Debunked: Cooper/Copper family ghost photo

So, is there any possibility there was an error with the two different rolls being processed in the same facility, and the person who took the photo of the figure is the one who disseminated the image? (getting an unexpected family portrait in their experimental art photography?)
Or can it only have been deliberately manipulated?

Two rolls of film somehow getting intermingled without anyone noticing, and then creating this well-composed image, seems pushing the bounds of possibility.

I think a modern digital manipulation is by far the most likely explanation.
 
Two rolls of film somehow getting intermingled without anyone noticing, and then creating this well-composed image, seems pushing the bounds of possibility.

I think a modern digital manipulation is by far the most likely explanation.

I agree with Mick, if it was a case of two rolls of film going through the process wrapped up on the same reel, the whole of the image of the upside down dancer would be superimposed across the family pic, not just the figure

You could do it in the dark room deliberately, using a cut up negative laid on the family snap negative, but its a fiddly process, and not easy to pull off well. (not say that this a very convincing effort by the way)

There is a slight chance that if it was processed by a big commercial machine the end frame of one roll could overlap slightly with the first frame of the next and superimpose, I know back in the days when I was mucking about with film photography (in the pre digital age) I had a few films come back from the processors like that.

But anyway, without the negative to inspect we can't tell, and given the analysis above from Mick and co and the eye witness account that can be verified, I am certain it is a fake, and more than likely a modern one.
 
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Some sites, like Tumblr shares, go on to say how the boys had nightmares for years and years.

We are the two boys in the picture.

This seems like a wild scheme to give a conspiracy life (or take it away), whilst the purpose of this site is quite the opposite. Like users reviving GLP stories from 2009-2010 for ad revenue and sub-site launches, could be very silly.

Wow! Awesome.

So, it looks like the "boys had nightmares for years and years" at least is debunked.

Which does kind of undermine the rest of the yarn.

I love that Robert Copper popped in to explain...
though I'm not sure this site got the big fat jump in ad revenue we all planned. ;)

Thanks Robert C. for taking the time to send Mick a pic. You win "Debunker of the Week"




p.s. Does kind of ruin my weekend plans, though, re. re-watching my Nureyev/Fonteyn
DVD of Swan Lake, whilst decompressing on my Ironman inversion table...
 
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First off, I'd like to say thank you to @Robert C. for coming here and solving this mystery. I know it's possibly a bit upsetting, but try and laugh it off if you can. You've busted your very own Internet ghost story hoax, I'd definitely be able to eat out at least once on that :)

I have a possible source for the picture, but it's very circumstantial, well below the standards these guys like to uphold. Given the picture has been "debunked", it'll perhaps give you an idea how it could have happened, and maybe reassure you that it probably wasn't anything malicious.

Back in January I contacted Sam Cowan on Ligotti.net (Sam is the guy who posted what seems to be the earliest available image on the web) and he was kind enough to reply....

Hi Dean. Its weird, someone else asked me about this via Facebook recently. Sorry I can't add any more info about the pic but I snagged it somewhere online a few years ago, I think a "Post Creepy Photos" thread on Something Awful. I most definitely had no involvement in creating it, just thought it was cool. Now I'm curious.. Cheers, Sam
Content from External Source
A trawl of Somethingawful brought up a few possibilities, though the closest I could find to the title he suggests was from the early 2000s and most of the links were long dead. No sign of the picture itself or mention of the Cooper family or "Hanging man" in site searches ("Copper family" might be worth a go now tho).

I did come across this thread - Create Paranormal Images - which ran from June 2009 to Feb 2010 (Sam uploaded the pic to Ligotti in Jan 2010). Unfortunately a lot of the image links are broken too, it is cached on Wayback and some of the images are on there, but no sign of this picture on either.

What I found interesting at the time was Gerogerigegege's (the creator of the thread) technique - deliberately creating low quality black and white images to mask a poor photochop and to look more "legit".

That seemed similar to what whoever created this picture did, although the blacks are crushed rather than washed out.

