In 1997, Trailers From Hell co-founder Elizabeth Stanley snapped a picture of rock critic Brett Meisner at Jim Morrison’s grave in Paris. What Meisner claimed he didn’t notice until five years later was that the ghostly figure of a man who looks an awful lot like Morrison can be seen standing behind him in the photo. Check it out for yourself right here:
The story spread like crazy on the internet, with many, of course, debating whether or not it was a ghost or some kind of fake. Meisner eventually agreed to have both the picture and the negative sent for extensive analysis. According to the 2009 book Ghosts Caught on Film 2: Photographs of the Unexplained, researchers who studied the photo back then determined that it hadn’t been faked.
However, they were apparently unable to establish what caused the illusion of a ghost in the background—if it is, in fact, an illusion.
The Creepy 1997 Photograph That Allegedly Shows Jim Morrison’s Ghost
For starters, the folks who examined the picture ruled out the possibility that a trick of the light was responsible for the apparition. They also said that image manipulation—the most plausible explanation—appeared “unlikely.” In conclusion, the book called the image “unexplainable.” But that didn’t end up being the final word on the subject.
In 2010, members of the Miami Paranormal Research Society declared that the photograph had been fabricated using the Pepper’s ghost illusion technique—a process that involves projecting an image off of a sheet of glass. The proof of this, they explained, is that you can see breaks in the arms of the “ghost” if you look close enough. The so-called phantom person, whoever they are, clearly follows the contours of the doorway they were allegedly projected onto as well. If the technique was indeed utilized here, the negative would show no signs of alteration.
As for the rumor that Tom Petty had taken the picture in question, the team in Miami found no evidence of that. Stanley publicly acknowledged that she was responsible for it in 2014, but didn’t mention anything about it being a hoax.
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