Help explain this for me.

[Goodchild]

Ok, since this is the 'skepticism' forum here I need your assistance :)

When I was about 8 or 9 my mother took me, my sister and some friends to see the "Bayside Miracles". For those not familiar, a woman named Veronica Lueken claimed that she was being visited by the Virgin Mary and was being given prophecies.

The interesting portion of all this was that supposedly if you took photos at this place while the vision was ongoing you'd get weird things happening in the photos. I'm going to link you to to some examples of those photos HERE (http://www.tldm.org/photos/miraculousphotos.htm).

Now, even though I was young at the time I can comfortably state for myself that I saw pictures taken with an instamatic camera, I held the pictures myself as they developed and they did indeed end up with phenomena such as you see in the link. There was absolutely no opportunity for an outside party to alter those pictures as far as I am aware. Pictures were taken with bare field behind the subjects or a tree of those I remember.

The adults who were there at the time have, as I've asked them over the years, testified to the veracity of my memory of what occured. I have no reason to doubt my memory nor my own mother on this count (she was Catholic at the time, but now believes the experience was demonic. Pfeh.) or the others who were there.

So, can anyone come up with a plausible explanation for me? This has always bothered me to no end and I've never even found an explanation online, other than the Catholic Church denouncing it.


eta: There was more that went on than just the pictures, but the pictures are the item I want to focus on as the other events could just have been imagination or group dynamics.

[Puck]

I've had pictures come out like some of those. I think they are referred to as ghost in the camera or something. It can be from a very tiny bit of light getting in, to the night ones of squiggly lines being the movement of the person holding the camera.

I had to throw away the camera that did that ghost thing. It didn't do it to all pics, but somehow it was letting in some outside light at times.

[Goodchild]

Ok, that sounds plausible so far.

The pictures that I personally saw taken were one with all the squiggly lines, another where there were obvious symbols and a third which looked normal except for a robed arm resting on the subjects shoulder.

Also, this was my mothers camera and it never exhibited such problems any other time. And as you can see from the link, this was a common occurrence at the event for anyone that was there ... not one persons isolated problem :)

I'm not trying to convince anyone of the veracity of the experience, i'm hoping for someone to convince me of the actual mundaneness of what I saw ;)

[DMB]

Try asking Joe Nickell at Skeptical Inquirer.

[Garrett]

The first thought that entered my mind is doubt that the effects would occur only when the woman was having her visions.

[Anne]

the original pic links seem broken, but the pictures looked the same to me.

http://www.centerforinquiry.net/forums/viewthread/3947/

the other posters pics were made, they explain it.

[Hex]

I would almost wonder if the camera or film had been set down on something either hot in the sense of temperature, or in the sense of radioactivity. :confused:

They do look very much like double-exposures, especially with the squiggles over a perfectly in-focus shot ... :confused:

[Goodchild]

Having been there and watched photos being taken I can say categorically that it was not a result of long exposure or any intended/accidental damage to the camera or film.

The pics we had were taken with my mothers camera, which operated fine both before and after the event without producing odd images, and the film was handled solely by us. There was no opportunity for someone with flashlights (this was in the late 70s btw) to affect the photos either, we took them in daylight with backgrounds such that any funny business would have been apparent.

[Steviepinhead]

I'm skeptical of miracles and auras and all such like that, but...

It may not be impossible that people do vary even in fairly unusual ways--such as how much they produce or react to stray electromagnetic effects.

Some of this (heck, perhaps all of it) can be chalked up to confirmation bias, but I have amazed friends with my ability to "turn off" streetlights as I'm walking or driving around. Now, out of the tens of thousands of streetlights in any given city, some of them must always be burning out (or their light-level sensors, or timers, or whatever, will be malfunctioning). But I (or, possibly, I suppose, the succession of vehicles I have owned) do "seem" to have an effect on street lights that is a little hard to explain based on the average number of malfunctioning lights, sensors, or timers.

I've sometimes noticed a light flicker as I approach. I'll mention it to whichever friend is riding with me, they'll say "naw, no way," and then it'll happen again, within seconds or minutes. (Possible confirmation bias, again, since if it doesn't happen again, it doesn't become a topic of conversatin, and become ingrained in memory...) Or maybe if one light on a street is already malfunctioning, there's some increased likelihood of the remainder "wired into the same circuit" (or some such) to do so.

But I have repeatedly induced spooky vibes with this (quite possibly non-existent) X-talent.

To the point where friends will notice it happening when I -- as the driver -- am distracted by, like, actual driving tasks, or passing the bowl, or whatever.

And once sensitized to this odd phenomenon, the same friends don't notice it happening nearly as much when they are out and about without me... (though that could again be a sub-category of confirmation bias and primed expectation).

So it may not be impossible that this "miracle" lady just was giving off a slightly non-standard bioelectrical field.

Or maybe, even though noboby else touched or manipulated the camera, there was a powerful but non-obvious source of some kind of electricity, magnetism, or radiation nearby.

(heh, heh. I do sometimes get tired of carting those discarded biomedical radioactive materials around in the trunk of my car...)

[Notta]

I'm skeptical of miracles and auras and all such like that, but...

It may not be impossible that people do vary even in fairly unusual ways--such as how much they produce or react to stray electromagnetic effects.