Creating paranormal images has been a hobby of mine for quite some time. Occasionally, I stumble upon odd web sites showcasing strange photos, and I always wondered if it were possible to get one of my own chops in a book, documentary, or web site just by casually leaking it out into the web -- whether they'd be supplements to bogus stories or not.

So, let's make a shitload?

Pro-tip 1: Before I export, I like to open my Levels panel, and slide my blacks and whites inward to lose true whites and true blacks. (Makes it look more legit, no?)

Pro-tip 2: Try exporting your image in a very low JPG quality at first. See if it works with the image, as well as hide minor flaws. After all, it can "add to the effect."

You don't have to post your source images, unless you want to of course.
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Running JPGSnoop on the "hanging man" image and his images identified them all as being Photoshopped and with a similar signature, just different quality levels.

For sources, he uses someone's Flickr album of old family photos (https://www.flickr.com/photos/weisert/sets/72157602424456917 - I can't see a ballerina or Robert's photo in there, nor does there look to be any family resemblance to Robert's family).

So there you go. Gerogerigegege's "MO" is similar but not the same, the similar JPG analysis doesn't really prove anything, and I can't find the picture or even a broken link with a likely name in the thread, though I guess the post could have been deleted once it "went viral".

I'll maybe have another search using "Copper family" if I get chance (and no-one else finds it first).

Obviously, someone did know the name of the people in the picture at some point (or that's a hell of a coincidence), so you might be able to solve that part of the mystery for your own satisfaction by speaking to family members about whether they've put family albums on-line.

Ray Von
 
Hey guys. First time on this site and this photo and discussion are what drew me here. I've read some claims this is a recent hoax, and other claims that it's not recent, nor a hoax, but simple double exposure mistake. But that prompted a question in my mind of what the "hanging person" is actually doing. The angle of the head didn't make sense if the person was hanging or leaning over. The hands aren't bound, so the person isn't hanging from their wrists when I turn the picture upside down. But something about this was bothering me--and it just recently occurred to me.

I'm not seeing this as a white male wearing dry longjohns, but a black female in white, wet baptismal outfit over regular clothes. Her hands are raised because she's praising God as she's coming out of the water. Head and hands are in motion which would help explain the blur. How this got mixed up with the family photo I don't know. Double exposure because of a reused something sounds just as plausible to me as somebody photo-shopping it in.
 
None of the information posted or proposed has convinced me that the photo was faked in the ways described. Sorry. Also, those kids in the other picture are not the kids in the hanging ghost picture.
 
None of the information posted or proposed has convinced me that the photo was faked in the ways described. Sorry. Also, those kids in the other picture are not the kids in the hanging ghost picture.

Do you have a better explanation that you would like to contribute?
 
Good job guys. The site did exactly as it claimed - debunked a wild hoax.
I'll have to check in more often now. Maybe post light evidence where I can.


Got to love how some poser with a generic username pops in after everything is said and done and says he doesn't believe it without providing a shred of evidence otherwise.

**edit: Also - due to the comparison of the original hoax copy and the colored copies - the nature of the hoax allows the fallingman/hangman/etc to be almost anything - probably a ballerina, or a black woman praising god, or a scarecrow - but the quality of the hoax image was definitely tampered. I'm not even sure that the hoax copy was done psychically, as it could have been done digitally any time during the last 30 years - so not sure about the "double exposure" theories - those fall under a dated fiction, assuming monochrome was the only quality and a darkroom the only way to produce. It simply is a falsehood.
 
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The thing is i saw this picture a little before something awful so it had to be older than that.. maybe about 2004 in fact it might have been about 2003 but no sooner than that.. but had never seen it prior to the web back then. but it is at least that old and i even have it on the harddrive of my old computer which is a pentium 3 so lol yeah its been awhile. The thing about the ballerinas is ridiculous lmao.. but if it is a fake.. and im not saying for sure that a lot of weirdo things are just explained away.. in my long life of 40 or more years occasionally ive stumbled across a picture.. in other decades usually from a time period such as the 50s or 60s like this one says it is.. that has some eerie story around it.. and i dont recall any forthright explanations ever really being produced and as people forgot.. life went on people forgot and they just remain sort of a well.. wtf i dunno. so there we have it yet another spooky old picture with no real debunk such as an obvious special effect with exposure.. no ones buying the ballerina story. thats just kind of silly.
 
