Phantom of the Flame: North Carolina Woman Captures Ghostly Civil War Apparition in Campfire

We feature a lot of spooky ghost photos here at Week in Weird, and when you’ve seen enough of them, it starts to take a lot to elicit a response other than “feature it” or “throw it into a roundup with others”. That’s why when a spooky new photo came across the news desk at Weird HQ, it was a big deal when the image evoked audible gasps.

The ghostly image was submitted by a reader who glanced it in his Facebook feed, sending along a link with the following text via one Miranda S. of Asheville, North Carolina:

I took this picture one night with my mom’s blackberry at the Asheville fireman’s camp on the river near bent creek. We didn’t think nothing of it since I had just took random pictures that night to kill time. We went home without my mom even looking at her phone and went to sleep. At about 3 that morning she woke up screaming about a dream she had that a man told her to look at the fire, she got her phone and we started looking at every picture I had took that night about 130 of them. We got to this picture and we both just looked at each other and started trying to do research about pictures like it and finding information about the area.

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The photo appears to show a man’s moaning face emanating from the fire, with some commenters claiming they can see a beard, arms, and hands. I took the liberty of altering the image a bit, and the result is most definitely creepy, and even more compelling.

A little fiddling with the contrast, and few things really begin to pop. Most obvious is the ghoulish looking phantom skull on the left hand side of the flame, but what I’m more interested in is the man who looks a hell lot like a Civil War soldier on the right hand side. See him? He’s got a beard and everything.

A little closer, just to be safe:

Spooky, huh? Has the same kind of vibe as the ghost photos of old. The city of Asheville is dotted with Civil War history, so it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if the soldiers made a ghostly appearance once in awhile, even if it is on a Blackberry.

So what do you think? Was a Civil War soldier making his presence known from the other side? Have you captured a creepy ghost photo of your own? We want to hear from you! Drop us a line on Facebook, tweet us @WeirdHQ, or leave your thoughts in the comments below!

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