I would just like to add my obsessive and fervent hope that someone finds what the hell you’re talking about, Dijon, because I fear I will not rest properly until I see it. Sadly, I can’t help much because I am hopeless when it comes to search logic.
Please, oh please find it!!
Despite the low number of replies, 2,358 people have looked at this thread so clearly it is intriguing people. Hopefully someone will come along and help.
I spent quite a while looking for this picture at the coasttocoastam.com site mentioned friat ted mentioned, and I didn’t find the photos mentioned in the OP. I did find a couple of other interesting old pictures, though.
Dora, Star Child. A little girl with some kind of deformation of her face and head (enlarged head, kind of blank face. Not gruesome, though). The story accompanying it is kind of glurgy, but the photo is a little creepy.
Easter Animal. Some kind of animal with bunny ears strapped to its head. I don’t think it’s an actual animal, I think it’s some kind of statue.
Looks like a muntjac deer with prosthetic rabbit ears, Might (as you say) be a statue - is that woodgrain, or just the pattern of the fur?
I don’t think that’s a muntjac (we have a stuffed one in our local natural history museum), but I don’t know what it is.
Muntjacs creep me out, though. It’s like Bambi became a vampire: a dog-sized deer with fangs.
The Star Child pics were weird in a similar way as the ones I’m looking for, and much the same color-wise (the sepia/cream thing), but they’re not quite it, either.
If Fortean Times can’t come up with it, then I’m at a total loss, since FT and the Dope are the only boards I’ve frequented for years. I collect photography, too; and am a fan of strange stuff. I can’t believe I didn’t save these, but at the time I figured I could always go back and get them.
::cue anguished smiley::
I really appreciate everyone trying to help. I didn’t expect these images to be so elusive. I’m operating on two principles: Everything’s on the Internet, and Once on the Internet, ALWAYS on the Internet. They’ve got to be somewhere, and someone’s got to know where they are.
FTR, Boulter’s Canary’s description sounds closest to what I remember. I believe the person with the bandaged hands and the possible halloween mask was wearing overalls. BC’s mention of the woman with the very odd eyes sparked something, too. Did she have gauze or bandages over them? That’s what I’m recalling.
I’m having a hard time finding a gallery, but are you sure the photos weren’t the work of Diane Arbus, in particular her series taken during Halloween at an asylum?
No, I’m not sure.
I’ve heard the name, and have seen some of Ms. Arbus’ work, but can’t tell you one way or the other whether they were hers. My impression is that they were decades old (depression-era, if not earlier), and I don’t recall her name being remotely associated with them. The consensus was that they were a mystery, and no source/origin was ever established, to my knowledge.
That, of course, doesn’t rule out the possibility, however.
I just want to find them.
That’s what I recalled- I can’t even click to it because I found it more than a little
unsettling.
bump
Dangit.
Must see weird photo!! OG SMASH!!
After waiting a day for the membership to kick-in, I managed to sign-up and do a search. Here’s the thread, from July of last year:
http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=22652&start=0
And the photo itself:
And the second photo, from page 6 of that same thread:
Mystery solved! Good work everyone. I was determined to see these damn photos and not let this thread go under.
Now…the original question…what the hell is going on?
I would have to wonder why not one but two people with weird/deformed faces would be photographed, so maybe it is a halloween costume. If they are, though, they’re the shittiest halloween masks I’ve ever seen.
Oh, and also, the woman’s “face” looks like it has a large fake mustache on it. This would cause me to lean towards the halloween mask theory.
That’s kinda freakish – but I’m betting on paper mache’ masks. Especially the gentleman – the head has that crudely-moulded, and the eyes – especially those too-white eyes – look flat and painted, and the lips look painted on too. (Either that or he’s wearing lipstick; nobody’s lips are that vivid unless your face is spectacularly white to give sufficient contrast)
The one in the dress is odd. Looks like a male mask with an asymmetrical skull, big bushy mustache and what appears to be round spectacles.
Damn! Beat me to it! :smack:
I actually asked the folks at Fortean Times but had to wait a whole day at work until I got home today to check for answers and post here. Oh well at least Dijon Warlock and I have proof we were not dreaming.
Thanks, Dusty!
Og no longer feels the need to SMASH!!
Creeeeeepyyyyyyy.
… Mom?
Oh, I wouldn’t say that… they wore them once, had a couple pictures taken, and those pictures have been discussed in a couple of different threads generating thousands of hits. Sounds pretty successful to me…
I just want to say Good luck. We’re all counting on you.
Huh?
The link to the Fortean thread doesn’t work for me – what’s the gist of their conversation?
I just noticed something about the one with the hat. Something was sort of bugging me a bit: It’s sepia-toned, which suggests an old (pre-1940 or so) Baby Brownie or something along those lines took the picture, but it seems like there’s a bit too much detail and not enough grain to be from the era of the camera that supposedly took it.
Also, the house he is standing in front of has moulded cement “stones” around the foundation (evidenced by the identical shape of each one). Was this common of the alleged era? I don’t know much about earlier 20th century prefab architecture but it strikes me as a little too modern to fit into a picture that seems to be trying to pass itself off as being older.
Or maybe I’m just reading too much into it.