8/9/08

Ghosts on Security Cameras

I lothe articles like this:

Is an area high school haunted? Asheville is abuzz after video was captured by a motion-activated camera at Asheville High school at 2:51 a.m. Friday, August 1. In the video, a dark image –some say looks like the silhouette of a child- appears by an elevator. The image advances forward and is again captured in the hallway.
It’s something, so far, the Asheville School District says can’t be explained.


Yes it can and it's frightening these people are teaching our children.

Here's a simple test to prove that it's a bug on a camera, other than actually placing a bug on that camera and seeing what it looks like, which no one EVER does.

Unplug your headphones and hold the tiny silver end of it vertically up to your eye or glasses. Even touch your glasses or hold it as close to your eye as possible without touching your eye. See? I mean can you see "through" it? Yup. It's so de-focused that it appears that it's translucent and that you can see through it or if you're inclined to think, it's casting a shadow in front of you. A bug on a wide-angle lens focused in front of itself is the same thing.

See, a camera's lens isn't where the sensor is, it's BEHIND the lens just like your retina is behind the lens of your eye. Light, which only travels in straight lines, unless there's a LOT of gravity, appears to bend around the object in front of your eye because the object is so out of focus that light from other angles takes precedence. The angles are minute but there are enough of them to make it appear as if they're coming from directly in front of you. A little larger, like your finger, and too many angles are blocked and your vision is blocked. Conversly, too small an object and it all but vanishes.

No visual cortex, and certainly no so-called ghosts are required. Try it.

It's physics, folks.

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