By on February 3, 2011, with 555 Comments

Here’s an awesome one sent in by Joao Gratuliano. It took me really long time before I understood what happened here, supposedly there was no photoshopping involved. How come the hanging bars project a shadow on a background wall, while the hand doesn’t? Can it be that the author is a ghost, or vampire maybe? BTW, they say vampires have no mirror reflection, but what about their shadow? Now that I mentioned it, never thought about it really… Ok, let’s see who solves this one first!

Ghost Hand Optical Illusion

Comments

555 Responses
  1. lexi03 says:

    i think the hand is a sticker

    • Barb Bo says:

      The hand must be either on the wall or painted on the wall

    • Nash smith says:

      There is another bar being projected from the other side of the Wall/screen. If you look the letter part of the bar is facing away from the wall yet it is still showing up!

    • Gelo says:

      the shadow is a painting on the wall look at the bars… they don’t have lights on them

  2. Alex says:

    I just noticed this… Why isnt the hand and the bars lit up? Why is it so dark? I believe that this is a projection from above/below or its just a painting.

  3. elainne says:

    silly! there’s another bar on the other side of the wall same as the bar where the hand is located..and the light is coming on the other side of the wall that’s why you cannot see the shadow of the hand..notice that if you think it’s a shadow of the bar where the hand is located, the letters will come out like an image in the mirror..

    • rpboy says:

      I’m starting to believe it’s a painting. Few observations made and are continuations of above:
      1. lighting not hitting hand and front of bars.
      2. if identical bars on other side of walls with projector (shadow puppets), there would be no bar in the first place with straight on lighting.
      3. Above pointer would have to be at an angle in order to get bars at that angle, however if lighting at angle then the letters would be distorted as well or no letters at all.

      Next guesses are:
      1. There is an identical bar on other side with to lighting objects
      2. silhouette from a lighting figure as if bat signal (http://garnetstevens.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/batsignal.jpg)

  4. rpboy says:

    I’m starting to believe it’s a painting. Few observations made and are continuations of above:
    1. lighting not hitting hand and front of bars.
    2. if identical bars on other side of walls with projector (shadow puppets), there would be no bar in the first place with straight on lighting.
    3. Above pointer would have to be at an angle in order to get bars at that angle, however if lighting at angle then the letters would be distorted as well or no letters at all.

    Next guesses are:
    1. There is an identical bar on other side with two lighting objects
    2. silhouette from a lighting figure as if bat signal (http://garnetstevens.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/batsignal.jpg)

    • Sacred Fire says:

      its not a painting… its the shadow of the other bar on the other side of the wall(but its not really a wall, more like a piece of cloth). the light is in the other side of the wall(cloth) that’s why the hand’s shadow does not appear…

  5. Muhammad Haseeb says:

    I think first painting on the wall as the object look like then then hang the object on the wall then comes hand behind the bars, I think so, what u say?

  6. Lauren says:

    I think it is just painted on the wall!!!!!!!

  7. Richa says:

    Its not really shadow its painted like that on the wall haha!!

  8. Mathieu says:

    It has to be painted on the wall ’cause neither the hand nor the structure are illuminated to create a shadow in the first place. Only the wall where’s the “shadow”. And on the bottom part of that “illuminated” oval, I can clearly see that even the “light” is painted. Limited gradient/blend effect.

  9. paul says:

    the light is emitted at the top of the bar and he hand. as you can see the front part of the bar isn’t affected by the light.
    so it is probably what christian says.

  10. Daniel Williamson says:

    a couple of things one if you look at the shadow closely where there are the musical notes looks backwards also it could be light coming down at an angel from the same looking object minus the hand

  11. o.i.e. says:

    if you look to the right you can see shadows witch means that the shadow is paited so it will look like that

  12. Jenny says:

    If you look closely, the hand is painted on the wall/ is a sticker on the wall. If that’s not the reason they could have put the hand in front of the bars.
    Anyway that’s what I think, I’m not sure though.

