Photos preserve our best memories, but one 1970s snapshot revealed a sight so creepy that people still discuss it today.

In October 1972 a photographer stood at the entrance to a wedding reception in Paisley, Scotland, snapping pictures of the guests who were arriving to celebrate. But arising from this seemingly everyday scene, something creepy was soon to materialize. Mind you, when a pair of couples posed for their snapshot, nothing seemed amiss – until, that is, the photographer developed the image, revealing a sight that still terrifies observers to this day.

If you’ve ever captured a photo featuring a floating translucent sphere, some believe you have snapped the unliving. But this claim naturally comes with little evidence to back it up. And on the website for Skeptoid – an award-winning, science-focused podcast – host Brian Dunning even tried to debunk the myth. He wrote, “The usual hypothesis presented by believers is that orbs represent spirits of dead people…”

However, Dunning explained, “There are no plausible hypotheses that describe the mechanism by which a person who dies will become a hovering ball of light that appears on film but is invisible to the eye.” And he continued, “There are lots of other things that a dead person might become, presumably.”

Dunning countered that an orb will simply appear when a piece of dust, drop of water or an insect floats into the frame just as the camera flashes. And if it’s close enough to the lens, the object will then appear bright yet blurry – a combination that creates the white, circular orb.

In fact, the practice of spotting – or even producing – ghosts in photos has been around for decades. And one of the most notorious peddlers of ghost photography was American William Mumler, a jewelry engraver who took pictures as a hobby. But it was a self-portrait that he developed in 1861 that presented a shocking result.

The photo, of course, showed Mumler in the forefront – but next to him hovered the form of a young woman. So the amateur photographer initially assumed that the female had transferred from an old negative. Yet others who viewed the image told Mumler that the woman looked like his cousin who had passed away. And then the spiritualist community caught wind of what Mumler had captured.

So when the spiritualists began spreading the word that Mumler had taken the first-ever picture of a spirit, he did nothing to sway their opinion. Instead, the photographer adopted the title and began shooting potentially vulnerable subjects. He apparently hoped that he could capture the spiritual silhouette of someone they had loved and lost.

Mumler also told people that he was a medium, claiming that he had the power to draw spirits into his photos. And he assured them that the camera would be able to capture spirits, even though they couldn’t be seen by the human eye. His marks then paid between $5 and $10 for a portrait, a hefty price at the time.

But not everyone believed Mumler’s claims. Indeed, Barnum & Bailey Circus founder – and promoter of hoaxes himself – P.T. Barnum stood as one of the photographer’s biggest detractors. And Barnum even testified when Mumler went to trial for fraud in 1869. During those proceedings, some accused Mumler of using live subjects to portray spirits in his photos, while others said that he had broken into their homes, collected photos of lost loved ones and used them in his work.

And to make his point against Mumler, Barnum hired photographer Abraham Bogardus to create a ghost photo. The resulting image showed the circus founder in the foreground with a very famous spirit in the background – then-recently assassinated president Abraham Lincoln. Other photographers testified, too. The individuals even proposed nine different tricks that Mumler could have used to create such photos, including combination printing and multiple exposure.

However, the court never convicted Mumler of fraud; it had insufficient evidence to do so. But the judge did say the photographer had likely used “trick and deception” in his business, according to The Atlantic. And though Mumler’s career tapered off after that, spirit photography continued to live on into the next century.

Indeed, people have continued to share photos that seem to show a figure from beyond, claiming that the pictures haven’t been doctored. For instance, Reddit user Njfurlong shared their own family portrait taken in New Zealand in the 1930s. And it may not be obvious at first, but an unknown figure stands among the relatives.

According to Njfurlong, this wasn’t the family’s first encounter with the particular specter, either. The Redditor wrote, “My aunt saw her a few times while growing up there in the 1960s [and] 70s beside or at the end of her bed. She wore a fitted white bodice style dress with a dark broach at her waist, dark hair up in a bun.”

Another creepy shot showed a nursing home corridor where Reddit user 13thSage’s mother worked. They wrote, “Prior to the photo being taken, members of the staff and other residents heard the sounds of a door opening and closing along with the appearance of a call light turning on and off, yet nobody was in the room.”

Image: Facebook/Chesterfield Paranormal Research

A resident snapped a photo during one of those unexplained episodes, 13thSage reported. And they continued, “From what I have been told this picture had been taken roughly 15 minutes after a patient in the facility had passed on.” The Reddit user then guessed that the blackish blur in the photo could be the person’s spirit or even the Grim Reaper.

Of course, not all photos boasting a potential ghost come from such dark circumstances. Take Virginia couple Kevin and Christina Denis and their scary snap as a prime example. Back in 2015, the pair decided to share pictures from their wedding day with Facebook friends.

But then Christina’s friend noticed something unusual in the background of the couple’s favorite picture. To the pal, it actually seemed as though someone stood between the smiling newlyweds, smirking at the camera. And terrifyingly, the happy couple did not recognize the person at all.

Kevin later shared the picture on Reddit, too, and he wrote, “We still don’t know who it was. [Christina’s] sister said it might be her, but that face looks absolutely nothing even close to it. That face looks like a baby face [in my opinion].” Meanwhile, fellow Redditors chimed in with their own theories – and jokes – about who had appeared in the picture.

Yes, one Redditor compared the face to that of Sméagol – also known as Gollum – from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books and films. Another wrote, “I think it might be a boy by the looks of it. Or Satan, I’m not sure.” And another user offered up the theory that it might not be a face at all, but rather a scarf with folds that happened to look ghostly.

Kevin’s Reddit post never yielded a solid answer as to who or what stood behind the couple on their wedding day. But they did fortunately get one positive outcome due to sharing their spooky picture. Indeed, someone photoshopped the face out of the background, making their special snap much less scary.

