Q: Have you heard about the “Buxom Ghost Girl” photo and the mysterious handprints at the Torquay Museum in England? What do you make of that?

—Daniel M.

A: I first heard about “Britain’s Sexiest Ghost” in early 2015 when the latest “spooky” ghost image circulated online. The photo was taken that May at the Torquay Museum in Devon, England, as part of a ghost hunt by a group called Real Investigators of the Paranormal (RIP). It’s not clear why they assumed the location would be haunted; Torquay features historical exhibits, artifacts, and life-size dioramas, such as one depicting what life would have been like in an English farmhouse in the 1700s.

The photo appears to be of a blonde woman with her back to a (fake) fireplace set. She appears to be semi-transparent because the whole scene is dark and the shadows are faint, blending into the black background. The figure’s lighter, apparently exposed flesh suggests a woman’s scoop-neck blouse dark in color. The plunging neckline prompted titillating headlines and jokes. Because the light is coming from in front and below the figure, the neck, chin, cheeks, and forehead are highlighted, though the outlines of a mouth, eyes, and ears are visible.

The sassy tabloid-style moniker aside, it was an ostensibly interesting case. I spent a few hours gathering information about the context behind the photo and, along with a tweet (Figure 1), found a comment from RIP that explained the context:

We had a Paranormal Experience evening, during which an amazing photo of what appears to be a ghost was taken. We were very excited about the picture, as we were taking photos all over the place, and it wasn’t until afterwards when we examined them more closely that we noticed it, which was quite spooky. … It’s a pretty clear photograph, and there was no one else present when the photo was taken. So we are at a loss to explain it. … There seems to be no other explanation.

A spokesperson for the museum, Carl Smith, told the local newspaper Torquay Herald Express that “It appears to be a woman, and from the angle of the photograph, it looks like she is submerged into the floor, almost like she is below floor level.”

Despite virtually no information about the (apparently anonymous) photographer, camera, or much else, the photo itself nevertheless contains important clues. We can see, for example, that no flash was used and therefore there are two sources of light: a red/orange one behind the figure to its left (the faux fireplace) and a white one in front of and below it. Both are faint, soft, and out of focus. Overall, the pattern matches exactly what we’d expect to see if it were a female sitting at a table looking down at her cell phone in the dark.

Adding to the (apparent) mystery, a second supposedly strange thing soon appeared: ghostly fingerprints.¹ In many investigations the (apparent) anomalies multiply, and this was no exception:

Interest is so high that another paranormal investigation was held on Friday where a new haunting discovery was made: strange handprints inside the coffin of a mummified Egyptian 4-year-old, housed in a different room of the museum. “During the night on the inside of the case, we saw what we believe were handprints on the inside. It was a pretty clear two fingers and a thumb.” Smith said. “The case had not been opened for seven years and last time it was opened, it took seven men to open it. It was impossible for it to be opened by someone else.” (Moye 2015)

Pressed By the Press

“How could this mystery be solved?,” I asked myself as I stroked my chin and adopted a Holmesian expression of deductive contemplation. Well, the first thing that could be done would be to identify the person who took the photo of the female ghost and (if it’s a woman) rule her accidental reflection or image out as a possible explanation for the spirit. I had briefly assumed that such an obvious explanation had already been investigated, but I soon realized that I should not assume that even the most cursory or superficial research had been done by the (perhaps ironically named) “Real Investigators of the Paranormal” group.

I was soon interviewed by David Moye of the Huffington Post and asked to comment on what I thought was going on. Even though the investigation was ongoing and my opinions necessarily preliminary, I offered my best analysis. Several aspects of this “mystery” soon became apparent. First, I noted that the claim that “no one else was present” when a ghost photo was taken is a common, and often inaccurate, claim. It is obviously a key detail that is very rarely investigated, much less verified. If that assumption is true, it might give credence to a ghostly explanation. The fact that this photo, like most ghost photos, was identified as strange or mysterious only after the fact is problematic because it means that the key claim that no one else was in the room is an assumption based on post hoc recollections. Unless the movements of everyone in the building were carefully monitored—a technically possible but expensive and rarely practical endeavor—we can’t be certain who was where and at what time.

Various ghost hunters move all around a location over the course of hours, going in and out of rooms on a whim or wherever curiosity leads them. When we factor in the presence of random staff members, onlookers, members of the public invited to watch, and so on, it becomes clear that the claim is, at best, an optimistic assumption. Had the investigation been done with a modicum of scientific protocols, everyone present would have been assigned to a specific area at specific times and their movements recorded for later comparison. We would also need photographs of everyone present to rule out any accidental contamination or mistaken assumptions. The original photograph file—assuming it’s digital—may contain metadata that could reveal the exact time the image was captured, helping narrow down the possibilities. My best guess at the time was that the woman was likely a glass reflection (see Figure 2). I noted that there’s a lot of glass in museums (displays, windows, and so on), and the people who took photos were there specifically looking for ghosts, suggesting that confirmation bias may be at play.

Second, I noted there was no clear logical connection between the ghost photo and the fingerprints. I told Moye that I suspected the prints matched the museum’s curator or the workers who assembled the display. There were likely identical fingerprints on countless museum display cases not only elsewhere in the Torquay Museum but around the world that were not noticed, much less considered evidence of anything.

