A family have spoken of their shock after unearthing a mysterious picture hiding underneath the floorboards of their home.
The creepy image shows a family standing in front of a church doorway while what appears to be a translucent, shadowy figure lurks in the background. In the picture, a couple and a young boy are dressed in what appears to be 1960s style clothing.
All three are smiling serenely at the camera, completely unaware of anything untoward standing right behind them. Mum Beverley Edmondson Cropper said her son, Ryan, and his dad, Paul Stanfield, found the scary image while doing renovation work.
She said they unearthed it under the floorboards of Paul’s house in Douglas Road, Bacup. And after inquiring about it online, hastily reburied the chilling image back where they found it.
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But the perplexing image has prompted much speculation over just what is standing behind the unidentified, happy family in the photograph, after Beverley posted about it in a local Facebook group, Lancs Live reports. She said: “There looks to be like a monk in the doorway of the photo - it’s all a bit creepy.
“No one claimed the photo, so my son re-buried it under the floorboards. Him and his dad had just moved in, and they are doing the property up, so we don’t know the previous owners."
Yet mystery surrounds the location, date and identify of those pictured in the chilling image.
Beverley said, in her post: “My son found this under some floorboards in a house he’s doing up in Bacup - spooky. It looks like a church doorway.” With many residents agreeing that the image was indeed chilling, the post prompted much speculation ensued over what ghostly figures were spotted lurking behind. A man in a suit, a monk and even a horse’s head were said to have been spotted by some.
One local commented: “I’d be putting it back under the floorboards.” Another said: “I see a horse’s head on the man’s front, but on the left, I see a man with a beard wearing a suit and tie! In the doorway, I spot a hooded figure that looks maybe like a monk.”
She continued: “It’s a great photo, The man stood behind has the most creepy eyes. Reminds me of the photo once taken at the theatre in the dressing room when there was another person in the frame that wasn’t even in the cast.”
However, some locals speculated that the strange figures in the vintage photograph could in fact be the result of double exposure, a photo which arises from exposing the same photographic film twice, combining two images. But they still advised hastily putting the bone chilling image back beneath the floorboards just in case, adding: “Spooky looking, might just be a double exposure. But wonder who the folk are.”
Meanwhile, another said: “I’d be putting it back where I found it,” while another said: “I’d just put it back next to the bag of bones and forget about it.”
Paul Pearson, of LAPIS, Lancashire’s Anomalous Phenomena Investigation Society, said: “The photo appears to show a translucent gentleman stood in the back of what appears to be a family group. There is also a hint of a person or something in the open doorway."
He continued: “Perhaps the age of the house being renovated would help. Is there a copyright stamp on the rear from a professional photographer? One possible cause would be a part or double exposure.
"Some photos in earlier days took several seconds or even minutes to expose, and if someone moved or walked away they would then be only partly exposed and appear as a ghost. It could also be a re-use of a frame of film that had already been partially exposed by accident, and then re-exposed with another photo on top. Intriguing image; it will be interesting to see if any of your readers can identify the church or even the family involved.”
Bacup, a town in the Rossendale borough, is no stranger to claims of paranormal activity. Among the alleged paranormal hotspots are Flowers Inn, where the Paranormal Activity Research Team of Lancashire allegedly found a ghost girl named 'Molly,’ along with several other entities including an elderly man with a limp and a little girl who died of scarlet fever.
The same investigative team descended on Bacup’s Royal Theatre in April 2008, and were said to have detected numerous entities including a woman named Kitty and a man named Jackson by the Circles seating area, a doctor-like figure in reception, and other ‘presences’ throughout the building. Meanwhile, a lane near Burnley Road was said to have given rise to whistling and heavy breathing, with claims the mysterious sounds emanated from a woman who died of a broken heart after losing her husband and child.
Rossendale is also said to have attracted strange goings on over the years, with many reports of ghost and UFO sightings in the Ramsbottom and Rochdale Road area. Bacup dad Mike Stoddart, 62, reported seeing a mysterious flying saucer like object hovering in the sky over Bacup on June 22 just after 10pm this year.
Mr Pearson, of Lancashire’s Anomalous Phenomena Investigation Society, said: “Regarding Rossendale’s wider paranormal activity there is lots! There have been Big Cat sightings across the years, notably at Huttock Top and the picnic site on New Line. There are famous ghost reports from Bacup’s Royal Court Theatre, and the previously reported odd photograph of ghostly children’s legs at the former Craven Heifer, now Kashmir restaurant, in Rawtenstall.
“There are many more ghost stories around the area. The Valley is also a “window area” for UFO reports, dating back decades and featured in Stacksteads born UFO researcher Jenny Randle's classic UFO research book, The Pennine UFO Mystery.
"LAPIS have also had historic reports from the 1990s when we were contacted by a man called David who just wanted to tell us his story as he had kept it secret for many years. David’s sighting occurs over Ramsbottom and Rochdale Road. Interestingly, a year after his sighting there were three reports made to the MOD in Rochdale, Heywood and Bury. There is much paranormal activity in Rossendale to look into."
There have been hundreds of sightings of ghosts and other supernatural apparitions recorded in Lancashire. PsychicWorld.com collated a list of 11,700 paranormal sightings across the UK to find the nation’s spookiest places.
That included 355 sightings in Lancashire, which equates to around three supernatural encounters for every 10,000 people living in our area. The figures, collated from paranormal databases tracking sightings across the UK, show that ghosts riding on phantom horses are the most common apparition.
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