The thing is i saw this picture a little before something awful so it had to be older than that.. maybe about 2004 in fact it might have been about 2003 but no sooner than that.. but had never seen it prior to the web back then. but it is at least that old and i even have it on the harddrive of my old computer which is a pentium 3 so lol yeah its been awhile. The thing about the ballerinas is ridiculous lmao.. but if it is a fake.. and im not saying for sure that a lot of weirdo things are just explained away.. in my long life of 40 or more years occasionally ive stumbled across a picture.. in other decades usually from a time period such as the 50s or 60s like this one says it is.. that has some eerie story around it.. and i dont recall any forthright explanations ever really being produced and as people forgot.. life went on people forgot and they just remain sort of a well.. wtf i dunno. so there we have it yet another spooky old picture with no real debunk such as an obvious special effect with exposure.. no ones buying the ballerina story. thats just kind of silly.
Hi :)

Why do you say there's 'no real debunk' when one of the people in the picture says the picture is fake and has been misappropriated?

Ray Von
 
The story of the picture has already been discussed here, and linked to Sam Cowan in 2009, who snagged it somewhere a few years before and knows nothing about it.

According to http://anomalyinfo.com/Stories/1959-cooper-family-ghost-photo the picture was added a comment in 10-15-2013 in two different locations:

https://acidcow.com/pics/51706-unexplained-photos-13-pics.html (English)

http://www.playground.ru/blogs/othe...orym_do_sih_por_ne_nashlos_obyasneniya-89624/ (Russian)

What puzzles me is that these guys (or this guy) knew a lot of accurate information about the picture more than 4 years after it was posted without any info:

"The falling body

As the Cooper's move into their new home in Texas, they take a photograph of the family sitting together, but as the photo is taken, a body falls from the ceiling. The OP said he wasn't sure if it was real, but he thought it was real creepy."
In: Acidcow.com

Anomalyinfo.com says these guys dated the picture in the 1950s and says that's perhaps a hunch, but I can't confirm that. Anyway, Texas, Cooper's family, and the move to the new home can't just be a hunch. The family isn't Coopers, but Coppers, just a misspelling.

Interestingly, both locations (acidcow.com and playground.ru) post the same pictures.

Maybe @Robert C. could confirm the information about the new home.

Also puzzling is how a family picture circulates outside family hand after half a century... Does Robert, or his brother hold the original picture?

This seems innocent, but intriguing:

There's a black area on the lower right corner, where boy's legs should show up. I don't know how important this is, maybe that's voiding some writing in the picture (anyway, that contours table's cover in great detail).

upload_2018-3-8_21-7-45.png
 
There's a black area on the lower right corner, where boy's legs should show up.
he's straddling his moms knees. the white on the side there is his foot.

Anomalyinfo.com says these guys dated the picture in the 1950s and says that's perhaps a hunch, but I can't confirm that. Anyway, Texas, Cooper's family, and the move to the new home can't just be a hunch. The family isn't Coopers, but Coppers, just a misspelling.
the something awful thread tells people to search picture archives. like flickr. the main one it seems they all used back then has since gone defunct. I forget the name of it now, but it's in the something awful thread. Anyway, if you look through family photo albums they are likely labeled. I have a family member that posted all old family photos on something called Mugshot or Mug something. anyway he labeled all the photos there. I am assuming that is how the name got attached. (or a family member made the ghost photo themselves).
 
Yes, deirde, there's his left foot, but you should have his right's, too. You can see a little of it above and below the black shadow. That black shadow is intriguing anyway.

