The Reaper?

A few months back I received this photograph from one of my coworkers who had asked that I take a look and possibly send this photo along to someone who could explain if what was being seen, was actually someone or "something" peering back into the lens of the camera.

As the story was told to me, my co-workers wife's parents lived in a rural community in a state around the great lakes region. They had a few acres of land and both were outside the day of the fire tending to gardening duties. They had a pot of beans simmering on the stove and somehow it caught on fire. When the couple finally noticed smoke and flames, and ran back towards the home for containment it was to late. The house then was fully engulfed.

Afterwards, when fire personnel drove off, family members came to the home to take pictures and see if there was anything that could be salvaged. Below is the original photograph taken on a cell phone and then sent to my coworker, and then forwarded to me.

What is particularly interesting is that the family reported anomalous activity before the fire, they stated they saw shadows moving throughout the house during daylight hours and in the darkness of night. They also stated they heard unusual noises leading up to loosing their home, and items in the home would turn up missing.

The question to be asked here is that most people seem to believe that they have captured something genuinely paranormal, when in a lot of instances (not all) all that is happening is facial matrixing.

Matrixing is the term the Ghost Hunters use to describe the misidentification of something ordinary as something unusual. It comes into play most often when people take photographs and spot something in the picture they are sure was not there when the photo was taken. Often, it is a face or figure and seems to be human.

Why Does Matrixing Happen?

One explanation is that recognizing other humans, and the faces of parents, is the first skill a baby learns. Pattern recognition of this sort is also a survival tool, giving the earliest humans a way to spot predators in hiding. The skill is so fundamental that, when presented with a random set of patterns the human brain attempts to make sense of what it sees. If it can possibly resolve that random pattern into a familiar object or image, it will.

Who knows on this picture right? I mean when you finally recognize the form it is a little frightening.