Bachelor's Grove Paranormal Forums

BACHELOR'S GROVE CEMETERY => Upload & discuss pictures from BACHELOR'S GROVE here. => Topic started by: Ghost1 on Dec 03 2007 - 11:55AM

Title: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: Ghost1 on Dec 03 2007 - 11:55AM
Here is that famous picture from 1991 of the Bachelors Grove woman.

The Madonna of Bachelor's Grove

This photo was taken during an investigation of Bachelor's Grove cemetery near Chicago by the Ghost Research Society (GRS). On August 10, 1991, several members of of the GRS were at the cemetery, a small, abandoned graveyard on the edge of the Rubio Woods Forest Preserve, near the suburb of Midlothian, Illinois. Reputed to be one of the most haunted cemeteries in the U.S., Bachelor's Grove has been the site of well over 100 different reports of strange phenomena, including apparitions, unexplained sights and sounds, and even glowing balls of light.

GRS member Judy Huff was taking black and white photos with a high-speed infrared camera in an area where the group had experienced some anomalies with their ghost-hunting equipment. The cemetery was empty, except for the GRS members. When developed, this image emerged: what looks like a lonely-looking young woman dressed in white sitting on a tombstone. Parts of her body are partially transparent and the style of the dress seems to be out of date.

Here is Judy's first Radio Interview on Thresholds Radio with John Stephenson:  http://ufo-info.com/show/9302012/ (http://ufo-info.com/show/9302012/)


Here is a quote from the book "The Ghost Hunter's Guidebook" (https://www.prairieghosts.com/guidebook.html) By Troy Taylor about this picture:

I received a copy of this photo and had it examined by several independent photographers. Most of them would have liked to come up with a reason why the photo could not be real, but unfortunately they couldn't. They ruled out the idea of a double exposure and also the theory that the person in the photo was a living woman who was placed in the photo and made to appear like she was a ghost. One skeptic also claimed that the woman in the photo was casting a shadow. but according to the photographers who analyzed the image, the "shadow" is actually nothing more the natural shading of the landscape. Besides that, one of them asked, if she is casting a shadow in that direction, then why isn't anything else in the frame doing the same?
Photo by Judy Huff-Felz
(http://www.bachelors-grove.com/bglady.jpg)
Title: RE: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: Maggpie on Dec 09 2007 - 12:05AM
This is just an amazing photo!  Have people tried to examine the original.........does anyone know? 
Title: RE: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: Ghost1 on Dec 09 2007 - 12:11AM
This is just an amazing photo!  Have people tried to examine the original.........does anyone know? 

Been analyzed by the best experts in the country many times over.  Always comes out the same.....100% real!
It's one of the most famous ghost pictures in the world!
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: Tommyboy67 on Dec 03 2008 - 01:35PM
This photo is the real deal, indeed.
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: Colleen2510 on Jan 04 2009 - 01:29PM
I am in no way saying that I don't believe in this photo. I love this photo and I WANT it to be the "real deal".  I am only bringing this up so that someone can post back and tell me that I'm not seeing this. ......Also I'm not so certain that ghosts never ever cast shadows. As I have said in this forum on another occasion .....there seems to be some evidence that ghosts CAN create just about any image themselves that they want even a slight shadow appearance...but anyway I am looking at her right leg and foot. Were it is outstretched there seems to be a shadow underneath her leg....looking the very same shape and distance as her leg and foot.  What do yall think?
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: Ghost1 on Jan 04 2009 - 02:27PM
I am in no way saying that I don't believe in this photo. I love this photo and I WANT it to be the "real deal".  I am only bringing this up so that someone can post back and tell me that I'm not seeing this. ......Also I'm not so certain that ghosts never ever cast shadows. As I have said in this forum on another occasion .....there seems to be some evidence that ghosts CAN create just about any image themselves that they want even a slight shadow appearance...but anyway I am looking at her right leg and foot. Were it is outstretched there seems to be a shadow underneath her leg....looking the very same shape and distance as her leg and foot.  What do yall think?


I never really questioned this picture at all because it has been analyzed by numerous professional photographers and they can do way more with a picture then I could ever dream of doing.


