A haunting picture: Apparitions and strange vibrations 

The picture looked innocent enough. It was old, portraying a gray image of a young man in a suit, clean cut, hair neatly combed, on thick paper yellowed with age.

But the electromagnetic field meter, pointed at the innocuous portrait, was reading through the roof. Could this brittle, decaying photograph, tucked away in the attic of the office that is my windowless dungeon (where I hammer away at a keyboard crafting awe-inspiring sentences) be the source of other worldly occurrences? It would explain the strange noises, creaks and bumps often heard with no explanation.

This adventure had started as a lark one recent afternoon. At lunch a friend and colleague of mine commented on seeing an EMF meter, commonly used in ghost hunting, at a discount shop. No need to buy anything, I told him, and with a few clicks on my smart device, I was equipped to investigate the paranormal. Yes, there is an app for everything.  

Back in the office, I put my telephone/spirit detecting device to work. At first everything appeared normal. Pointing the device upward, however, caused a great disturbance on the machine. The screen turned a bloody red color and indicated a reading related to the paranormal.

Assembling a small team, we mounted the old stair into the building’s attic. The meter led us around stacks of boxes, old furniture and the discarded tools of the newspaper trade, everything from ancient typewriters to old computer monitors, straight to the photo in question.  

A haunted picture is nothing new in the events of human history. There are countless tales of supernatural happenings tied to great works or art and unexplainable images that have been captured on film.

One such masterpiece is “The Dead Mother” by Edvard Munch. The chilling work, painted in 1899, shows a small child, hands to her ears as if in a state of shock, standing before the lifeless body of her parent. The work has been in the collection of the Kunsthalle Bremen in Germany since 1918. The owners of the piece, current and past, report that the child is always watching. The eyes follow people nearby. The sounds of rustling sheets and footsteps emanate from the canvas. Some have reported looking up to the artwork and the girl is gone altogether.

Back in the attic, we examined the portrait of the young man. He looked innocent enough; nothing in his appearance hinted at anything sinister. But looking closer, there was another picture underneath. We moved the young man aside and discovered another portrait.

On crumbling paper, blackened around the edges, was the photo of an old man. His hair was disheveled, pointing from his balding head in every direction, his chin was adorned with a long beard and his eyes were wild, rife with what looked like a peer of pure hatred.

The EMF reader, still pointed at the previous picture, returned to normal. I moved it toward the old man and the screen turned blood red …