Ghostly Photograph; The Doors Front-Man, Jim Morrison

By on October 29, 2016

Breaking on Through

Jim Morrison’s Ghost

Brett Meisner at  Père Lachaise

#HalloweenFeature

Jim Morrison By SuzanneGW (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

By SuzanneGW (Own work )via Wikimedia Commons

In 1997 rock historian Brett Meisner visited Père Lachaise, the French cemetery where Doors idol Jim Morrison is buried. His assistant snapped a photo that features a ghostly apparition with an eerie resemblance to Morrison. The photo was deemed authentic after examination by dozens of paranormal and photographic experts. The shot shows rock historian Brett Meisner standing next to Morrison’s grave and in the background, there’s a white figure with its arms outstretched.

The ghostly image went unnoticed by Meisner until 2002, when he spotted the strange blur and had the photo analyzed. In 2002, Brett Meisner stated:  “I have collected a lot of rock memorabilia over the past few decades so I figured he was playing a joke on me, but once we found the negative and made larger prints, it was quite clear to all of us that we had something odd and unique on our hands.”

In a book called Ghosts Caught on Film 2: Photographs of the Unexplained, researchers say the photo was in no way manipulated, and also rule out any possibility that it’s merely a trick of the light. The image itself is “inexpiable,” researchers said.

The debunkers say there is an issue with the photograph itself and it is clearly a projected image and not one that would have been accomplished by any graphics software or technique. With that in mind, of course the negatives would show no signs of alteration. But look at the right side of the figure in a close up. Do you see a break in the arm? The apparition is following the contours of the doorway it is appearing in. It is a shadow on the background. A real apparition is a shadow on the film with no contours to follow. There is also a difference between a shadow on the film, and an altered negative.

Meisner spoke on the subject in 2002 and said that his life was never the same after the photo. It brought all sorts of bad mojo to Meisner’s own door and he regretted possessing it. His marriage crumbled and he lost a close friend to a drug overdose – the same thing that killed the Doors legendary front-man.

We believe the doors of perception can be opened, but we’re not sure we believe in the authenticity of this photograph. What do you think? Do you believe The Lizard King broke on through from the other-side?

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