The Ghost Under the Bed

Netlore Archive: Email chain letter claims that a ghost depicted in the attached image will 'collect your soul' if you don't forward it to at least five people

Description: Chain letter w/image
Circulating since: Oct. 2004
Status: False

Email example contributed by A. Riner, 28 October 2004:

Comments: Chain letters promising dire consequences for those who fail to pass them along are old news, but variants accompanied by "ghost" photos such as the one above are a relatively new phenomenon and unique to the Internet, so far as I'm aware. A specimen popular in 2003 featured an apparition purportedly caught on film in Bangladesh. "The Ghost Under the Bed" began circulating just before Halloween 2004.

To those who will inevitably write and demand to know how I can "prove" that the chain letter and accompanying image are fake, I can only respond that if you really believe such proof is necessary, no logic or evidence is likely to convince you otherwise.

For the rest, suffice it to say that: 1) photos like the above are easily fabricated using double exposure or digital manipulation, 2) chain letters do not exercise magical powers over their recipients, and 3) ghosts - dare I say it? - simply do not exist.

Update: Alex Boese of The Museum of Hoaxes informs me that this image was clearly ripped from a 2003 Thai horror film (see DVD cover image at right) known variously as "The Unborn" or "The Mother."

He adds that he first received the image attached to a similar, but different, ghost story (quoted verbatim):

"This picture was taken in one of the rooms of 'Our Lady of Charity' hospital in Toluca, Mexico while one of the patients was asleep, the patient had been involved in a multiple car accident and the lady under the bed was the only one person who died in the same accident and taken to the morgue, the brother's patient captured this image with his own camera and the picture has been seen around the world and has been authenticated by the research center in Chicago, Illinois."

Last updated: 11/15/04

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