If they got the info from labels in a family album, then the picture would be there, either with the falling body or without it. If the falling body was there, then the family knew about it (not what Robert says). If it wasn't (or not even that exact picture), then there's a great coincidence finding the family's album and the ghost picture elsewhere (excluding family members and a few other people, who watches family albums?). Also, Robert should know about such an album posted online, I think.
 
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who watches family albums?).
people who are looking for old photos to make fake ghost photos with.

ex go to flickr or photobucket and type in "1959 family"..lots of good pics to choose from to add a ghost to.

Also, Robert should know about such an album posted online, I think.
not necessarily. I have tons of family members who I have no idea what they are doing online. and he doesn't know who his mom gave the photo to. grandma? an aunt? a friend of grandma's?

Either way I think Mick showed well enough in the OP that the photo was manipulated a great deal.
 
I also think the pic was manipulated. But knowing that pic's history can also offer evidence.

Of course, someone could get the pic from a family album online, then manipulate it and post it.

But the oldest pic's source is from 2009, without any info (and author claims ignorance). Then comes the info in 2013, which is accurate enough, it seems.

Something is missing here.
 
hard to tell but looks like waffle images went down around 2011? https://web.archive.org/web/20110426075534/http://waffleimages.com:80/info

Obviously there is no guarantee that is where the photo was originally hosted.. but maybe the story was attached there. and the pic didn't really go viral until the original link went missing because it was under a fake photo thread somewhere?

I'm just guessing of course. then viral nova decided to resurrect it? (the earliest story source I could find with google using Cooper+ghost)
http://www.viralnova.com/unexplained-incidents/

this 2011 posting has a BeerCandle Forum tag. but .. google doesn't grab anything from that forum for some reason. So the truth is we cant really know when the story originated. It could have been on a blog or something that was taken down. or in an ungooglable forum?

I'm just guessing of course.


But knowing that pic's history can also offer evidence
More info is always fun to find. But bottom line.. if the photo was at all real they wouldn't have had to manipulate the original so much.
 
oh, and not that it matters... it could be a necklace, but when I started to look at photobucket quick for 1959 families (there's too many to go through).. I found a good example of why I think it may be a brooch ie a pin, not a necklace.
brooch.png
 
That black shadow is intriguing anyway.
I think it's just a coat over the back of a chair that's pulled a bit back from the table. It's slightly lit by the flash reflecting off the tablecloth.
Metabunk 2018-03-08 17-13-44.jpg

And looking at this contrast adjusted version I noticed you can see the blinds in the window behind, along with the curtains. It's a perfect match with the window in the photo that Robert sent me. He asked me not to post the whole thing, so here's the crop of the window

Metabunk 2018-03-08 17-20-33.jpg

Flipped to compare with the identical curtains and blinds on the other side:
Metabunk 2018-03-08 17-22-39.jpg
 
I'd like to add here a source I have just found earlier than Acidcow and Playground (these collected strange pics from many locations):

https://funnyjunk.com/channel/morbid-channel/Housewarming/wYYuGjL/

This is from 09-03-2013, thus earlier than 10-15-2013 in previous links.

Its legend: It's labeled:

"This is the first picture taken in the Cooper's new Texas house, as it was taken a dead body fell from the ceiling"

This is the earliest legend label content we can find by now. The pic is much older, as Sam posted it in 2009 without any legend label.

So, the pictures was snagged from somewhere else not yet found (maybe in the end we'll have family's album, if ever).

IMAO the pic was chosen because of the 3 candles in center of table and also for lots of space right above the candles.
 
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Justo for the curiosity, a Kindle book by Richard Ramsdell was released on 06-20-2016 about this picture:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HDZFMFM/?tag=cowboyprogra-20

upload_2018-3-11_9-41-35.png
I haven't read it and no customer reviews are available at this time.

Author claims this label to the pic:

"Sometime in the mid 1950’s the Cooper family of Texas bought an old house and moved into it. On their first night in the house the father took a photograph of the family to commemorate the event. Posed at the dinning room table were Mr. Cooper’s wife, their two young sons and his mother. Everyone was happy, it was their first home, their first slice of the American Dream.

