Stephen D. Smith look at Gary Cooke photo

For a number of reasons, I took a closer look at some of these pictures. Firstly, and as Vincent O'Neil points out, some of these pictures have no reference point to indicate where they were taken. However, if you look to the left of the mist in picture one (at the top of the page), you can clearly make out the window on the south side of the church's nave.

Secondly, I wondered if the pictures had been cropped or if they were whole. I measured them as having a ratio of 4:3 (the normal digital image ratio), so I guess we're seeing the whole picture, not just a section of it (unless, of course, they've been cropped to that ratio).

Thirdly, I wondered if the "mist" could be cigarette smoke (no, I'm not suggesting that Gary's faking evidence, but I thought it was important to eliminate the "possible" causes in order to be left only with the "impossible"). After two cigarettes and 15 minutes in my cold garden at night, I had to conclude that it wasn't cigarette smoke. I blew smoke upwind, downwind, crosswind, and photographed it close up and from a distance. I too used a digital camera but, even so, the results were no where near what appears in Gary's photographs.

Fourthly, I converted the colour images to black & white and then looked at them as negatives (sometimes negative images reveal or enhance things that aren't viewable as positives - take the Shroud of Turin, for example). The results? Well, if you want to let your imagination run wild... the negative image of the first picture could be interpreted as showing an E.T.-like creature with horns!

Stephen D. Smith


All photos submitted are unedited. Some have extraneous borders, which are cropped. The software used has a tendacy to "fuzz" pictures when reduced to fit computer screens, which necessitates using the "sharpen" option, but no retouching is done. (Vincent O'Neil)