim IMO breeds faith (which can be quite a positive force!) but faith can become fanatacism. I fear fanatics.
Thats my take anyhow!
Re:Rename! (Score:3)
Oh, no! That was almost the perfect joke!
Try this...
The Blur Jpeg Project
Re:One of the funniest.... (Score:1)
I believe (notice that believe is a key word here!
Very often this is transformed from 'find a rational explanation' to 'any other explanation is irrational', with the explanation being hallucinations, usually. Regardless of whether that was the intention of the author (in some cases it certainly seems it was), I'm tired of seeing people use 'Sagan said you're demon haunted' as a justification for dismissing anything they don't like. (Note: I'm not at all accusing you of this, your mention of Sagan just triggered a rant reflex.)
My current favorite example involves several studies that seemed to provide evidence for ESP. These were recently disproven by a meta-analysis that showed the were most likely flukes. Fine, that's a perfectly resonable explanation; testing for ESP isn't really an exact science.
The problem was that in building the meta-analysis, several more recent studies weren't included even though the authors (of the meta-analysis) admit they would have the swung the results around toward 'something odd is happening'. The reasoning? None, except a handwave about the studies being too recent to be incorporated. I don't care whether ESP exists--I don't have it if it does--but this is an absurd defense of the 'reasonable explanation', methodological error.
(If that post made sense at all, someone give me a brownie point.)
Re:Webcams for everything (Score:1)
They must be stopped at all costs! (Score:1)
Re:One of the funniest.... (Score:1)
I agree on you with this. I mention Sagan because he is one of my favoured writers (along with Stephen J. Gould). I am not however "hiding" behind Sagan. (Many do). I refer to his book simply because it is quite well written, and is one of the most concise sources of skeptical thinking around.
You are correct: people use the argument "Sagan said that..." I don't subscribe to that argument. Given that Carl is dead I doubt that he has said a word since his death..
Skeptical thinking may not be "nice" but it is effective.
But I understood your argument, so I guess you get a brownie point! (Now if I could only understand mine.....)
Incredible (Score:2)
If they had intended to make the webcam accurate, they would have used a form of encryption and data stamping - if not several.
Besides, if they were truely interested in discovering this ghost, a web cam is not an accurate way to do so, with ~20 second gaps between shots on some. A security camera would be more efficient. Technology is fun and great, but when it's not the most practical application to get the job done... use the least common denominator.
I mean, how many web cams have absolutely NOTHING happening, while there's someone 2 feet to the left of the camera, working on their computer? I'm sure it happens often.
And considering that ghosts haven't been known to stop by for tea, the likelyhood of a ghost being caught digitally are even more slim. I mean, they're called 'ghost sitings', not 'ghost visitations'...
I personally think that there are spirits out there in some shape or form, but rarely manefest themselves in the physical. (MHO)
-------
CAIMLAS
Proof positive... (Score:4)
Anyway, it would be so easy to prevent this from happening, it's as if they don't care. First and foremost, time-stamp all the images. Duh.. Secondly, (and they had BETTER be doing this already) recording the feed on location, or AT LEAST archiving each image that gets posted to the web.
With these two SIMPLE procedures in place, in the event of a really convincing shot, it will give them the ability to see if the shot being submitted is at least the same shot as the one that was on the web, without any altering.
PS - Maybe it's just me, but the circles and arrows and whatnot bugged the hell out of me... If there HAD been something there, I wouldn't have seen it because it was already too grainy WITHOUT the distracting yellow indicators. Also, I really don't think I saw anything ghost-worthy. One pic with a blur close to the camera was okay, but coulda been faked far too easily..
GhostWatcher is the good one... (Score:1)
Re:One of the funniest.... (Score:1)
Another person I know who is in her 50s described an event she had with what I guess you'd call a poltergeist. She was home alone washing dishes one day when she heard the door handle from the basement to the kitchen rattle like someone trying to open it (it is deadbolted so you can't actually open it from the basement side if it's locked). She turned off the water and heard it again! She thought it was a burglar so she started yelling "Who's there?!" to try and scare the fellow off. The noise continued. Then she ran outside the house to a neighbor to call the police. When they investigated the house, they could find no sign of entry or exit in the basement and no burglar. She is now convinced it was probably a ghost of some sort and I believe it.
Software Ghost Hunter (Score:3)
Write a program. The program could use an existing picture of good quality, then download new images and compare. If there is a block pixel change (a square of x size, having all pixels changed) then, the new image is flagged. Else, the image is thrown away. The resulting "ghost pictures" can be inverted in Photoshop, it will be obvious which ones were camera caused an which were not...
This would rule out human interpretation, and could be used over a long period of time. What do you think?
Biguser@hotmail.com [mailto]
Comment removed (Score:4)
investigations (Score:3)