Days (maybe weeks?) passed and finally the father took the exposed roll of film to the local pharmacy to have the pictures “developed”. He was told he could pick them up a week later; this was common in the chemical years of photography. One week later Mr. Cooper retrieved the small packet of snapshots from the pharmacy and returned home with them. When he came to the picture he had taken of his family on that first night in their “new” home, he saw what looked like a body, hanging from the ceiling."
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So, he adds (or accepts) a lot of information compared to the small label from 2013 and even though he adds a lot of detail, he doesn't know if days or weeks passed before developing the film (in a pharmacy?).

From the few pages available in preview, author claims no one over Interned could prove the pic is fake and it seems he aims demonstrating it's genuine.

He ignores that the family might be "Copper" instead, even tough this was disclosed here at Metabunk.org a year before releasing the book.

He claims he was able to build the entire Cooper's family tree from its first ancestor, William Cooper, 1630 in England. That's odd for a relatively common surname to have a single root. Not to mention the size of such an almost 400-years long tree, with 308,000 people now named Cooper in USA according to http://forebears.io/surnames/cooper#nations2014 Also, what if the family is Copper's?

In the next few pages in preview, he tells about a Benny Cooper, and implies the home was in Duxbury (this can be Vermont or Massachusetts according to Google Maps), and that they haven't ever lived in Texas.

So, the book ignores basic evidence easily available and accepts wrong information almost for sure.

Of course, I'm posting this just for the curiosity.
 
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I read all pages available in preview. Are you serious, @deirdre? I don't think author kills off anything at all.

He tells about Benny Cooper, family's archivist of everything left by mother passed away in 2012, saying the pic is fake and he's never seen the original, and that his father died shortly before he was born an his elder brother, John, died before Benny's 19th birthday. That's confusing because author talks like he's Benny.

All we can say is that Benny is hypothetically the youngest child in the picture. I hope I'm not missing something important.

Robert C (as Robert Copper) also replies to the illuminutti.com article cited by author, yet he simply ignores that, as it must be this one:

https://illuminutti.com/2014/10/30/the-cooper-family-falling-body-photo/
 
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That's confusing because author talks like he's Benny.
oh. you think "Benny" is Robert using a fake name? I assumed "Richard Benjamin" was the brother, because Robert's name is Robert. well, as far as we know.

But how could the brother have died when he posts here that he heard about the thread from his brother?
 
oh. you think "Benny" is Robert using a fake name? I assumed "Richard Benjamin" was the brother, because Robert's name is Robert. well, as far as we know.

But how could the brother have died when he posts here that he heard about the thread from his brother?

I think Robert Copper is simply ignored by author. Instead he tells about Benny and John. Whoever's Benny, I don't think he's Robert. It would be contradictory to say he's Copper and not Cooper and assume his brother is alive in 2015 in one instance and in another say he's a Cooper and his brother died long ago. They're different characters and there's no reason to believe who's real. As we can't read the rest of the book, we don't know if author interviewed Benny and he's offered evidence he's the younger child in picture.

Anyway, Benny says he's never seen that picture before, so how can author certify any information about the picture?

At least Robert showed another picture with the brothers here, and that's strong evidence he might be really the younger boy, as he claims.

This is my opinion and I hope I'm not missing something.

It would be highly valuable to hear from @Robert C. here.
 
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A Kindle book by Richard Ramsdell was released on 06-20-2016 about this picture:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01HDZFMFM/?tag=cowboyprogra-20
I suppose "Kindle book" is an accurate description of what it is, but I'd be very careful about attritibuting any special significance to any of his claims just 'cos it's on Amazon and purports to be a "book".

It's a poorly formatted self-published ebook: the sort of thing anybody could knock together in a few hours. Basically no different from a website/blog.

Also, he spells "dining" wrong in the first paragraph.

