2009, December 11 (pre): The Cat Sees Her

The picture first appeared on the internet in the Ghosts and Stories website, submitted to the site through their 'ghost photo' report form. It was posted sometime previous to December 11, 2009, which is when the first outside comment was attached to the submission.

A candid shot of...? [Picture sources here]

        The source for the picture only identified themself as "David," from Cardiff, then explained that their 'girlfriend's friend works with a guy' who took the picture above. Their cat had been hissing at the patio door one night for no reason so, naturally, they took a picture of the cat hissing at the door.

        When they uploaded the picture to their PC, they then noticed the odd figure in the window that appears to resemble a little girl. 'David' then further explained that the person who took the picture doesn't have any children, and that the house they were in was "very old."

        And that is all that can be said to known about the picture, despite how often it still turns up in various "ghost photo" collections on the internet.

Reactions, And a Few Thoughts

        Even in the comments to the initial post, most viewers were split down the middle as to whether the picture was genuinely paranormal, or a mistake/fake... one person felt it was the reflection of the photographer's hat in the doorway, another suggested that a 'ghost photo' phone app had been used to introduce the shape in the door. For the most part, the people who felt it was genuinely paranormal tended to credit the claim that the house was 'very old' and the general belief that cats and other animals can see things people cannot as reasonable evidence.

        Frankly, it's not a good picture to put that sort of belief in. For one thing, the original posting of the picture was the same size as I present above, just 340x400 pixels. Though there are larger copies of the picture out there, those all started at the size above and therefore offer no better resolution on the image; so in all cases, the figure of a girl is actually just a hazy shape with little detail.

        If, as the post implies, the picture was taken with a camera phone and then uploaded to a computer, it's very unlikely the picture from the phone would be as small as just 340x400 pixels, especially if taken anytime recent to the posting... which implies the image was shrunk before it was posted up, or the image we see was trimmed out of a larger shot.

        Secondly, the person who took the photo is not the person who posted the photo, but instead is literally the friend of a friend... so we don't have the word of the actual people who would have been involved if it was a paranormal event, and no way to check if there wasn't, in fact, just something out past the window to start with.

        Being that 'David' gave their location as Cardiff, then they were either located in the capital of Wales, or in the tiny town by that name in New York State in the USA. There are no other clues.