Meanwhile, a wedding in the fall of 1972 yielded a similar photo – which has yet to be explained by experts. The nuptials in question took place in Paisley, Scotland. At the time, a photographer stood at the ready to capture photos of guests as they arrived. And according to the man on the left of one resulting photo, his friend’s son was the groom in the wedding.

So this man, his wife – the woman in the hooded jacket – and another pair of friends paused for the requisite photo before entering the reception. At the time, nothing about the image seemed awry. But according to a post in the blog Science of Ghosts, as written by someone claiming to be the man on the far left of the photo, something was amiss. That’s right: in the negatives, the photographer could see a phenomenon he referred to as a “spirit extra.”

Indeed, a closer look reveals that there seems to be something behind the guy on the far right of the image. The man pictured on the left of the photo wrote, “[There] is a ‘spirit extra’ looking towards the camera and dressed in what appears to be open-toed sandals.” And, as previously mentioned, the photographer claimed to have no explanation for such an apparition.

“As far as he was aware, no one was behind the man when the photo was taken and no one was there when he moved away,” the man pictured on the left in the photo continued. “He said it would be impossible for anyone to crouch behind without the person being aware of their presence and indeed without their body being visible to the person’s left.”

And, as the photo shows, the woman second from the right wore gloves in the picture. The man on the far right doesn’t have his hands by his side as she does; his hands seem to be behind his back. The other man in the photo continued that his friend “would surely have felt someone behind him.”

Those who have witnessed the photo have plenty of ideas as to where the figure came from. Some, for instance, believed that the source of the specter was Photoshop. And photo-editing software could have perhaps added the young figure into the background. Others thought maybe the man on the right wore a watch, thus creating the illusion of a person behind him.

Soon after the image first caused a stir, though, an expert apparently confirmed that it hadn’t been tampered with. The man featured on the left in the photo wrote in Science of Ghosts, “Another friend… had the photograph examined by a police photographer, who said the [image] was genuine and not faked.”

Plus, the man said several mediums had given him confirmation of the image’s supernaturality. He wrote, “One Glasgow medium predicted that I would receive such a photo. Another well-known Glasgow medium was able to tell me without seeing the photo that it contained a ‘spirit extra.’”

In sharing the photo, the author of the Science of Ghosts blog post got plenty of opinions from readers. And one commenter Billy McCoy had an interesting idea. He theorized, “Just before the photo is taken, the lady on the right asks her husband to hold her shawl so that it doesn’t hide her new dress.”

“Being a gent, he holds it behind his back out of the way,” McCoy went on. “Note the gloves; a shawl would coordinate nicely with those. Then, there is the face… until I saw a face I saw a wrist with a watch strap. The majority of people wear a watch on their left hand, though. Could this be the man’s right hand with a ring on the first finger?”

Image: Arthur Percival via Our Great Yarmouth

Meanwhile, another anonymous commenter thought the figure was “probably a little boy peeping from behind a drink stand.” And they further theorized that the photographer had only argued that the figure was a spirit because he “want[ed] his money and didn’t want complaints made about his lack of detail.”

Adding to the debate, user Giles presented a third theory. He wrote, “There is some furniture behind the couple; if you follow the lower line of this item you will see that the ‘eye’ is actually scuffing where the wood has worn away.” And Giles contends that this produces “random flashes of bright color across the surface.”

User Reza then chimed in, saying they had a problem not with the main photo, but with the zoomed-in version. The variant is often shared to show the eye staring out from behind the couples. They wrote, “Is the second photo supposed to be an enhanced, zoomed-in section of the first photo? If so, there are some gross inconsistencies.”

“Now, assuming the two photos come from a different source – possibly a duplicate, better-kept photo – you can’t get that kind of digital clarity from a zoom without modifying image attributes,” Reza wrote. But with all the doubt swirling, yet another voice decided to chime in – that of the man claiming to be the wedding guest, who shared the photo in the first place.

“The original photo was returned to the professional photographer when I received it,” the man pictured on the left in the image wrote. “He produced the 35mm negative which clearly showed the ‘extra’ and he could not explain it.” Then, the individual attempted to negate many of the readers’ theories that they had shared.

And the wedding guest started by addressing the idea that the other man pictured on the far right held onto a woman’s accessory. He wrote, “I can assure you that the gentleman did not hold a shawl behind his back.” He then said that the figure was not that of an adolescent attendee. Yes, he asserted, “Although children attended the wedding, no one stood behind us when the photo was taken.”

The man pictured on the left then wrote about the enlargement of the image – and who had actually created it. “The police photographer who examined the original photo made an enlargement from the original [image] to enable the ‘extra’ to be seen more clearly,” he recalled. And the officer also used it to rule out that there was a child in the photo, too.

“He further advised that the dimensions of the eye and foot were such that they could not possibly be that of a child,” the wedding guest continued in the Science of Ghosts blog. Finally, he said that a psychic had later explained the spirit’s position in the picture. Apparently, you see, it was “in the process of building up.” And for many, that explanation was supposedly enough. Yes, they saw a ghost in the picture, too.

“I have the feeling that this is a child that is from the other side and is related to this man,” commenter Julie wrote. And another person simply stated how terrifying the photo was, regardless of whether or not it was an undoctored image. “That ghost… has just spooked the hell out of me,” the person admitted.

In the end, though, there’s really no right or wrong answer. After all, each viewer could potentially see a different aspect of each paranormal image. The theories cannot therefore be proven with complete certainty, and these debates will no doubt only continue. So, whether someone sees an orb, a strange silhouette or the figure of an unknown person in the background, the jury is out.