Plus, always be wary of Americans claiming to have researched their genealogy back several centuries: doing so properly takes a lot of work.

Are you sure it's not just a work of imagination?
 
ah. you're a cheeky one " @Robert C. " lol.

http://www2.fiit.stuba.sk/~sperka/emart/emart123/works.htm
RICHARD G. RAMSDELL, Sarasoga, Florida, USA:
1995-4, 1995
  • The pieces represented here is to be realized as large-scale, site-specific, tiled ink-jet prints.1995-4 will be approximately 144 x 540 inches and will be shown at the University of Idaho in the spring of 1996. The pieces have been created using Adobe Photoshop software on a Macintosh computer.
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more art examples:

http://faculty.washington.edu/dillon/rhethtml/crmontage/

http://www.blueskygallery.org/exhibition/richard-ramsdell/#6
 
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@Rory

I don't mean to give that book any credit whatsoever.

As I told, I posted it just for the curiosity. I think people discussing here shouldn't ignore there's such a book.

Personally, from the preview, I wouldn't credit that book very much, and still believe Robert C. is one of the boys in picture.

Anyone is free to think otherwise. We're here to discuss different points of view.
 
Sorry, I don't find it clear what this refers to. Seems to be showing that the guy who put the ebook on Amazon also used to make artworks that involved creating digital collages/montages from photos.

What's the reference to Robert C? Are you proposing that Richard G. Ramsdell is @Robert C?
 
Sorry, I don't find it clear what this refers to. Seems to be showing that the guy who put the ebook on Amazon also used to make artworks that involved creating digital collages/montages from photos.

What's the reference to Robert C? Are you proposing that Richard G. Ramsdell is @Robert C?
you have to read the book. and by read, I mean skim a lot because it's 90% boring fluff. Normally I wouldn't suggest such a thing - but the book is kinda brilliant. Not sure he meant it to be.. but it literally (hint "LITERALLY" says Donna) has something for everyone.

If you don't want to buy it, i'll tell you in a few months after his photos go viral. I think he deserves to make some money off this.
 
Great thought, Rory.

I was puzzled by deirde's post.

That Richard C. or Ramsdell could be the picture's author's it's something I already have considered.

However, Robert C. (but not different from Richard Benjamin Cooper) claims the picture is fake (interestingly, both claim to hold all pictures left by mother and t have never seen that one), while it seems Ramsdell claims it's genuine from his own book's revision in Amazon: "The True Story of the Cooper Family Falling Body Photo will shake your faith in all that is human."
 
Well, deirde bought the book and says that's brilliant to the point of calling Robert C. a cheeky one.

You leave everybody quite curious, including me, who posted Amazon's link.

I think I must buy the book, but only next weekend, when I've got time to read it.

@deirdre, let me ask, does the book solve the mysteries behind the picture?
 
I don't want to give too much away, it would be like telling people the catch to the Sixth Sense before they see the movie.
Ay, but this is Metabunk. Skipping to the end and having it all explained is why we're here. ;)
It seems Ramsdell claims it's genuine from his own book's revision in Amazon: "The True Story of the Cooper Family Falling Body Photo will shake your faith in all that is human."
On his website, he seems to be leaving it more open-ended:
Urban Legend: The True Story of the Cooper Family Falling Body Photo is available now at the iTunes bookstore as a full-featured, interactive iBook. Hoax or proof of the supernatural? Only you can decide.

https://web.archive.org/web/2017082...d-true-story-cooper-family-falling-body-photo
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Maybe Deirdre is both Richard G. Ramsdell and Robert C. and the whole ploy - maybe the whole reason for Metabunk's existence - was to get ghost-curious people to spend $9 on a poorly-written ebook so as to make literally tens or even hundreds of dollars, and laugh all the way to the bank.

Who knows? Stranger things have happened. ;)
 
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If you don't want to buy it, I'll tell you in a few months after his photos go viral. I think he deserves to make some money off this.
Why will his photos go viral now, if they haven't in the 20 months since he uploaded the 'book'?
 
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