Britains Got Talent… and Ghosts

People who spend far too much time staring closely at the TV have identified an extremely small, blurry dark shape that appears to move rapidly across the stage during a semi-final performance on Britains Got Talent. (Embedding is disabled on this video, so you've got to go to YouTube itself.)

It took me a while to even be able to see the "ghost." It starts at 0:51, at the right side of the stage. By 0:53 it's gone, darting off the left side of the stage. (Warning: it's really, really small!)

I think it's just a lighting artifact. Dave Tolomy, who gave me a heads up about it, thinks it may be something an audience member is holding up. Or maybe it really is a ghost! Decide for yourself, if you have nothing better to do.

Paranormal Pareidolia

Posted on Mon Jun 01, 2009


Comments

One of the comments makes a good point. Whatever it is, it's moving at around the same speed as the camera, so it's probably as you say, an artifact. Would be interesting to see if there are any bootleg videos of this episode, cause I'd bet a dozen donuts that it won't appear anywhere else.
Posted by Bill  on  Mon Jun 01, 2009  at  08:36 AM
This is like those missiles or projectiles or whatever...it is moving opposite the camera...at roughly the same speed...something could have passed by the camera so quickly that it only appears to be on stage.
Posted by Maegan  on  Mon Jun 01, 2009  at  08:49 AM
It is a stationary object somewhere between the camera and the stage. It may be held up or may be hanging from the ceiling. It appears to change shape because in some spots, bright light from the stage bleeds over it.
Posted by sb  on  Mon Jun 01, 2009  at  09:55 AM
I'm going to say that it's a microphone. Right in the middle of the audience there is a mass of media and/or a production pod for the show. (We had a similar "pod" in the middle of our high school auditorium for the running of the lights and sound suring shows.)

If you look closely, just before the camera cuts away you can see another similar one on the right side of the production pod. It's only visible for a split second before the shot cuts away.
Posted by Tah  on  Mon Jun 01, 2009  at  02:34 PM
I would agree with Tah. As a matter of fact, I think it's an audience mic for picking up audience reaction tracks. If you can keep your eyes on it and the large bald guy in the middle of the swing (he's in, like, the last row of the audience) the speed matches close to his apparent speed. Just as they both hit center, it's almost perfectly seen as a slender cord with a microphone on the end - no big bulb at the end because it doesn't need a windscreen. The variation in apparent size and shape is because of all the backlighting relative to it.
Posted by Originalsim  on  Mon Jun 01, 2009  at  08:03 PM
It's just the camera...
There isn't ghost there !
But, it makes sense !

Sorry my English !

Brasil !
Posted by Fernando Augusto Messias  on  Tue Jun 02, 2009  at  02:17 PM
It's Susan Boyle's career exiting "stage right".
Posted by David B.  on  Thu Jun 04, 2009  at  02:45 AM
I did have nothing better to do, but a quick search showed that the most popular "horror" bit on UK TV was "Kinga and the wine bottle" off of BB.

Due warning don't look at this: prior to eating, at work, in front of your kids, spouse, parents, parents-in-law, law enforcement officers etc etc
Posted by Joel B1  on  Sat Jun 06, 2009  at  04:40 AM
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