Almost every Friday night I host a social media livestream, the Skeptical Help Bar, in which I invite viewers to ask paranormal related questions in return for my own skeptical opinion. Although the show is often in the format of general Q&A, I occasionally have a guest or particular theme. One week the theme called for viewers to send in their favorite “ghost” photos so that I could analyze them in real-time during the show and provide some insight into the small details that often reveal the true nature of a captured “ghost.”
A friend and frequent guest of the show, JD Sword, sent me an old photograph I had not seen previously. The photograph is of fifteen young women lined up in four rows, most of them posing with their arms crossed. Only one stands out in playful defiance, one hand on her hip and other down by her side. The expression on her face seems to say, “I’ll pose however I want, just try to stop me.” The women are dressed in similar skirts, with various tools hanging from rope tied around their waists.
This image has gained some popularity within the paranormal community, not for its historical record of 1900 working women, but because of an alleged ghostly hand that has no body attached to it. If you focus your attention on the woman to the far right of the second row (from bottom), you will notice upon her right shoulder a human hand; a right hand, to be precise. We can see three fingers and a thumb, complete with a fingernail. Looking at the two women behind her, who both have their arms folded, it is obvious the hand belongs to neither of them. So, the mystery is … where did lonely hand come from?
The first step of my investigation was to verify whether the photograph was a genuine 1900-era photograph or a modern hoax. I first checked Snopes.com, because they have a large database of urban legends, hoaxes, and folklore, dating back to when they started in 1994 (Snopes 2020). However, a search yielded no results whatsoever. Looking over the photograph, there did not appear to be any obvious or subtle indications that it was a modern fake meant to look antique.
I began using keyword searches and eventually found high-resolution scans of the image on both ShutterStock.com and GettyImages.com. The GettyImages page reveals the image was uploaded July 31, 2005, and carries the following information, “Historical Geography. 1900. Ireland. Here are some happy Ulster girls from a linen factory of North Ireland’s chief city. Irish linen long ago made a name for itself, and many of the finest handkerchiefs and lingerie come from this source. The flax fibre is derived from the stalk of the plant. Each girl in the photograph has round her waist a cord sustaining various implements used in her work” (Getty Images 2020). Credit for the photo is listed as “SeM,” who appears to be an anonymous contributor to the website.
The photograph first gained attention when it appeared on BelfastLive.co.uk as part of a history section titled “Historic gallery of old Belfast trades,” posted April 29, 2016 (MGM Limited 2020). Through various news outlets, the story is that a woman named Lynda sent the photograph to BelfastLive.com and identified the woman with the hand on her shoulder as her own great grandmother, commenting “Great to see an old photo of my Granny, in the by-gone years photo, when she worked at the mill. She was Ellen Donnelly (nee McKillop).”
I attempted to locate Lynda to verify her identity and her connection to the photograph but have had no success as of the submission of this article (but I will continue to look). I did some further digging and was able to locate an Ellen Donnelly who would have been twenty-five years old in 1900, lived in the same county as the factory (Antrim), and is listed as a Damask Weaver according to the Census of Ireland 1911. For those interested, damask weaving is described as the hand weaving of patterned damask fabric on jacquard looms (Carpenter 2019).
Because there are no indications the photograph is a modern hoax, let us take a closer look at that phantom hand and any clues as to how it came to be. It certainly appears to be a hand, with three fingers and a thumb laid out as they normally would if someone had put their arm around the young lady (I’ll refer to her as Ellen from now on). So, where is the rest of this mysterious person? The most likely explanation is another young lady was removed from the photograph, and some details were drawn in to cover up the edit. There are several clues that lead me to this conclusion.
Before the invention of Photoshop and other editing
software, photographs were often retouched by hand by
cutting out (with scissors) unwanted people or objects and
filling in the empty space with sections of other
photographs or drawing in details with pencil or charcoal.
This was usually a tedious job, with the amount of time
involved dependent on the background. In Jocelyn Sear’s
article on the subject, she states “Photographers and
retouching specialists would scrape their film with knives,
draw or paint on top of it, and even paste multiple
negatives together to create a single print” (Sears 2016).
