A British socialite is paying host to a
holiday visitor she never expected: The
ghost of a woman she believes died in her
house 100 years ago.
Peaches Geldof, the daughter of Live Aid
organizer Bob Geldof, recently took a
selfie of herself and her son Astala in the
bath.
But when she looked at her picture, she
noticed what looked like a mysterious
third party: a translucent hand of what
looks like a ghost just above her
shoulder.
Geldof, 24, posted the spooky selfie on
Instagram, and believes the haunting
hand belongs to the spirit of a woman
who committed suicide in her home 100
years ago after delivering a stillborn
baby.
"The house was built in the 1920s by a
rich man and his pregnant wife," Geldorf
said, according to the Daily Mail. "
However, his wife had a stillborn baby
and was so grief-stricken she went mad.
She apparently drowned herself in the
bath."
Geldof insists that the mystery hand is
not hers. She wrote on Instagram:
Close up shot of the mystery
ghost hand in pic I took of Astala
and me In the bath!! And no that
isn't my hand — one of mine was
round his waist to hold him
during the photo, the other
holding the camera to take the
shot. Also the hand is around my
shoulder so totally weird angle if
I did it myself!! How terrifying!!
I am shitting myself! #haunted
#ghost
Potential defecation aside, Geldof said the
spirit is friendly, maternal and enjoys
being around babies, she said, according
to Fox4KC.com.
Whether the bizarre hand-life pattern is
really paranormal remains to be seen,
but it could just be an example of
"pariedolia," a word that means
assigning meaning to patterns that are
actually just visual "noise."
In 2011, researchers at Northwestern
University led by Joel Voss did a study
showing that the human brain is wired
to look for familiarity and meaning in
the most abstract squiggles.
Here's why: Our brains automatically
identify similar objects and then organize
them according to type. That's why we
can look at a baseball cap and a fedora
and know right away that both are hats.
