Illinois Paranormal Research Society

ac123,

Yeah, I might have come across unnecessarily harsh with that, so I apologize for my delivery if not my criticism. Presumably people come here for expert opinion, but opinions rendered without supporting facts are just gut feelings, and not a hypothesis built on scientific method.

Frankly, I expected more than "Eh, it's a fake", which was my own initial reaction but ultimately wasn't supported by the evidence I was able to develop once I took the time to look for it.

"I believe it's a fake because X and Y and Z suggest some manipulation of the image" carries more weight than "I think it's a fake".

Edited to add:
I just noticed that Dr. Stroud edited his (her?) comment to reflect that he doesn't necessarily believe the photo was faked, just that it's not a ghost. The comment I responded to last night stated simply that Dr. Stroud believed the photo was "100% fake".

I guess I'll have to turn elsewhere for help in figuring out this picture.

Here's a picture of the entire Vatican Alter. After you download the pic, enlarge it and look at the lower left. The statue of the Virgin Mary (not shown in the blog image) is just to the right of the orginal shot. It's head angle and hands match the orientation in the picture. How it ended up in the shot (lens flare, relfection, ???), can't say. But they sure look the same.


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... ltar_2.jpg