Update Oct 15.2008

Scientific ghostbusting

Before entertaining ghostly explanations, it's best to use scientific methodologies and critical thinking. A closer look at the image reveals some interesting clues about the ghost's identity.

Clue No. 1: The object is whitish and out of focus. Security cameras (especially the round "fish-eye" lenses used in the club) are designed to be mounted high above the ground and record activity twenty or more feet away. Things at that distance will be in focus, while objects close to the lens will be out of focus. Therefore the object was very close to the camera.

Clue No. 2: The object appears to be glowing, but there's no indication that it is in fact emitting light. It has all the characteristics of something that is instead reflecting white light, perhaps from one of the bright lights mounted around the camera (you can see them clearly in video footage of the story).

Clue No. 3: Though Peterson and news reporters claimed that that ghostly object "spent the night wandering around the weights," a closer look at the video shows that it instead wandered over or across them. Its movements do not show any interaction with the objects in the room at all, suggesting it was not in the room but instead above it.

Clue No. 4: Despite the fact that the gym had at least eight different cameras on and functioning that night, the "ghost" was seen on only one of them. If the spirited image had actually been in the room, other cameras should have recorded the same image from other angles. They didn't, therefore the object and phenomenon, whatever it is, only happened to that one camera.

One obvious answer, prematurely dismissed by Peterson and others, is almost certainly the correct one: the ghost is a bug. A spider or insect wandered onto the camera; that's why it was out of focus, why it seemed to glow, why it didn't interact with anything in the room, and why it only appeared on one camera. It's true that a moving light wouldn't activate the camera, as they are sensitive to motion, not light. But it was the bug's movement that triggered the sensor and started the recording.

While it is possible that the Anytime Fitness camera actually captured a ghost, in science the explanation that fits the facts with the fewest assumptions is the best. A bug on the camera fits all the facts and solves the mystery. And it's not the first time that a spider on a security camera created a ghostly image; in June 2007, a courthouse in Santa Fe, New Mexico, captured a nearly identical ghost that turned out to be a bug.

An exterminator-not an exorcist-could rid the gym of its ghost, but what's the fun in that? If they are still looking to name the mysterious image, how about Boris the Spider?

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Update Oct 05.2008

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. -- If it was a ghost at a local gym, it looks like it's gone.

In September, KMBC reported on a mysterious light that was captured on a motion-activated surveillance camera at Anytime Fitness in Overland Park. The recording was made during a two-hour period on Sept. 12.

The mystery is that no one was in the building at 95th Street and Quivira Road when the light was seen moving around the equipment.

More than 600,000 people watched the story on KMBC.com.

Some people called the gym, claiming to be a medium.

"One of them grabbed his head and said he felt someone died here from blunt force trauma. I assured him that was not the case and he said, 'Maybe it was a tumor,'" said Kim Peterson with Anytime Fitness.

Several people said the light was definitely supernatural.

"They sent me an e-mail saying it wasn't a ghost, but an angel trying to warn me about a piece of equipment and I should check the equipment in the gym," Peterson told KMBC's Bev Chapman.

Peterson said that an equipment vendor came the next day and discovered two pins were missing from a weight machine. The pins were soon replaced.

More than half of the people who contacted KMBC about the video think it is a ghost. Others said it's a bug in the camera or headlights from a passing car.

The light has not appeared since KMBC aired the story.

Peterson said they've had so much fun with the fitness phantom that they've decided to run a new member special through Halloween.

Click link to view latest video.

(Original headline: Mysterious Light Disappears From Gym Cam )

.:Story originally published by:.
KMBC-TV: Kansas City / Kan. - Oct 03.2008

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OVERLAND PARK, Kan. -- A surveillance camera at a workout club recently caught some mysterious images when no one was inside the building.

Like the name implies, Anytime Fitness is open around the clock. The idea is that people can work in a workout at their convenience.

KMBC's Bev Chapman reported that the fitness club looks like any other new, well-equipped place until you look at the surveillance video.

"Every day when I come in, I review my surveillance. 'What did I miss while I was asleep?'" said Kim Peterson of Anytime Fitness.

But Peterson said she has no idea what she missed when some mysterious images were recorded on Sept. 12.

"They're motion cameras. So I thought, what motion is triggering it? And we kind of got a series of weird pictures we could not explain," Peterson said.

Peterson said she knows there was no one in the building when the camera started recording.

"At 1:59, you see the last member of the night leaving," Peterson told Chapman. "It shows the street as well."

But inside the empty building there appears to be some kind of light.

"It starts at 2:20 a.m. and goes on until about 4:14 in the morning, kind of off and on," Peterson said.

Chapman reported that no one shows up outside of the building after the last man leaves, shining a light inside. And Peterson said lights have never activated her cameras before.

"(I) called the security company and they said, 'We don't know why that light would make the camera kick on, but it sure is interesting. Can we download a copy?'" Peterson said.

Peterson said some of her customers are having fun with the idea of naming the fitness phantom with Halloween a month away.

"I'm a very open-minded person. I'm willing to look at and consider any possibility. It's certainly nothing that frightens me," Peterson said.

The security camera records at one frame a second, so the video is a little jerky.

Click link to view videos.

(Original headline: Mysterious Light Caught On Fitness Club's Cam )

.:Story originally published by:.
KMBC-TV: Kansas City / Kan. - Sep 23.2008

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