2000, July 6 (ca.): The Ghost in the Corner

This picture, in varying sizes (but not improved quality) has been making the rounds of the 'true ghost photos' lists on the Internet in 2015. Having said that, not a single site I've looked at yet can state where and when the photo was taken, nor who is in it... and if you don't know that much, how can you assert it as being a "true" ghost photo? Older copies of the photo show that the above is cropped to better feature the ghost.

[Picture sources here]

History of a Spooky Photo

        It took some digging, but here are the missing details: the photo was created by a person named Niki Harless in 2000 and submitted to a website that featured fake ghost pictures made by visitors. This page was clearly titled "How to Create Fake Photos of Ghosts -- Users Pics" [link], and the picture was first posted there as far as I can tell in July 2000. The webpage notes that the photo was "Sent in by: Niki Harless - Aliquippa, PA", and includes Harless' email and website URL; the website apparently closed down sometime between the photo being submitted and November, 2000, because that's the earliest Wayback archive of Harless' site... and all the archive says is that the site no longer exists.

        According to a site called The Haunt that was archived in November 2001, the photo was at that time being sent around in an e-mail chainletter that warned people that if they didn't pass the photo on, they'd end up like the guy in the bed (presumably dead, not sleeping). So, even before picture sharing sites like Imgur, PhotoBucket, and Pinterest, this picture was making the rounds without a single fact to support it... proving it's a very good picture!

        Still fake, though.