Spooky Facts - Tumblr Posts
I left a comment on the video, but I really wanted to make an infodump post about it to because I’m a spooky little autistic. The newest Ghost Files episode reminded me of one of my favorite spooky history facts that I wanted to share:
CW: Dead people in photos (nothing graphic, very peaceful, but content warning all the same)
So the photo of Joyce and Tim in the archive room, they say one of them is dead and they don’t know which, but in a lot of these “post mortem” photos, if you look closely, there’s an interesting way to tell who’s dead and who’s alive.
“In the 1800s, taking a photo of a dead body wasn’t creepy—it was comforting. In an era when photos were expensive and many people didn’t have any pictures of themselves when they were alive, post-mortem photography was a way for families to remember their deceased loved ones. This was especially true for children, whose mortality rate was much higher than it is now” (Little).
Now, back in good ol’ 1867, there was a little more to taking a photo than a button on an iPhone 13, and it could often a couple of seconds for the photo to actually be taken, in which time people would naturally sway and twitch slightly, which is why people and faces are often blurry in these old photos. It’s like when it’s dark and your phone can’t focus, and it makes you hold your phone still while it takes the shot, but no matter how hard you try, it always comes out fuzzy.
Now, I don’t know if you know this, people 9 times out of 10, dead people don’t move. So when taking these photos, they remain still for the duration of the photo process. I tried to pick some pictures that would really demonstrate this, but it’s super chilling to see just how clear dead people are in these old photos, especially when put against living counterparts.
The one above is one of the clearest examples of this I could find online, but if you’re ever in the Winchester Mystery House, they have some super cool pictures hanging up that demonstrate this concept.
So Shane, Ryan, if you ever see this—well first of all I think I’d probably scream because my favorite creators saw my post—know that you can tell more than which looks “dead inside” because, hey, don’t we all?
