MvR Ghost Photo

I've already responded to an earlier thread about ghost stories. I've once seen a picture on t.v. that if I should believe the host was takenb at the grave of MvR only days after his unfortunate death. It was taken on the day of his burial.

On the photo you can see the grave but there is a vague figure standing besides the grave as if it is mourning or saluting the great ace.

Perhaps it is a victime of MvR or perhaps it is dear Manfred himself

Aaah! MvR's x-files are discovered! This would be the very best chance to ask him the most important questions of all: Where did the last shot come from? Was it Brown or not?

... more serious: A lot of pre-1940-photographs shows ghosts. The reason is simple. Consider the long exposure times the old films require. Exposure times up to 30 seconds on a cloudy day could be the norm on a older camera. And what happened if somebody on the picture has moved? He is looking like his own ghost on the print afterwarts. So keep MvR laying in peace and remind the older technology !

Brown never made a claim for the kill. He made that plain in an interview before his death. It was a pulp fiction writer who began the widespread fiction. MvR was killed by ground fire. His mother confirmed this in an interview with a flying magazine just before her death.
If you refer to the changeover industry wide from orthochromatic to panchromatic film emulsions, this ghost figure could not have been caused by movement even with ortho film. The shutters of the era were about 1/35 of a second, and most people carried either a folding camera or a box camera with simple meniscus lenses and fixed speed shutters.
A more palusible explanation would be an accidental or purposeful double exposure under disimilar lighting conditions.
One famous case of a series of photographs showing fairies in the frame with humans was perpitrated by two sub-teen girls who photographed illustrations from a book on the first exposure and people in normal attitudes on the second exposure.
Safeguards against accidental double exposures came later with mechanical film transports. So, there is nothing for the X files here...

What are x-files?

Purportedly, they are FBI files of a highly restricted nature pertaining to paranormal incidents.

[Graeme]

Regardless of what the von's mum thought, Brown reported that he dived on a pure red triplane that went down and was seen to crash. A week later he wrote to his father that three triplanes had been brought down "...among them was the Baron whom I shot down on our side of the lines."

In July 1969 a plaque recognising Brown as the "victor in aerial combat over Baron Manfred von Richthofen" was unveiled in Memorial Park, Carleton Place, Ontario by Brown's widow and brother during a service sponsored by the Royal Canadian Legion.

Certainly Brown himself never made the outrageous claims attributed to him in 1927/28 when a series of sensationalised stories, penned under his name, were published. It would appear that this did him more harm than good since he suffered a recurrence of his duodenal ulcer problem, briefly ran an ill-fated airmail service, was rejected for a position in the RCAF and unsuccessfully stood as the Liberal candidate for Woodvine; a year later he was dead following a heart attack a the age of fifty.

If you take a squint at "action" photos of the time, you'll note that mechanics swinging the prop are reduced to ghostly figures; this, I believe, is due to the slow shutter speed rather than the type of emulsion on the film or plate.

Just a small correction - the Cottingly Fairies were not created by double exposure, but were in fact cut-out illustrations from books which the girls then posed with (if you look at the photos carefully you can even see the pins holding the fairies up). In fact, despite the whole story never being intended as a hoax, Arthur Conan-Doyle went to his grave believing it to be true!

Certainly double exposure was used in many hoaxes, just not in this case.

VBR,

Vince

Vince is right on the money. One of the girls, as an elderly woman, told, shortly before she passed away, how it was done.

No trick photography or double exposures. Just simple cut outs. Some people just "want to believe".

[Vin]

Fairy stories, plaques, some people just want to believe. Hmm

Vin

[Rod_Filan]

Are you refering to the white figure standing next to the grave?<p align="center"><p align="left">VBR