Skeptics, believers all have 'ghost' theories

By JASON AUSLANDER | The New Mexican
June 19, 2007

Mysterious courthouse image draws nationwide response

It seems everyone likes a good ghost story.

After reports about a mysterious image captured by a surveillance camera at the First Judicial District courthouse downtown early Friday morning were posted on national news Web sites Monday and Tuesday, people from all over the country — including Texas, North Carolina, Massachusetts and Connecticut — chimed in with their opinions.

“I work with remote control cameras all the time …” Lance Hollandsworth said in an e-mailed theory echoed by many others. “I see things like this all the time and what it is is just a small bug perhaps a baby spider that’s just walking across the lens. If you look real close you can see legs and antenni (sic).”

“No, the apparition in the video is not a ghost or an alien,” Nathan Hampton wrote. “Instead it appears to be a case of ‘ball lightning.’ This is not a common phenomenon so I’m not surprised that you haven’t heard of it.”

“If you look at the police car near the bottom front door, I was able to see an image of a male’s face,” Marylou Parnala wrote. “2 eyes, a nose and lips.”

Another woman, who didn’t provide her name but reported she is a spiritual reader who sometimes sees pictures of the dead, said she saw five separate spirits in the video — one man with red on him, one sitting on what appeared to be a train, another near the tree, a woman with a hat and a child. “That would be interesting to be around there at nite (sic),” the woman wrote.

Finally, another woman asked, “Have you consulted a reputable channeler? If you need help let me know.”

A New Mexican reporter received more than 40 such e-mails Tuesday from all over the country after Web sites such as courttv.com, abcnews.com, cbsnews.com, foxnews.com and Yahoo posted an Associated Press version of the story and a link to a video of the image on the New Mexican’s Web site. Several people also called the newspaper with their opinions. The New Mexican site logged thousands of hits for the video, which was later posted on Youtube.

The image appeared just before 7:30 a.m. Friday, and the sheriff’s deputy who watched it live on a video screen said the bright light had stars in the shape of a diamond that were each spinning clockwise. Many who visited the courthouse Friday and Monday were able to watch the video near the security screening station at the building’s front door.

Benjamin Radford, managing editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, said he’s investigated haunted places and ghost sightings for years and has seen dozens of similar ghost videos. The magazine bills itself as “The Magazine for Science and Reason.”

Radford, who recently moved to Corrales from Buffalo, N.Y., looked at the video on Youtube on Monday at the request of The New Mexican. He said the blurry video makes it difficult to tell what the image captured. A shadow many have seen that appears to follow the bright spot of light in the image might be “simply an artifact of the video image,” Radford said in an e-mail.

“For one thing, the dark patch seems to closely follow the movements of the object on the video screen instead of the terrain beneath it, as we would expect if it’s a shadow,” he said. “Furthermore, the angle of the sun is all wrong. … I’m open to other possibilities, but my best guess at this point is that it’s a small floating object near the camera lens, probably a fluff of cotton from the cottonwoods nearby or an insect or something like that.”

Sgt. Vanessa Pacheco, who supervises court security at the building for the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office, said people’s opinions on the video have depended on whether they believe in ghosts. A bug or spider has been a popular theory as well as some type of light phenomenon, a leaf, a reflection or a prank, she said. As far as she knew, Pacheco said, the video was not a prank.

Pacheco, who remains a nonbeliever in ghosts, said she’s tried to analyze the video from all angles but still doesn’t know what it shows. However, others’ belief in the paranormal has been strong, Pacheco said.

“Generally, most people who’ve seen (the video) believe it is some type of spirit or ghost,” she said. “It’s because it’s unexplainable. Some people, the more they watched, the more they believed.”

Count Dennis Hernandez, of the Santa Fe County facilities management division, as a believer. “You can see it walking,” he said Monday after viewing the video again at the courthouse.

There were skeptics, however.

“I think it’s a bunch of (nonsense),” said Bill Norris, a bailiff. “People are letting their imaginations run wild and are seeing what they want to see. I see a spot of light, probably from a passing car or a person walking by.”

Santa Fe County Sheriff Greg Solano agreed. “I think it’s a bug or something crawling on the screen,” he said. “I’m not a big believer in the paranormal.”

State District Judge Stephen Pfeffer said he, too, thought it looked like a bug. “But whatever it is, it has to go through security like anyone else,” he joked.