Post by pixi on Oct 18, 2005 4:16:42 GMT -5
This photo was taken in the late 1990s on Cocklawburn Beach, near Berwick-upon-Tweed on the border between England and Scotland. According to the photographer, it was a cold, bright, sunny Sunday morning, and the beach was deserted, aside from a woman in pink and her labrador dog. When the picture was developed, standing on a seam of rock not far from the woman in pink is a row of people-- three adults and two children. Four of them face the camera, posed like fence poles, while one appears to be looking sideways at the others. One of the children is holding the hand of an adult. They appear to be dressed like regular seaside people on a cold day. Other photos of the beach show that there are no posts or pillars which could be mistaken for the figures in the picture.
Research done by the photographer revealed that in 1995 a small boy was killed on Cocklawburn Beach when a tunnel he was digging in the dunes collapsed and suffocated him. In 1999, other human remains were discovered in that same area of the beach. They were of a male and were approximately 100 years old. Perhaps the dead of Cocklawburn Beach were merely saying hello on that cold Sunday morn.
By encountering this photo, we encounter a conundrum. The Cocklawburn photograph is one of many on this site that exhibit no fakery and that show unquestionable human images. But are those images supernatural? We must rely on the testimony of the photographer that the stiffly posed troop was not visible on Cocklawburn Beach. Nevertheless, I find this preferable to indistinct images that are open to interpretation. The human mind is hardwired to seek out faces or forms in every randomly patterned surface, yet this photo and others like it make it clear that something was there. It was either visible or it was not, but it was real--somehow