page_title: Santa Fe courthouse ghost
section_title: Details of the event
hierarchical_section_title: Santa Fe courthouse ghost / Details of the event
caption_attribution_description: English: Courthouse in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where a ghostly image was recorded on a surveillance camera in June 2007.
context_page_description: The Santa Fe courthouse ghost event was a purported ghost sighted on a video captured by a security camera at a courthouse in Santa Fe, New Mexico on June 15, 2007. Once the "ghost video" was uploaded onto YouTube it quickly attracted widespread attention and many improbable suggestions as to its origin. Benjamin Radford, a managing editor of Skeptical Inquirer investigated the sighting and concluded that the origin of the ghost was a bug crawling across the camera lens.
context_section_description: On Friday, June 15, 2007, a bright, round object was recorded by a surveillance camera moving around in the image of the rear entrance of the First Judicial District courthouse, Catron Street, Santa Fe. The recording, starting at 7:27:11 a.m., shows a bright spot of light that comes into view at the top right hand corner of the image before moving downwards and out of the camera's field of view in the bottom left hand side of the image at 7:27:23 a.m. After Jason Auslander of The Santa Fe New Mexican reported on the event and uploaded the footage to YouTube it was picked up by various news outlets such as ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, The Boston Globe and The San Francisco Chronicle and promptly became a topic of discussion all over the country.
  Soon after the footage was released to the public, a large number of people contacted the Santa Fe New Mexican and Auslander proposing various theories on what the object was. Some thought the object might be ball lightning, others were convinced they could see a face in the image. One woman who claimed to be a spiritual reader said she saw five separate spirits in the video and another person advised the journalist to consult a "reputable channeler". The New Mexican website logged thousands of hits for the video. The video was later uploaded to YouTube and was viewed more than 50,000 times within a couple of days, reaching the top 15 videos on the site at that time. This drew hundreds of additional e-mails from people to the news outlet.
  Many predictions were made about the real identity of the mysterious object within the staff of the courthouse as well. Some people supposed that it was the ghost of convicted murderer Andy Lopez, who was shot and killed at the courthouse after taking nine people hostage in February 1985. Other pseudo-scientific predictions included a spirit of a little girl who was lost and a different ghost who had been disturbed by the construction of a convention centre across the street. However, some more realistic hypotheses from the courthouse staff were that it might be a cottonwood seed, someone walking with a light on their head, an insect or spider walking on the camera lens or a reflection, perhaps from a passing car. Vanessa Pacheco, who was the supervisor of the court security for the Santa Fe County Sheriff's Office, said people's opinions on the video depended on whether they believe in ghosts.
caption: The front entrance of the Santa Fe Courthouse
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