Can inanimate objects be haunted? Can a spirit attach itself to a particular thing and then cause unexplained events to occur around it?
I received an interesting story from a reader, Laura P., whose avocation is painting. An accomplished painter, Laura has sold many of her works to individuals and businesses around the US. One painting in particular, however, is unlike any other that Laura has ever done. Its subject matter, to begin with, is most unusual: it is based on a paranormal photograph - a photograph that may have captured the image of a headless ghost.
Could this ghost have attached itself to Laura's painting? Read her story... and you decide.
In 1994, James Kidd, a commercial photographer, had placed one of his photos on display at a gallery in Tombstone, Arizona where I was showing some of my oil paintings. The photo was the old stagecoach stop at Tombstone. He first took a photo of the stagecoach stop and an old stagecoach, and then he didn't wind his camera so he could get a double exposure photo with another old wagon in the foreground.
When the picture was developed, however, it revealed something unexpected. Standing on a log to the left of the wagon is a figure that the photographer did not see when he took the picture. Upon close inspection, the figure appears to be a headless man! The figure's coat, pants and boots are quite plain and easy to see. But he has no head. The photographer says the photo has been examined by Kodak and other experts to prove that he did not doctor it in any way. [The original photo can be seen at Ghosts of Tombstone.]
I couldn't get over that photo and asked him if I could do an oil painting of it. (I do most of my paintings from photos I've taken.) He said I could. Back home in Sierra Vista, Arizona, I began work on a 16 x 20-inch oil painting based on the photo.
When I was about half way through completing the painting, I started getting a strange feeling. I began to ask myself: Why on earth did I want to paint this picture? And maybe I should never have started it. But I did finish it. And then some very strange, unexplained things began to happen around my home - seemingly centered around that painting.
I do not believe in ghosts, but I cannot for the life of me explain how or why these strange things have happened. I cannot attribute every one of these events directly to the painting, but they have all taken place since it has been in my house - and are totally unexplained.
THE HAUNTING BEGINS
Office Havoc. I took the framed painting with some others for a display in a business location. We hung the ghost painting on the wall behind an office desk. Three days later, people from the office called and asked me to come pick up the ghost painting. Every morning, they claimed, the painting was crooked. They would straighten it, and the next morning it would be crooked again. Also, appointments were inexplicably messed up and papers went missing. They were actually afraid of it. I took the painting back.
Mysterious Leak. In 1995, my husband and I moved into a brand new home in Tennessee. We wondered if these ghostly goings-on would stop. But they didn't. Oddly, the roof on the garage of this new home had a leak when it rained. The roofers came out three times to repair it, and although they worked on it they said they could not find the cause of the leak. It didn't make any sense. Nothing they did stopped the darn leak. Finally, my husband asked me where the ghost painting was. It was leaning against the wall between the living room and garage. We moved the painting... and the garage roof never leaked again.
Next page: The Haunting Intensifies
