Hollow Hill/Ghost Poste stamps:
Gilson Road Cemetery stamp, 2/00
by Aisling D'Art

This stamp was one of the first I created using a color printer. The finished stamp is about 1 1/4" tall and 1" wide.

The ghost story behind this stamp:

The image on the stamp is an actual ghost photo. The original was taken on 5 Nov 1999 at Gilson Road Cemetery, Nashua, NH. The image was slightly saturated for use on the stamp, but is otherwise unretouched.

The purple/magenta streak of light which appears over the headstone in the photo, was not visible when the photo was taken. This picture is one of two which feature this "ghost" image, which ghosthunters claim is ectoplasm. All we know is (1) people usually don't see this stuff with the naked eye, and (2) it shows up at locations with a reputation for being very haunted.

To the photographer and the five witnesses at the cemetery, the subject was a headstone on an otherwise pitch-black, moonless night. No flashing, spectral lights. Nothing even remotely resembling what showed up in the photos. This photo, and another one taken about 15 seconds later, show the purple streak; that's all.

These two photos occur in the middle of an otherwise unremarkable roll of film. The processing was by the photo service at the local grocery store. The film was not mishandled, and the negative shows this same streak on each photo, but not at the edges of the film, outside the frame.

In other words, it's a "real" photo, not the result of a lab fluke or deliberate artifice.

The photographer captured a similar image on 26 Nov 1999, in the same cemetery under almost identical conditions. That photo was taken in another part of the cemetery, with the camera pointed in a different direction. (In other words, it's not "swamp gas.")

The only light on these nights, was from the brief flash of the point-and-shoot camera.

This stamp is being used by Hollow Hill to respond to reader mail.

back to aisling's artistamps page