On New Year’s Day, as I typically do, I paid a visit to Hakusan Shrine in Niigata City to give thanks for the New year and to prayer for the health and well-being of my family and friends.
While standing near the open fire pit where some people were burning their good luck talismans from the previous year and other people were bathing themselves in the smoke that lifted off the old charms for good luck, I snapped this picture of my nephew. He was about to buy a dried squid and roast it over the fire.
Looking at the pictures I had taken, I noticed something strange about the people in the middle of the picture. Have a closer look.
The man’s body, and the woman’s as well, is half missing. One of his legs disappears into thin air, and the woman doesn’t have a face.
At first, I thought it was possible that there was just a glitch in my phone’s camera app. In addition to the strange distortions of the walking couple, the original picture has an odd line running through the sky above them (though the tree and the buildings between the couple and the sky seem unaffected).
Then I looked at the picture that I took only moments later. The same couple can be seen walking further along, but the man from the first Image is still not whole.
Have a look.
His right shoulder is missing, and where it ought to be, you can see the person in front of him holding a small children. Not only that, but a bundle or two of thin bamboo poles seem to be either appearing from or disappearing into his legs while a mysterious blue sneaker, seemingly attached to a foot and in motion, sits all by itself.
Japan is full of ghost stories, and there are many TV shows based on strange photos like this. Some people here would say that something is following that man, a spirit of some sort. Others might think the man himself is an apparition. And many would claim that this is nothing more than a camera glitch, or even some kind of photography trick, though I can assure you it’s no trick.
So what do you think? Is this a ghost? Is it a man who is about to meet an unfortunate accident of some kind? Or is it just a strange coincidence, the result of a faulty camera app?