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EVIDENCE > Photos The Ghost in the Burning Building On November 19, 1995, Wem Town Hall in Shropshire, England burned to the ground. Many spectators gathered to watch the old building, built in 1905, as it was being consumed by the flames. Tony O'Rahilly, a local resident, was one of those onlookers and took photos of the spectacle with a 200mm telephoto lens from across the street. One of those photos shows what looks like a small, partially transparent girl standing in the doorway. Nether O'Rahilly nor any of the other onlookers or firefighters recalled seeing the girl there. O'Rahilly submitted the photo to the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena which, in turn, presented it for analysis to Dr. Vernon Harrison, a photographic expert and former president of the Royal Photographic Society. Harrison carefully examined both the print and the original negative, and concluded that it was genuine. "The negative is a straightforward piece of black-and-white work and shows no sign of having been tampered with," Harrison said. But who is the little girl? Wem, a quiet market town in northern Shropshire, had been ravaged by fire in the past. In 1677, historical records note, a fire destroyed many of the town's old timber houses. A young girl named Jane Churm, the legends say, accidentally set fire to a thatched roof with a candle. Many believed her ghost haunted the area and had been seen on a few other occasions. Skeptics, including Dr. Harrison, have claimed the child is nothing more than the convenient arrangement of smoke, flame, light, and shadow at the moment of exposure. But what are the odds of smoke, flame, light, and shadow randomly forming the shape of a girl in the doorway of a building allegedly haunted by a girl, at the very moment a photographer took this picture? The odds must be at least ten billion to one-- as high as the odds of having captured a real ghost on film. < BACK | NEXT >   ©2003 by the Washington State Ghost Society | All Rights Reserved