Some of this (heck, perhaps all of it) can be chalked up to confirmation bias, but I have amazed friends with my ability to "turn off" streetlights as I'm walking or driving around. Now, out of the tens of thousands of streetlights in any given city, some of them must always be burning out (or their light-level sensors, or timers, or whatever, will be malfunctioning). But I (or, possibly, I suppose, the succession of vehicles I have owned) do "seem" to have an effect on street lights that is a little hard to explain based on the average number of malfunctioning lights, sensors, or timers.

I've sometimes noticed a light flicker as I approach. I'll mention it to whichever friend is riding with me, they'll say "naw, no way," and then it'll happen again, within seconds or minutes. (Possible confirmation bias, again, since if it doesn't happen again, it doesn't become a topic of conversatin, and become ingrained in memory...) Or maybe if one light on a street is already malfunctioning, there's some increased likelihood of the remainder "wired into the same circuit" (or some such) to do so.

But I have repeatedly induced spooky vibes with this (quite possibly non-existent) X-talent.

To the point where friends will notice it happening when I -- as the driver -- am distracted by, like, actual driving tasks, or passing the bowl, or whatever.

And once sensitized to this odd phenomenon, the same friends don't notice it happening nearly as much when they are out and about without me... (though that could again be a sub-category of confirmation bias and primed expectation).

So it may not be impossible that this "miracle" lady just was giving off a slightly non-standard bioelectrical field.

Or maybe, even though noboby else touched or manipulated the camera, there was a powerful but non-obvious source of some kind of electricity, magnetism, or radiation nearby.

(heh, heh. I do sometimes get tired of carting those discarded biomedical radioactive materials around in the trunk of my car...)
I had a student whose mother constantly made the electronic scanners at the market malfunction. I taught with a woman who made computers go wonky (I always thought she was doing something wrong that made them malfunction, until I sat beside her for two day's worth of training and she consistently chose a computer that would stop working within 5 minutes of her starting it up). I knew a woman who got blinding headaches whenever she was within a couple of feet of the neodymium magnets I had in my storage closet at school.

I think some people really do have a stronger electromagnetic field than others. This could manifest itself in photons that move so quickly our eyes can't see them. Who knows? But I have personally met people who could make electronic equipment malfunction just by being in close proximity to it.

[ofro]

Now, even though I was young at the time I can comfortably state for myself that I saw pictures taken with an instamatic camera, I held the pictures myself as they developed and they did indeed end up with phenomena such as you see in the link. There was absolutely no opportunity for an outside party to alter those pictures as far as I am aware. Pictures were taken with bare field behind the subjects or a tree of those I remember.



What do you mean by holding the pictures as they developed. Did you develop them yourself? An Instamatic was either 110 or 126 format, not 35 mm, so the average darkroom enlarger may not have been able to handle these formats.

Also, I imagine that your film also contained pictures from other occasions. Did these pictures, taken away from the "miracle" site, also contain weird lights? If they did, this may point towards the camera being defective.

Finally (getting more outlandish), are you sure that the pictures you developed were the actual pictures of the scenes you saw yourself? I wouldn't put it past the organizers of such sites that they sold exposed films, and all you had to do was develop them.

Or even better, perhaps they bough film at the kiosk that were pre-exposed to some weird lights and rewound, and the unsuspecting customer just made a second exposure when taking pictures of his own.

[Goodchild]

What do you mean by holding the pictures as they developed. Did you develop them yourself? An Instamatic was either 110 or 126 format, not 35 mm, so the average darkroom enlarger may not have been able to handle these formats.

Maybe i'm misremembering the name of the camera type, but it was the one that spit the picture out immediately after you took it and it developed on it's own over about 30 seconds or so.

Also, I imagine that your film also contained pictures from other occasions. Did these pictures, taken away from the "miracle" site, also contain weird lights? If they did, this may point towards the camera being defective.

As I said above, the camera did not contain pictures ... it took them and spit them out immediately :)

And no, there were no problems with pictures taken at any other time. At the particular event was the only time this occured.

Finally (getting more outlandish), are you sure that the pictures you developed were the actual pictures of the scenes you saw yourself? I wouldn't put it past the organizers of such sites that they sold exposed films, and all you had to do was develop them.

Again referencing above, that would have been impossible. We brought our own camera and our own film bought in our hometown.

[Goodchild]

Ok, just did a bit of searching and what I meant to call it was an "instant camera". Wikipedia link HERE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant_camera) and it would have been very similar to the second camera pictured, the SX-70.

[ofro]

Touché. I give up.


For right now.

[MNPhysicist]

The streetlight deal is pretty easy to explain, I'd have to look through my notes, but by memory its actually pretty simplistic (I'm one that can turn them on and off too, so I researched it as an undergrad years ago). Whats freakier is the ability to turn on and off aircraft strobes, again basic physics, albeit the outcome is a bit scary.

As far as the photos go, afaik, its unexplainable.

[Steviepinhead]

MNPhysicist:
The streetlight deal is pretty easy to explain, I'd have to look through my notes, but by memory its actually pretty simplistic (I'm one that can turn them on and off too, so I researched it as an undergrad years ago).
Well, I was partly throwing that out as an example of how to fool yourself and your friends with confirmation bias. Also known as: How even a person who considers him or herself to be reasonably skeptical can slide ever so easily onto the slippery slope of confirmation bias...

I've never gotten to the point of actually attempting to research it (my technical and physics knowledge might well be unequal to the task, in any event), though it's great that you did.

What's the explanation, if you're willing to share?