Here is a quote from the book "The Ghost Hunter's Guidebook" By Troy Taylor about this picture:

One skeptic also claimed that the woman in the photo was casting a shadow. but according to the photographers who analyzed the image, the "shadow" is actually nothing more the natural shading of the landscape. Besides that, one of them asked, if she is casting a shadow in that direction, then why isn't anything else in the frame doing the same?
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: Colleen2510 on Jan 04 2009 - 04:32PM
Being a ghost is something that on one hand it seems easy to think about but then the little questions get you. Like how could a ghost possibly be overweight? It's not like they eat anything. And if it is just that they look the way they did when they were living then is it true that you are stuck with what you look like the day that you die? That would mean that you might get stuck with a mangled body. Then some psychics or clarivoyants say that they come thru looking the way that you remember them but what if you don't know them? And this would mean that they could ....if they wanted to change appearances so why then would they want to be overweight or mangled to ppl who never saw them that way.......  che   Sorry ....these are just questions that bug me sometimes.

I wonder what I would have to look like as a ghost. And my weight goes up n down like a yoyo. One year I'm "Olive Oil" ....I'm talking so skinny my relatives try to feed me lard to put weight on me n then the next year I can't eat a peice of lettuce without gaining 10 lbs! I've gained 40 lbs in the past 7 months! But all it really would take is for me to give away all of my skinny clothes n I'd be Olive Oil again!  I wonder what I will look like as a ghost! I don't have a very good referrence cause I'm always different!  This stuff kind of drives me nuts when I start wondering about it.
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: Theone321 on Jan 08 2009 - 08:57PM
ITS SO STRANGE IT LOOKS FAKE BUT ITS REAL THAT SO COOL
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: Jeepgirlgina on Jan 08 2009 - 10:30PM
ITS SO STRANGE IT LOOKS FAKE BUT ITS REAL THAT SO COOL
I thought I showed you that picture before.  It is really a cool picture and it is real
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: The Shadow on Jan 09 2009 - 06:53PM
When people speak of BG that is the picture that pops into my head
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: dennis on May 19 2009 - 11:30PM
Something else about her apperance has always bugged me a little.  She looks like she is wearing kind of a short skirt, one that stops just above the knees.  That's the kind of clothes I remember my cousins wearing back in the early to mid 60's.  The picture was taken in I think 1991 so there definitely out of date.  She looks like a young woman in her teens or 20's.  So if she is appearing the way she did when she was alive it stands to reason she is a young woman who died in the early 60's and the only burial at BG at that time was Laura McGhee a lady I think in her 80's.  So I would think she is not buried there and if that's true then who is she and why did she choose BG as her (for lack of a better term) haunt?

I do not doubt the authenticity of the picture; but she seems out of place with the others who seem to usually appear in 1800's clothing. It adds to the mystery of who this poor soul is.
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: Jeepgirlgina on May 21 2009 - 10:21AM
Dennis,
I am not sure as the picture is not crisp but I think that I see her dress wrapped around her legs and going down to her ankles.  It is so hard to tell though.  Wouldn't it be nice if we could have pictures of all the people buried there so we could compare them to the pictures of the spirits captured on film there.  As for why would someone haunt where they were not buried...I am not sure....maybe a family member is there of they had some attachment to that area in life.  I wish we had more answers to the afterlife.  BTW....thanks for the post.
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: Colleen2510 on May 25 2009 - 09:07AM
From what I have heard tell from the very few Mediums / Clairvoyants that I have come to respect......someone who has passed does not have to present themselves as they are when they die. Case in point:  A mother and father who had passed away in their late 90's decided to show up at their daughters wedding anniversary celebration. Their presence there was captured on film. But instead of being the crippled 90 something couple they were when they passed they were a vibrant 40 something couple that their daughter remembered so well from earlier years.  And she had the pictures to compare to the couple to prove it!!

Since we don't have the physical boundaries in the spirit world that we have to deal with here the possibilities are endless I would think. Of course as JeepGirl put it having more answers would be nice and until then I am only going on what a few others tell me. But I'm working on making that connection myself...lol  However, it does seem that even those with a healthy connection with the spirit realm say that they don't always understand the whys, what fors and how it works.