Wary of needlessly assuming the burden of proof in this case, I reminded Moye and others who asked that it wasn’t up to me, or anyone else, to prove that the image and fingerprints weren’t of a ghost. That would be an impossible task, and in any event it was the responsibility of those claiming it was mysterious or unexplainable to demonstrate, using argument and evidence, why they believe so.

Skeptics on the Case

As I noted, my initial impression was that the image depicted a selfie mirrored in a glass, but upon reflection I decided that’s unlikely. As a researcher for a nonprofit educational organization, I certainly didn’t have the time or resources to fly to England to investigate the case, but it seemed like the sort of case that would benefit from an onsite investigation. Because the site was a public museum, there were photos available of the interior layout (though not necessarily of the areas and angles most relevant to the circumstances behind this case). I reached out to a colleague, Hayley Stevens, an award-winning skeptical blogger (at https://hayleyisaghost.co.uk) and cohost of the Spooktator podcast, and she was game to poke around.

She visited the site, investigated the area, and sent back nearly fifty photos, which we discussed in emails and a video chat. She later wrote up a concise description of her investigation and almost immediately discovered that my—and to be fair, many people’s—initial hypothesis was wrong:

Upon arriving at the museum and venturing onto the top floor where The Old Devon Farmhouse exhibit lives one thing became apparent straight away: The ghost was not caused by a reflection as many had suggested. I found all of the reflective surfaces in the room and took photos of the fireplaces through them from different angles to try and replicate what is seen in the original photo but it wasn’t possible. As I inspected the area I saw that there were small benches next to one of the fireplaces that were in the right position for the ghost to have been seated on at the time. Therefore it is my conclusion that Britain’s sexiest ghost was actually a living person sitting in the dark next to one of the fireplaces. It almost looks as though her face is lit by the screen of an electronic item such as a camera or phone. (Stevens 2016)

The Ghostly Gal

With new information gleaned from Stevens’s onsite investigation, I readily concurred. My best explanation is that this image depicts a female ghost hunter (or member of the public), who got tired and bored after several hours of wandering the Torquay museum in the dark looking in vain for ghosts and decided to sit down at the display table and check her phone or post to social media accounts. While she did that, a second investigator took the photo—knowing perfectly well what was going on and who the subject was—and they both soon continued the ghost hunt. Days later (or months later; it’s not clear) when hundreds of photos from that night were reviewed by the ghost hunters looking for evidence, someone noticed this strange image and thought it sufficiently spooky (i.e., ambiguous) that it came to light and was soon making the news.

This is a common—though badly flawed—ghost investigation technique, as I discuss in my book Investigating Ghosts: The Scientific Search for Spirits, because evidence should be reviewed at the time so that it can be meaningfully investigated; there is little evidential value in discovering something potentially anomalous long after the event has ended, when all the participants are gone and the environment (including light, temperature, ambient sounds, etc.) has significantly changed.

So, who is the gal ghost? We don’t know. I suspect that the woman in the photo was either a member of the Real Investigators of the Paranormal team or a friend of someone in the group, and she has chosen to remain tight-lipped about it because she wants to enjoy the notoriety (and because it would raise obvious questions about the group’s competence).

Whether the incident was intended as a publicity stunt or it simply turned out that way, the ghost group was wildly successful, with leader Chris Marshall writing in an October 19, 2015, Facebook post:

There has been a lot of interest in the handprint found at the museum on friday [sic] evening if anybody got photos could we get copies of them please. I have had a call from the museum about it and they have received many calls from all over the country and the press. FYI as of this morning the hand print is still visible. (Marshall 2015)

The following day, Marshall noted:

We are now booked in to present the museums paranormal experience evenings for the next 12 months. The feedback from these evenings has been excellent and they have recieved [sic] enquiries from as far afield as London and even Japan. (Marshall 2015)

In the end, the Torquay Ghost was indeed a bust, but the case offers insight into how ghost hunter incompetence (amplified by a sensational and less-than-skeptical media) can create a seemingly spooky ghost photo and how careful onsite investigation can solve the case. As with most ghost photos, the image was not a hoax or prank—or of a ghost—but instead created by a series of mistaken assumptions coupled with mystery mongering and an amateur ghost hunting team with no real desire or incentive to investigate, much less solve, the mystery.

Note

1. Fingerprints are created by skin oil (mostly water, fatty acids, amino acids, and triglycerides), which ghosts—being incorporeal after all, and thus dermally challenged—presumably lack. If this is not the case and ghosts can in fact leave forensic traces (including sweat, semen, and blood), this could revolutionize ghost investigation, allowing researchers to potentially identify and classify spirits through genetic testing, a scientific approach the Real Investigators of the Paranormal seem to have oddly neglected.

References

Marshall, Christopher. 2015. Posts on the “R.I.P. Real Investigators of the Paranormal” Facebook page (October 19 and 20).

Moye, David. 2015. Buxom British ghost may just be a bust. The Huffington Post (October 19). Available online at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/photo-of-buxom-british-ghost-may-just-be-a-bust_56251a84e4b02f6a900d1855?utm_hp_ref=weird-news.

Stevens, Hayley. 2016. Investigating Britain’s sexiest ghost. Hayley Is a Ghost (August 16). Available online at https://hayleyisaghost.co.uk/investigating-britains-sexiest-ghost/.