A mother-of-two has been left wondering whether she has captured evidence of the paranormal during a visit to a museum.
Louise Murphy, 30, had taken her nine-year-old son Owen for a day out at the Riverside Museum in Glasgow, Scotland, when she began taking photos in the museum’s Victorian-themed street.
Though the pair were alone when she began taking photos, Murphy was shocked to see the outline of a child apparently waving at the camera in one frame.
Murphy, from Carlisle, Cumbria, said: “It definitely looks like a young girl to me. Some people have said it is a little boy but it appears like it is wearing a dress with flowers on it.
“In the pictures I took in the same spot before this one, you can see a mist forming at the bottom of the picture and then she appears. It was like she was forming in the mist, which makes me think it was maybe paranormal.
“I tried to think logically about it a first but couldn’t come up with a way to rationalise it.
“My partner couldn’t explain it either and he is sceptic. He is not 100% sure what it could be either way but even he says it looks like a genuine apparition.
“You can never be 100% on things like this but it’s definitely not been tampered with.
“People have said that it could have been Photoshopped but there will always be people who think that.
“I would happily send the picture off for experts to check it to prove it has not been. I don’t even know how to use Photoshop.
“It’s one of the clearest pictures I have seen of the paranormal. I have never seen one like this before, not to this extent.”
Murphy captured the image on her Samsung Galaxy S5 phone on February 20 this year.
She said: “The transport museum has this Victorian-themed village and shops that you can walk through and I began taking a few pictures in the pub part of that. We didn’t notice anything odd at the time.
“I didn’t really look at the pictures at all until I got home later and realised they looked quite strange.
“If I had seen [her in the picture] while I was there I would have more pictures to see if I could catch her again on camera.
“People have told me it must just be a little girl stood in front of me but I would have seen her. There was definitely no one there.
“The only other person in the area around the bar was my son Owen who was in the two other pictures I took.
“Owen thinks it’s a pretty weird photo and was quite shocked as he can verify that no girl was there at all.
“I have caught orbs in pictures before and I am quite into the paranormal but I never expected to catch something like this.
“I have been on ghost hunts but never seen anything like this. It seemed too good to be true.”
A spokesperson for Glasgow Life and the museum said: “We’re as intrigued as the lady who captured the image to discover more about any ghostly goings-on at Riverside.
“The picture was taken in the Mitre Bar, a well-known Glasgow premises that is more usually associated with a different type of spirit.
“It is located on one of Riverside’s three recreated streets, spanning 1895 to 1980, where visitors love to meander along the cobbles.
“Some five million people have done so since it opened in 2011 and we’re delighted to welcome this new guest to the museum.
“We’re sure her presence is likely to intrigue others and look forward to welcoming them to Riverside soon.”
The Mitre Bar in which the picture was taken is based on the same spot as where the original Mitre pub stood from 1927 for almost 80 years before it was demolished.
A former owner of the original pub claims that there were stories and alleged sightings of a young washer girl who tragically died in the area during the Victorian period.
The Riverside Museum has recreated the pub with its original fittings along with seven other shops for their ‘step back in time’ recreation of Main Street, which shows what the area would have been like between 1895 and 1930.