  13. maria says:

    The light or the hand is off to the left and not directly behind the bars, the camera is to the right creating an optical illusion?

  14. AmetuerAspirant says:

    notice the hand is in complete darkness, this leads me to believe there is no actual lighting source, and instead, the shadows and circle of light are painted on the back wall, plus with that thick of keys, light from that angle would cause the keys to look solid.

  15. Anas says:

    This is not a shadow. This is another picture or sticker. There is no light.

  16. Tritt says:

    Because of the angle of the camera and how the picture is taken, the hand is not actually behind the object. It is in fact “beside” and the camera is at such an angle to make it look like the bars cover the hand. With the light being shown, the hand is not hit therefor casts no shadow.

    • Arfan says:

      I 100% agree with Tritt, this is the only way to make the illusion, the angle of camera and lighting, So.. no ghost hand actually…

  17. alexia says:

    I think that the paint or colored in the wall to make it look like a shadow. To make it look as if you cant see the hand’s shadow.

  18. ALI AHAD says:

    its a white sheet and the bars are placed in between, light is on the other side of the sheet and creating shadow

  19. some one says:

    i think that the shadow isn’t a shadow at all.I think because the is letters on the shadow,and there is no holes at the circles just a guess.

  20. Purgatori says:

    The light is coming from behind the wall where the same bar is located as the one shown in the picture. So the shadow is not coming from the the bar we see, but from the bar located on the other side. :)

  21. JP says:

    I think that the shadow is painted because if it really was a light that was making the shadow the hand and bars would be lit up

  22. Will says:

    I could do the same thing in Photoshop it 10 min

  23. Nicholas Wingo says:

    The angle of the camera. The hand is to the left and not really behind the object. It seems to be behind it because of the angle the picture was taken. Just a guess.

  24. spiraball says:

    It’s not painting, but here’s what I came up.

    1. Two hints, are the holes within the round shadowed thingies and the wrapped shadow like wires to hold to wires in place.

    2. Now those done, the shadowed fingers are actually striaght wires. You can see that the shadowed wires are wrapped around to hold the wires in place.

    3. The light source must be coming from on top or at an angel on top, so the wires that casted the shadows are on top of the hand and those finger hangers.

    Let me know what you think.

  25. illene raro says:

    hands is not showing since lightning is coming at the other side of the wall which has an identical bars. notice that shadows of bars has letters appearing hen the one shown with a hand doesnt show any letters at all. thats why hands is not
    showing on the shadows.

  26. illene raro says:

    you also see in there that letters on bars with the hand is not identical with bars on shadows (4th bar:Letter L on shadow:Letter:E). also notice that bars with hands dont have any lightning at all.

  27. CL21 says:

    its probably that the wall is two colors and there is no real light and shadow. the “shadow” is probably some kind of artwork.

  28. jack says:

    its the watch reflecting the light dumbasses

  29. froggy says:

    the shadow is drawn/painted on because there is no reflection of the light on the black thingy

  30. Its a projection watch.

  31. Jon says:

    Painted, Though through practicing this you could use a mirror above the wall the pass the hand and only take in the metal.

  32. iulian csoszor says:

    i think he used a light from up and down ,so there will not be any shadow and the actually shadow is painted

  33. Doing through inspection of image i came to a conclusion that it might be a Light projection watch and plastic screen have been placed on light lens for creating shadow of words and bars.

  34. abel says:

    the wall is painted to look like a shadow and he just added a light that doesnt even pass through the object and his hand there for the shadow on the wall is fake. (you can tell by the way the light is pointed and the way the shadow is hitting the wall)

  35. baja says:

    that makes no sense i dont get it at all

  36. BunnyGirl says:

    Wait! The letters spell “GRAFO”. That could be short for a word giving the solution… Don’t blame me if I’m wrong! I’m only 11!

  37. Xaind says:

    He is faster than his shadow… like Lucky Luke

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