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This month Angels & Ghosts visited the Moundsville
Penitentiary with Polly Gear and her son David of
Mountaineer Ghosts Paranormal Investigators. Polly
was recently on SciFi’s Ghost Hunters, a television
show that used her famous Shadow Man ghost picture.
What was amazing to hear was Polly’s description of
the event. Entering a small hallway leading to the
cafeteria, Polly encountered the shadow man ghost,
which she describes as black static (like on a TV
screen), and without a defined face or hands.. In the
shape of a man, the ghost was moving down the hall
toward her, but looking out the windows. When she
shined her flash light on him (as she now was backing
away and into a bigger hallway), the light went
through the ghost. The shadow man looked at the
light going through his body and was spooked,
moving back and into the doorway corner. Quite
incredibly, Polly took the flashlight off of him and
continued backing down the bigger hallway, hoping
this would cause the ghost to move out of the
doorway and follow her into the big hall where she
was.
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Right: Shadow Man
close-up. The shadow is
behind the pipe on the
wall. Thus, a shadow
was not cast onto the
door from the hall.
Above: Un-cropped
picture showing how far
Polly was away.
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As Polly turned her Sony Mavica digital camera on, she believes the music box sound the camera
makes might have coaxed the shadow man to come out of the doorway to see what the sound was.
Now at about 110 feet away, Polly took the picture of the shadow man ghost in front of the yellow
door. After the flash went off, the ghost was gone. Having visited the penitentiary for five years, she
was not afraid, and the ghost certainly did not feel threatening to her. In fact, “He was afraid of me. It
took me five years to get this picture,” Polly explained.
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Left: Polly standing in front of the door 110
feet away and her close-up.
Below: Close-ups of the pipe in front of Polly
(right), and of the Shadow man (left) in the
original picture. The pipe cuts off the arm of
the WV Pen Shadow Man.
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TAPS
On the television show Ghost Hunters, TAPS took Polly’s shadow man photograph and tried to
“debunk” it. As Jason of TAPS stood about ten feet in front of the yellow door, his partner Grant shined
a light from his camera to create a shadow on the door which looked similar in size and shape to the
shadow man image. They hastily reasoned that the shadow man’s left arm was up, because it was
really Polly’s shadow on the door with her arm holding a camera in the air. This was their proof that the
shadow man ghost picture was most likely not a ghost at all. If one were to use TAPS “anything goes”
guidelines for “debunking,” why not just re-create Polly’s shadow man picture in a photo editing
program? It would be easier and just as plausible as what TAPS did on national TV, but would that
prove her photo was not real? Absolutely, not…so we set out to investigate TAPS conclusion and see
just how good a job they did at discrediting Polly’s photo.
First, when we looked at the un-cropped shadow man picture, it was immediately apparent that Polly
was not standing ten feet away from the door. Carefully, looking at the wall to determine just where
Polly stood, we were easily able to use a tape measure and determine the distance to be around 110
feet from the door. Therefore, TAPS was off in their re-creation by an astounding 100 feet! Even
better, had Polly’s shadow been cast down the hallway toward the door, it would not have been
contained only on the door, but would have filled the entire wall behind the door and been very light at
best. Our experiments of casting Polly’s shadow down the hall 110 feet proved this. Furthermore, the
only other people in the hallway that night who could have possibly cast some light to create such a
dark shadow, were at least another 100-200 feet behind Polly, only armed with small digital cameras.
So, TAPS re-creation was looking more like a hasty, somewhat dishonest examination of the shadow
man picture; but let’s look a little bit closer at the evidence first, shall we?
Second, we noticed something in the shadow man picture that TAPS had also missed. We actually first
saw it on their TV show, so it should have been just as apparent to them. On the right side of the wall,
is a white pipe. It extends from floor to ceiling and if you look at Polly’s photograph closely, you will see
that part of the shadow man was behind the pipe. So the shadow man’s arm was partially cut off from
being behind the pipe! This further proved that Polly’s shadow was not cast onto the door, or it would
have been on the pipe, too. TAPS obviously did not look close enough at the evidence before
discrediting it. We’re still not impressed with TAPS conclusions, but we won’t stop here, for we also
found something else.
Third, we had to place Polly less than ten feet away from the door with a light behind her to create a
shadow that equaled the shadow man in height and darkness. This is why Jason from TAPS stood so
close to the door, also. When looking at Polly’s shadow, it was clear that she has long hair (unlike the
shadow man), and her shadow projected very short legs. Plus, had she snapped a picture of her own
shadow, the flash from her digital camera would have erased it from the door. This would further prove
she could not have taken a picture of her own shadow if her camera’s flash was on. If you notice in
Jason and Grant’s re-creation photo, it was dark and produced with infrared light using no flash. They
knew if they had used a camera with flash, that Jason’s shadow image would have disappeared. It is
nauseating for TAPS to pose as professionals, interviewing Polly for their program; using her
photograph to gain viewers and then falsely discrediting her evidence and story, without any regard for
her.
Our conclusion:
The shadow man photograph is as authentic as it gets, and TAPS and SciFi’s Ghost Hunters should
not have used guests and their evidence to gain viewers only to discredit them later in the program.
If you have a paranormal photograph or video, you best beware before allowing them to use it on their
TV program.
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