1.

The Brown Lady of Raynham

The picture of the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall is among the best known of all alleged
ghost photos. The spirit is that of Dorothy Walpole, a one-time resident of the manor
located in Norfolk, England. First sighted in 1835, the ghost was reported on several
subsequent occasions, making Raynham Hall a favourite spot for ghost hunters.
In 1936, magazine photographers Captain Provand and Indre Shira were on a shoot at
Raynham when Shire reportedly saw the ghost on a staircase. Provand then took the
picture. This is unlike the majority of ghost photos, in which the ghost is generally
undetected by the photographer until has been processed.
The Brown Lady Photo has been widely hailed as one of the most undeniably authentic
ghost photos ever taken. But many experts, including investigative writer and photo analyst
Joe Nickell, have agreed that the picture was faked by superimposing one image on
another.
2.

The ghost of Lincoln

William Mumler was a 19th century Boston engraver who dabbled in the then
recenttechnological advance called photography. In 1861, less than forty years after the
worlds first photograph, Mumler noticed a strange, ethereal face next to his in a self
portrait he had taken. He discovered that an accidental double exposure caused the effect,
and he figured out how to duplicate it.
Mumler began a new career as a spirit medium. Sitters were willing to pay exorbitant fees
to have him taketeir picture, which Mumler would doctor with surrounding ghostly images.
The added faces were often interpreted as deceased loved ones or celebrities. In the photo
shown here, Mumler has inserted the image of the recently assassinated Abraham Lincoln.
Mumlers trickery inspired a long line of successors. Photographers used similar
techniques through the early 20th century to great fanfare. However, things began to
crumble when word got out that many of the ghostly spectres in his photos were
recognizably living Boston townsfolk. This led him to move his operation to New York,
but he was brought to trial in 1869 and charged with fraud.

3.

Flora Louden

In spite of Mumlers proven dishonesty, a few of the ghost pictures that surfaced in the
decade followingwhen he worked are worthy of attention. For example, there is the work
of Ed Wyllie. The ghosts in his photographs have the same familiar pasted-in appearance
as other spirit extras, but the stories behind his pictures are compelling.
In 1901, Wyllies claims were investigated by Rverend Charles Cook, a reputed sceptic. He
reported that Wyllie had no opportunity to introduce a fake spirit extra to the negative.
More importantly , Cook recognized the girl Flora Louden, his college classmate from
1866, who had died in Ohio in 1873.
But this not irrefutable proof. Cook was not the most reliable of debunkers, since we know
that on another occasion he was deceived by disigenuous spectre photographer Alex
Martin. He could well have been deceived here, by his faded memories of a long-lost love.
4.

Faces in the sea

In December 1924, an accident at sea took the lives of two crewmen of the S.S.
Watertown. James Courtney and Michael Meehansuccombed to toxic gas fumes in the
cargo tank, and were given traditional burrials at sea.
The following day, the captain and the crew saw two ghostly faces in the water trailing
behind the ship. Everyone agreed that the faces were plainly visible, remaining intact for
long moments before dissipating. The captain got a camera and took six pictures of the
heads. Once they were developed, five of them showed nothing but blank waves. The
sixth, contained rough oultines that approximate two sets of human features.
The crew may have been suffering from mass hysteria following the sudden demiseof their
fellow seamen. In times of stress, a tightly knit group of people can become easily
suggestibleand even share communaldelusions.like clouds, swirls of ocean foam provide
an excellent canvas on which the human mind may imagine patterns where there are none.

5.

The Hollywood ghost boy

The honour of being the best known ghost picture of recent years probably goes to an
unlikely candidate: the so-called ghost boy in the movie Three Men and a Baby .
The comedy has its cinematic release in 1987, and it wasn;t until it had been out on home
video for a while that the ghost stories surrounding the film began to circulate. In one of
the final scenes, a figure is briefly visible behind the curtains of a window. It looks like a
motionless young boy.
The popular rumour is that a boy had died in the house where the movie was filmed, and
his ghost returned to haunt the film crew. However, the scene in question was shot on a
Hollywood soundstage, not in a real home where anyone ever lived or died. And the boy
everyone has seen was not a ghost- he was cardboard. According to the cast and crew, the
mysterious figure was a life-size cardboard cutout of the movie star, Ted Danson. Someone
on the set propped it up in front of the window as a prank.
6.