Thanks for the information on Laura McGhee Dennis. That's new info for me. One more thing for me to add to the knowledge of the Grove.   
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: Colleen2510 on May 25 2009 - 09:37AM
PS...... I went back and looked at the picture again for a good minute or 2 and it appears to me that the dress is not a mini-dress like the ones in the 60"s. I wore those mini-dress'.....LOL  When you sit down with one of those skirts / dress' on you do good to get coverage just below the crease in the hip joint were you bend to sit down.... cho  It does appear that the skirt part is wrapped around the right leg at the knee and pulled over to that side. For the skirt to come to the point that it does on the left leg it would have to be a skirt / dress that would fall past the knee when standing up.
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: dennis on May 26 2009 - 10:24PM
Ah ha!  I see what both of you are referring to and it looks like you are right!  Makes me wonder if she is from the 20's (and somehow connected with that ghost car seen on the turnpike).
Thanks so much for the input. 
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: Tenbears on May 27 2009 - 12:53PM
some images are timeless for there beauty,
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: BlackHeart on Jun 07 2009 - 07:17PM
That is such an awesome picture. I wish I can catch something like that.
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: cubcadet128 on Oct 24 2009 - 11:38PM
You and me both, I'd scare myself if I captured an apparitioin on camera!
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: countthastarS2 on Nov 25 2009 - 12:08AM
Either way..this is a amazing picture and I only wish I could had taken a picture of such a talked about piece.
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: jphunter26 on Nov 25 2009 - 10:02AM
This is why all of us keep going back to the Grove, time after time, to hopefully capture such an image.
Because we believe...
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: GhostlyNerd on Dec 02 2009 - 12:16PM
From what I have heard tell from the very few Mediums / Clairvoyants that I have come to respect......someone who has passed does not have to present themselves as they are when they die.

I've always wondered about this.  I think that perhaps when we come back after we pass, that maybe our form takes on our physical form during either our happiest time of life or unhappiest.  But who knows?  Part of me wants to come back after I die to see what its like on "that side of things."   emb  Does anyone else feel that way too? 
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: jphunter26 on Dec 02 2009 - 12:36PM
I would think that as humans, we all want to know what is on the other side and see back to the side of the living from that perspective. This is after all, the greatest mystery there is.
Thanks, GhostlyNerd!
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: DeigoC on Jun 16 2010 - 09:34PM
my question about that day in 1991 was this lady ever captured again on film.Would be a question I keep asking myself because I can not find anymore information on it.
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: Exzyle2k on Jun 16 2010 - 09:39PM
As far as I know, she's never been captured since...

There are claims that she appears on a video that's on YouTube, but at the same time they call her Dora Newman and odds are quite likely that's not her real name.

That checkered stone is probably one of the most photographed stones in history, due to how many people have taken pictures of that stone. I'm guilty of probably 50 or so myself.

But many of the best photos are "right place, right time" and haven't been replicated. The white figure in the Scutt Mansion & the cowboy in Tombstone are just two of the hundreds of famous pictures that haven't been duplicated.
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: Autumn08 on Aug 29 2010 - 04:34PM
I am brand new to this forum and I'm fascinated.  I've never been to Bachelor's Grove, but I'd like to after seeing this famous picture.  She looks like a woman from the 20's, she's got the soft finger wave curl to her hair and an outdated dress.  Theres more than just what she's wearing and how she's wearing her hair. The way she's seated, contently, maybe thinking over something or pondering how she had lived her life?  Or waiting for someone to join her?  Maybe she's sad, she appears to be young, maybe she had things she wanted to live for and her dreams ended in death. 

I'm just so interested in the message of the photo.  I believe that if ghosts or apparitions appear in photos, they want to be seen.  We all have a story, what's hers?
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: jazz on Aug 19 2012 - 12:43AM
This is an amazing picture and what actually brought me here to this site!  :)
Title: Re: The Famous Woman on the Gravestone Picture
Post by: cougarvamp on Nov 24 2013 - 01:44PM
Andy & I are ghost hunting partners, & we have always referred to this lady as Minna, because she appears near Minna Hageman's grave.
Andy captured a photo of this same woman on our first trip to the Grove together. She has the same hair; length, style & color as the woman seated in the picture. The only downside is she looks far away, but we were able to see some details.
  In this picture, I am seated on a tombstone wearing blue. Minna is to the right, outlined in the box. Someone tried to debunk her as a tombstone, but there is no grave at this location. She's walking towards me, on the path near her grave, at the entrance to the cemetery.
This photo was taken by Andy. He posted it but I'm not sure what he named the thread.