My Ghost: Updated

You might remember that one time I talked about catching a ghost on camera? Well, boy, do I have an update for you! But before I update you, let me remind you that I live in a place that sometimes looks like this:

There's a construction crane just over that rightmost building. Fog, y'all. 

There's an amount of spookiness that seeps into your bones when you live in Edinburgh, I think. Now, let me remind you of my ghost:

That little green dot. At Greyfriar's Kirkyard. 

And let me remind you that it's 1000% not the lighting because here's another picture with the sun in it, but no ghost: 

Now, when I went to Iona, which is famously a "thin place", where the spiritual realm is closer to the physical, and I was ecstatic to see the ghost (green dot) show up. Maybe it was a fairy after all! 

By a reflecting pond

Up on the highest point on Iona

A friend of mine even caught it on her camera! 

Look at that fascinating glare around the ghost! 

If it's caught by another camera, it has to be real, right? Right? 

Well, not quite. It could just be the sun. Or a bright light.

See the green dot and the red glare, just below the human?

Or below the lamppost?

Yeah, dudes. It's mostly the sun. 

It's like a Where's Waldo of the little green dot. At Castle Urquhart on Loch Ness. 

Sometimes more obvious than others. In Princes Street Gardens. 

It's faint, but bottom center of the photo, off to the left. From the top of St. Paul's in London.

It gets brighter or fainter depending on how clearly the Sun is in the photo.

Top of St. Paul's again.

Castle Urquhart from a distance. See how much paler the dot is when the sun's behind the clouds? 

Honestly? I don't remember, but test your knowledge here! 

It's a camera thing, y'all. As long as there's a bright light, you'll find the green dot. 

Weird dot in the center. In the tunnels under Castle Urquhart. 

In front of the trash can. Outside of City Hall. 

I think I could go back to any picture I've taken with an iPhone where a bright light is involved, but this evidence is enough. It's an overexposed pixel or something. I'm trying not to google it because that's a rabbit hole I don't want to fall in. I was weirded out by how it appeared to move, but I think it's just the angle you hold the phone at. It can't hardly be the same from shot to shot. 

See? 

It moved! 

Yeah, no, definitely the Sun. The Sun and some science. Optics. Newton. Physics. But hey, this is a fun experiment that you can try on your own at home! NEVER LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN but you can hold your phone up and tilt it to watch the green dot move around. Science! 

But, again, I want to remind you, this is the country I'm staying in:

The fog got worse.

It's sometimes spooky here. You do feel like you're closer to what used to be. And let me tell you, I never thought I'd want to have the Sun in a picture until I came here and missed the Sun so much. When you see it, it may as well be in the picture, like the friend from back home who you know super well and who came to visit for the weekend. What I'm saying is that the sun doesn't shine much here and that makes you think things you might not otherwise and I don't regret my fancy. 

Because it's the X-Files, you know? It's those moments where you choose to believe that there's something out there that science can't explain. Yes, most ghosts are exposed wiring and human imagining, but I firmly believe that there's something out there that we don't understand, or there's something in our minds that we can't explain. Maybe the atmosphere does it and maybe we're all dupes and maybe this is all there is, but I think it's worth investigating. I think it's worth thinking about. Even if we debunk every single ghost anyone's ever found evidence for, the fact that new ghosts are found every day points to something we have questions about. We want to think that there's something bigger than us or outside of us or beyond us. We hope for something out there. And I think that's worthy. 

Ghost aren't real, everyone. 

But it's also more complicated than that.