Anne Boleyn

The Second Wife of Henry VIII and mother of a future Queen Elizabeth I, Anne Boleyn
had three years as queen consort before Henry tired of her. Accused (most historians agree
falsely) of adultery, incest and witchcraft, she faced an executioners sword with her head
held high on May 19th, 1536. The executioner was reported to have said Where is my
sword? before striking the single blow necessary, apparently in an effort to ease Annes
anticipation by making her think she had a few moments more.
Her ghost has been spotted by several different people in several different locations: Hever
Castle, Blickling Hall, Salle Church, Marwell Hall, and perhaps most famously the Tower
of London. Though she is most often seen just as she was alive- a beautiful woman in a
beautiful gown- some sightings are a bit more upsetting. More unlucky individuals will see
her as she was just after death- headless, often with the head tucked under one arm. It has
become such an iconic image it is often parodied in movies and television, and more
elaborate Halloween costumes. One must not forget, however, what you would think if
such a vision approached you in some dark corridor one night.

7. The legend of Chloe

Legend has it Chloe was a slave in the house of the Myrtles Plantation in St. Francisville,
Louisiana who had a bad habit of listening at keyholes to the goings on of the residents.
Caught one day in the act by the Master of the house, he lopped off her ear as punishment,
forcing her to wear a green scarf over her head to cover the wound. As punishment, she
baked a cake with oleander leaves, a common plant in the south that is immensely
poisonous. Though the master of the house was her target, her victims became his wife and
two daughters, who died in agony a couple days after eating the cake. Chloe fled the house
and was lynched by field slaves on the plantation for the wicked light she cast on the rest
of them.
Fortunately or not, there is no historical evidence to back up this story, just an intriguing
photo. True or not (probably not), there are certainly plenty of other ghosts to keep you
company, including a young girl frequently spotted in a mirror on the stairs, and another
young girl who chants voodoo over people who dare to sleep in her room. The Myrtles is
currently a Bed and Breakfast that gives regular tours to those curious enough to want to
see the house- just not alone after dark.
8. The Ha mpt on Cou rt Gh ost
In 2003, an image was captured by closed-circuit security cameras at the Hampton Court
Palace in London, England. The fire alarms had sounded, indicating that one of the doors
had opened. Guards rushed to the area, but found the doors closed with no one nearby.
Only the ghostly figure on the camera footage, nicknamed Skeletor, provided any clues.
Perhaps one of Henry VIIIs beheaded wives returned?
It wasnt just security staff who thought they were seeing things. A visitor wrote in the
palaces visitor book on the second day that she too thought she had seen a ghost in that
area.
CCTV footage of the figure caught the attention of the worlds media, with reports in
newspapers and on TV and radio as far a field as India, Australia and Peru!

LESSON PLAN
Teacher: Grigore Georgiana
Date: 07.06.2016
Class: XI D
School: Liceul National Gheorghe Sincai, Bucuresti
No. of students:
Level: Advanced
Textbook: Upstream, Advanced-C1, Express Publishing
Unit: 9 Reading: More than Meets the Lens
Topic: Ghost stories
Materials: Textbook, choped texts
Skills involved: reading, speaking, writing
Class management: whole class activities, group work, pair work
Aims:
-To practise speaking skills by sharing ideas upon the subject
-To practise reading skills (skimming)
-To improve creativity and writing skills by writing short stories
Objectives: By the end of the lesson the students will be able to:
-Give and exchange opinions on the subject
-Scan the texts for synonyms
-Skim the texts for global meaning
Activity 1: Warmer Brainstorming
Aim: to warm up the students, to make the lead into the subject
Time: 10
Materials: blackboard
Interaction: T-S, S-T, S-S
Focus: Speaking
Evaluation/assessment: Ss answers
Procedure: T writes the title of the lesson on the blackboard and asks the students what the lesson might
be about. Then, T asks them questions about the existence of ghost and related questions. Students answer
and give opinions together with words related to the subject that are written on the blackboard.
Activity 2: Reading activity (skimming, scanning)
Aim: to improve reading skills
Time: 15
Materials: chopped texts about ghosts
Interaction: S-S T-S, S-T,
Focus: Reading
Evaluation/assessment: Ss answers

Procedure: T tells the students they will work in groups of four and will receive some jumbled ghost
stories. They will have to unjumble them as a group and then the spokesperson will read it outloud. After all
the groups have read their stories, they share opinions and open their books to see the pictures of the ghosts
they have been reading about. (pg 200)
Activity 3: Reading
Aim: to improve reading skills (scanning)
Time: 10
Materials: textbook
Interaction: S-S T-S, S-T,
Focus: Reading - scanning
Evaluation/assessment: Ss answers
Procedure: T tells the students to scan the texts for synonyms to the words from activity 2.a. (pg 201), then
to find at least three words that mean ghost. Both the synonyms and the ghost words are written on the
whiteboard.
Activity 4: Writing
Aim: to improve writing skills and creativity
Time: 15
Materials: textbook, notebooks
Interaction: S-S T-S, S-T,
Focus: Writing
Evaluation/assessment: Ss answers
Procedure: The students will work again in the same grouping structure as before in order to write a short
ghost story for the class competition. Each group will read the story and the best stories will be voted.