Retouching work was tedious and still quite common long before computers came along. This work took place on a retouching desk, which was a “hinged easel [that] had a central wooden frame propped up by side supports that allowed the user to change the angle of the working surface. The central frame held a piece of glass onto which the negative was placed. Attached to the base, an adjustable mirror or piece of white cardstock reflected light up through the negative. An overhanging piece of wood—sometimes accompanied by built-in side curtains or a piece of fabric thrown over the whole contraption—prevented light from shining on the negative from above” (Sears 2016). Although it took some time, photographs could be edited to add objects or scenery, change a person’s appearance, or remove a person entirely.
If we take a close look at our “ghostly hand” photograph,
focusing on the far right of the image (Ellen’s left), the
first thing that stuck out to me was the black outline
starting from the collar of her shirt and down to her elbow.
When compared to the overlapping areas of clothing elsewhere
on Ellen, as well as the other girls in the photo, we do not
see such a hard outline. There are plenty of dark areas
throughout the scene, but these are caused by shadows and
have a softer appearance. The hard outline along Ellen’s arm
is unnatural and appears to be drawn in by hand, likely with
a graphite pencil or ink.
Ellen’s left arm also appears a bit too thin when compared to her right arm. The edge of the sleeve does not demonstrate the wrinkles and folds of the fabric, but instead shows a smooth curved line from shoulder to elbow. Her left arm, both sleeve and bare skin, are noticeably darker than her right arm, despite the overall angle of shadows in the photograph indicating the light source was on the photographers’ right—meaning the arm should not be darker. Even the wrinkles on the sleeve seem unnaturally flat. In addition, there is an ink blot where Ellen’s sleeve ends and her bare arm begins.
If we look at the area to the right of Ellen, it appears there is a mistake on the skirt of the girl standing behind her. The vertical rope (short, dark line), which should secure a tool to another rope around the young lady’s waist, is not complete. At first, I thought it was merely cut off. Upon closer inspection, however, it appears the vertical rope was also drawn in but not finished. I can only assume that the retouching artist thought they were drawing in the folds of the skirt, not realizing this line should have been attached to a weaving tool.
I noticed the hair on the right side (our view) of Ellen’s head is too dark for being on the same side as the light source and doesn’t match the rest of her hair. This section of hair looks remarkably similar to the unfinished vertical rope on the girl behind Ellen. I also spotted a significant bald patch at the part in Ellen’s hair; this could very well be a legitimate detail and how she looked at the time, but it seems too out of place with everything else we’ve talked about.
Although it certainly makes for a “spooky” photo, the more likely cause is that another young lady was removed from the image. There are several reasons for such a thing: perhaps by putting her arm around Ellen, the photographer (or the employer paying for the photograph) was simply not amused and decided to have this extra person removed from the photograph or perhaps she quit or was fired just after the photograph was taken. We will likely never know the reason someone was removed from this photo, but the clues tell us they were.
With such a tedious job, it’s not far-fetched to assume the retouching artist either figured they had spent enough time removing the person and deliberately ignored the extra hand, or simply forgot about the hand after spending hours on removing the body. Considering the “ghostly hand” didn’t get any attention until 116 years after it was taken, I can understand the oversight.
References
- Carpenter, Daniel. 2019. Damask weaving. Available at https://heritagecrafts.org.uk/damask-weaving/.
- Getty Images. 2020. Historical Geography 1900 Ireland Girls whose nimble fingers help to make Belfast famous. Available at https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/historical-geography-1900-ireland-here-are-some-happy-news-photo/498875487.
- MGM Limited. 2020. BelfastLiveHistoric gallery of old Belfast trades. Available at https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/history/gallery/historic-gallery-old-belfast-trades-11253390.
- Sears, Jocelyn. 2016. How Photo Retouching Worked Before Photoshop. Available at https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/83262/how-photo-retouching-worked-photoshop.
- Snopes Media Group Inc. 2020. About Us. Available at https://www.snopes.com/about-snopes/.