The Daily News Online ( a local newspaper in NY state) published this story today:

Seen a ghost? I think so! by Virginia Kropf

The story is fairly long so I’m going to cut and past sections of it here. I encourage you to read the whole thing to make sure I’m not cherry-picking.

The photo on the left is from her article. Click on it to see a larger version.

The text below in italics are by the newspaper wrtier Virginia Kropf. The regular text in between are my comments.

…I guess this story began when Andrew Meier, a member of the Orleans Renaissance Group, e-mailed me several pictures of Bent’s Opera House on the third floor of the former Bank of America building in downtown Medina….When the Group scheduled a fundraiser in mid-November, at which they planned to announce the gift to the public, I invited Batavia photojournalist Alecia Kaus to come and cover the event. Prior to the night of the concert, I e-mailed her the opera house pictures and some background on it.

Several days later, I was enroute to Tennessee when I received a call from Alecia asking if anyone else was in the room when that picture was taken.

There was not.

She said when she enlarged the picture on her computer, the image of a man was very visible, so visible in fact, her young son picked it out right away. She described him as tall, receding hairline and white moustache. There appeared to be something in his right hand, and to his left was a teddy bear.

What? You saw what? I’ve been poring over this photo and I’ve got nothing on this. Ok, I see the dust mote in the flash reflection, but a man with a teddy bear? I’ll take the most ridiculous pareidolia in the world over this.  It’s in the peeling paint, right? I’ve shown this photo to four people; no face, no man, no teddy bear, just lead paint chips. Kropf probably recognizes those from her childhood.

I could, in fact, pick out the image. Then Alecia pointed out a circle of light near the man.

“That is an orb,” she said.

101 Ways to Tell if You and Your Friends are Tards:

#37) We find it necessary to point out basic geometric figures to each other.  “This is a circle, you can tell because of it’s round sides and lack of straight lines or corners” “Oh!”

If this describes you, you may be in danger of being an idiot, click here to take an online test to find out for sure.

Orbs are described in the dictionary as “a heavenly body,” and I believe to paranormal investigators they indicate the presence of a ghost.

“A heavenly body” the dictionary continues, “such as the sun or the moon”.  Congratulations, you are officially an embarrassment to literacy.  The ceremonial plaque is being issued to your place of residence as we speak along with a commemorative set of crayons and the first season of Reading Rainbow on VHS.  Maybe before your midlife crisis, you’ll be able to finish reading an entire sentence in order to correctly surmise: ‘Heavenly body’ as in ‘celestial objects’ or ‘that shit in the sky’ not ‘spiritual entities’.

Given that, like many who reaped the profits of public education, I learned to properly use reference materials before I got into the double digits I consulted an encyclopedia for a relevant description of what this woman is referring without massacring it with a glaring learning disability.

Orb: A photographic artifact “result[ing] from reflection of light off solid particles (e.g., dust, pollen), liquid particles (water droplets, especially rain) or other foreign material within the camera lens.” Thank you Wikipedia!

I had attributed the circle to a spot on the lens of the camera, and it wasn’t until several days later I thought to look at the other two pictures of the opera house, taken at the same time with the same camera — and there was no circle on them…

Holy crap! You mean the dust mote might have, I dunno, wafted away on the breeze? Or the photographer turned a few inches away from the dust to take the next photo? Amazing stuff. Remember kids, even other ghost hunters don’t believe in orb photos.

One more thing I did was to contact the Paranormal Society of Western New York, and was surprised to receive a reply from Dwayne Klaud, whose hot air balloon I had ridden in several years ago.

Oh Klaud, the balloonist, he was a dashing fellow. He also hunted for spirits I believe, as a hobby don’t you know? Oh ha ha. Such times we had. I felt quite giddy in his gondola, far above the estate. And the things we saw! Oh, but that was years ago. After the tragic hunting accident, he doesn’t go up anymore. Just sits in his study muttering to himself. Gone quite batty, I believe.

Dwayne and his group have spent considerable time at Rolling Hills, the former Genesee County Nursing Home, which is reported to be haunted by tortured children and disturbed patients. When the Carlsons from Albion purchased it several years ago, Rachel was working alone there one night, when the door behind her shut.

Journalistic Integrity: When your first reaction to the claim that a medical institution torturing children and the mentally disturbed is ‘Ohhh! Spooky’

Oh, and doors react to gravity, humidity and the wind. Amazing I know.

The Ghost Hunters from television have even come and done ghost hunts there.

The fact that they didn’t find anything worth noting in the article would suggest to a reasonable person that either there weren’t any ghosts, or the ghost hunters are failures, not that these conclusions are necessarily mutually exclusive.  However, to the irrational person, the simple fact that interest was shown is evidence enough.

That is why there is currently a van of cryptozoologists just outside my window conducting surveillance on some bushes in my backyard that I had my little sister snipe-hunting in last week.

Alecia was present for one of them, spending the night alone in the dark with only her camera. When she took the film into Channel 7, the newsman said he thought Alecia said she was alone. She replied she was, but the man said a voice could be clearly heard in the background of her tape when he replayed it.

I’m glad a man is finally talking to Alecia. Clearly she can’t think for herself:
“You say there’s a voice on the tape that I didn’t hear? Well, ok then if you say so. What? I got pregnant from the toilet seat? Well, ok if you say so.”

Several homes in the Medina area are believed to be haunted…

News at 11: Truth is now being decided by popular opinion.  Tomorrow, Gravity will take a turn at the polls.  Could you be flying by noon?  Check in later for our exclusive report followed by an interview with Tinkerbell where she discusses her near-death experience and sordid love affair with underage youth.

I have called town of Ridgeway historian Dick Nellist and Medina historian Todd Bensley, both of whom say they have never heard talk of a ghost in the opera house.

But that didn’t stop Kropf from writing this fluff piece. Thank God facts don’t get in her way.

Shirley Nellist, however, remembers going to the opera house as a little girl when it was used as a youth center. Could that have any connection to the teddy bear Alecia sees in the picture?

Shirley now regrets ever talking to Kropf. She has removed the phone from her room in the nursing home…where they torture children and house disturbed patients.

Meier thinks the image is just the faded, peeling paint on the wall, and we’ve not been able to get back in yet and take a closer look. But, even so, isn’t it a coincidence the peeling paint should so clearly resemble the face of a man who played such a prominent part in the building’s history?

No, it’s certainly not a coincidence. I mean if it was a pareidolia I would say it’s a pareidolia, but, Kropf, you didn’t even make it that far. There is NOTHING to see. You must be amazing with Rorschach tests. Most people see a butterfly or a skull. But you see vast landscapes filled with teddy bears, men with canes, disturbed patients, and tortured children. Yes Kropf, you can truly plumb the shallows of your own fantasy world and then write it as fact.

Oh, just in case you didn’t read the article, the man she is referring to is a former manager of the Opera House that was mentioned to her by another reporter. There is no indication that the guy died in the place or has any connection to it beyond the desperate attempts of Kropf to shoe-horn him into her column.

To finish up, I would like to thank Virginia Kropf for making me slightly less sad that the newspaper medium is nearly dead.