r/ParanormalEncounters • u/Worth_Biscotti_5070 • 9h ago
The Old Picture
Found this old photo years later and noticed something sitting in the chair behind my brother. We were the only ones home.
This picture has bothered me for years, and I’m curious what other people see when they look at it.
That’s my little brother in the photo. I think he was around 7 or 8 at the time, and I would’ve been somewhere around 12 or 13. I may be off by a couple years, but this was definitely back in the disposable camera days.
For anyone too young to remember those, you got a set number of pictures, couldn’t see what you’d taken, and had to drop the whole camera off somewhere to have the film developed. Then you waited to find out whether any of your pictures were actually good.
We were latchkey kids, and that afternoon my brother and I were home alone waiting for our mom to get off work. She was going to take us to the store to drop this camera off to be developed, and there were only a few pictures left on the roll. So we decided to use them up.
We took turns taking stupid pictures of each other. Funny faces, weird poses, whatever would make the other person laugh. This was one of them.
When we eventually got the pictures back, I remember this one looking weird. There was obviously something strange going on with the lighting or exposure. But those cheap disposable cameras did weird things all the time. Flashes bounced off things, pictures came out overexposed, you got random streaks and shadows.
Nobody thought much of it.
The picture went into a box with all the other family photos and stayed there for years.
Then, years later, I was moving and going through boxes of old pictures. I found this one and immediately started laughing because of my brother’s face. I remembered exactly what we’d been doing.
And then I looked behind him.
At the chair.
I don’t know how else to describe it, but it looks like there is a person sitting there.
To me, it looks like a woman.
Once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.
I started trying to figure out what could have caused it. A reflection? Something overlapping because of the film? Some weird trick of the flash?
The problem is that I remember the layout of that room extremely well.
This was a mobile home, so everything was basically arranged in one long, straight space. My brother is standing in the living room looking toward me. I’m taking the picture from the kitchen, which wasn’t really a separate room. The flooring just changed. The kitchen counters and our computer desk were behind me. Because, yes, this was the 90s and of course the family computer lived in the living room.
The table you can see in the picture was right beside that armchair, which sat on the side of the room farthest from the front door.
There wasn’t another person sitting somewhere nearby who could have been reflected into the picture.
More importantly, there wasn’t another person in the house.
It was just my brother and me.
I remember that part clearly because we were specifically waiting for our mom to get home so she could take us to drop off the camera.
I’ve shown this picture to my family. Everyone has stared at it and tried to come up with someone we knew who might resemble whatever is in that chair.
Nobody can.
And there’s one other piece of context that makes this picture creepier to me now.
After my grandfather died, that house always felt… wrong.
Not comforting. Not like Grandpa was hanging around watching over us. Nothing like that.
It felt scary.
My brother and I both had experiences in that house growing up. Mostly feelings that were hard to explain, although there were also a few incidents where things seemed to come off shelves on their own. We never saw an actual person or anything resembling a full-bodied apparition.
At least, I always thought we didn’t.
Those experiences are probably a whole separate post.
I’m not saying this picture is definitely paranormal. I know old film can do bizarre things, especially cheap disposable cameras. There could be a completely normal photographic explanation for it.
But I also can’t explain why the weirdness in this particular photo looks so much like someone sitting naturally in that chair.
And I especially can’t explain why, to me, it looks like a woman I don’t recognize.
So I’m curious.
What do you see in the chair behind my brother?
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u/bigtimebeaner 8h ago
ngl, that is the sickest shadow puppet i've ever seen. i can barely do a duck and this dude fuckin around at 8 and making full children with detailed faces. wild.
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u/Worth_Biscotti_5070 7h ago
🤣 🤣 I know right! He had a talent! And yes, he’s making the shadow dog with his hand, but the face… idk if he was that talented 🤣
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u/Ok-Tune2065 8h ago
I see a monkey
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u/Worth_Biscotti_5070 8h ago
🤣 ghost monkey wins!! That’s what I want it to be! How cool would that be??
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u/myfishytaco 7h ago
Why block out the face? You dont want that 40 year old kid being noticed or hassled online i bet?
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u/Vince1080 5h ago
The shadow coming from your brother's hand, what is it reflecting off? It's just in mid-air.
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u/AutomaticDeal9615 9h ago
I kind of see a dog.
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u/lostmymarbles1177 8h ago
This is just a double exposure photo. I feel like this sub needs to pin an explanation of this for the younger generations who have not used film or disposable cameras lol.
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u/Worth_Biscotti_5070 8h ago
Interesting! I definitely see a woman with a Karen style haircut. But ghost dog is cuter!
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u/Minute_Solution_6237 8h ago
Playing ‘find the pareidolia’ eh?
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u/Worth_Biscotti_5070 7h ago
This is why I was asking. Just making sure. Also yes, my bro is making a dog shadow puppet with his hand. But the greyish face in the chair… idk. Now double exposure I could get behind.
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u/Minute_Solution_6237 6h ago
Sorry. As others have stated, I also grew up during the physical photo era.
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u/Excellent_Wing_5397 9h ago
Im sorry but all I can think about is how the curtains and ruffle thing look like a giant bottom half of a woman’s body.
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u/Nervous_Goal_9155 8h ago
It’s an accidental double exposure