In early February 1999, the Daily News, Sri Lanka, and other news organizations around the world discussed the video ghost captured at Leicester's Belgrave Hall.

"LONDON (AFP) - Security cameras outside a former country mansion in England, recorded ghostly apparitions one night last Christmas, including one that seemed to be a woman in Victorian dress, The Daily Telegraph reported Wednesday.... The two ghostly shapes were filmed at 4:48 a.m. on December 23. The museum's security lights were triggered by a flickering heat source. Five seconds later the cameras captured a brilliant six-foot (two-metre) high white apparition. After another five seconds, the spectre disappeared before a swirling mist came over a nearby wall.

"Stuart Warburton, the museum's managing curator, said, "The images appear from nowhere. They make no entrance or exit but just appear and disappear. We do not believe it is a deliberate hoax because there were other cameras mounted nearby and they would have picked up the perpetrators. There is obviously the possibility that the figures could be something else. Plastic bags waving in the wind or a lightning bolt have been suggested."

Belgrave's Haunted History

Belgrave Hall was built between 1709 and 1713 by Edmund Craddock. Over the centuries, the house has passed through the hands of the Simons, Vann, and Ellis families. It is a member of the latter family that haunts the hall, or so speculate staff. Belgrave has been a museum since the 1930s.

John Ellis, chairman of Midlands County Railway, purchased the hall in 1845 and raised his many daughters there. The girls apparently never left home in life, five of them died in the house, and one, at least, may yet linger in death. It's unclear how Charlotte Ellis became associated with the footsteps heard by staff or the apparition of a woman in Victorian clothing seen by gardener Michael Snuggs. Staff have also reported mysterious cooking odors thought to be freshly baked bread, gingerbread, and stewed fruit.

Charlotte Ellis (center) is reputed to haunt Belgrave Hall. She is seen here in life with her sisters Margaret (left) and Isabella.

I currently can't find any online reference to any CCTV expert studying the captured image. So, I contacted one myself. I spoke with a recognized CCTV expert who works in the Las Vegas casino industry where surveillance is a vital element of business. In his opinion, the evidence I currently possess does not rule out either a natural or a paranormal explanation. It seems that the security cameras at Belgrave trigger at the appearance of infrared emissions within a certain programmed range. When properly tuned, a camera should not trip for nonhuman infrared ranges emitted by moving animals and plants.

The primary source of infrared radiation is heat or thermal radiation. Any object which has a temperature above absolute zero (-459.67 degrees Fahrenheit or -273.15 degrees Celsius or 0 degrees Kelvin), radiates in the infrared. The warmer the object, the more infrared radiation it emits. In theory, then, a leaf blowing across the lens should not cause the camera to trip. If the infrared sensor was malfunctioning, he notes, it's likely that the camera tripped more often than this one occurrance, creating an evidence trail of malfunction--which may have gone unreported in this case. Because only one of three cameras tripped there are strong odds of malfunction, however, he explains, it is possible for an object to be situated at just the perfect point to be recognized and responded to by only one camera.

According to this expert, the glowing shape that appears in the CCTV image should not appear in the case of a simple camera malfunction or atmospheric disturbances that he is familiar with. As reported by the press, according to local meteorologists, there was no rain or lightning that evening, making a lightning strike a remote possibility. The shape is segmented into three parts that some feel suggests a moth. However, he responds, a real moth fluttering by the lens would provide very different type of image. And moth that has crashed against the lens should leave a cloud of wing scales that mar the following images.

Update: Since I created this page, I have been contacted several times by members of ghost hunting groups who claim to have conclusively solved this mystery; it's a leaf blowing across the camera. I have asked these groups to provide details of their investigations that support their conclusion, but I have, to date, received nothing.

Ghosts