This photo of Brian Houser lying on the `haunted couch? was taken by his fianc?e.
Is it a case of trick photography or the ghost of a slain mother returning to the scene of her death to search for the person who killed the woman and her child?
Brian Houser maintains that the photos he took at ?The Haunted Couch? in September and had developed at Wal-Mart a few days ago were not doctored.
Houser, 36, of Hazleton, said he was driving along Buck Mountain Road about a mile south of Eckley Miners Village in Foster Township with his fiancee, her daughters and their friend on Sept. 16 and decided to stop at a site associated with an urban legend.
Houser pulled off the road near a large rock formed in the shape of a couch and shared the legend with his crew.
?There are two stories. One is that a woman and her baby were killed here by a stagecoach in the days of Eckley (operating as a miners village). In the other story, they were killed by a car a few years ago,? Houser said.
?I heard if you sit on the couch once, you get bad luck. You sit on it twice, and someone you know dies. Sit on it a third time, and you die,? Houser said.
Houser snapped a photo of his fiancee?s daughters ? Destiny Antonelli, 6, and Kandace Antonelli, 12, sitting on the rock with their friend, Nicole Tokash, 12, and no one recalled any unlucky experiences since then.
Houser took another picture of the empty couch. His fiancee, Joann Markopolis, snapped a photo of Houser lying on the stone couch. No one noticed anything strange, Houser said.
Nothing, that is, until those photos were developed on Monday ? the day before Halloween.
A small white shape is visible in the upper left corner of the photos of the girls. The shape appears larger and closer in the photo of the empty couch. And the translucent shape appears quite large, hovering right next to the couch in the photo of Houser.
?It blew my mind,? Houser said. ?People will say they have a picture with something strange in it. But to have three of them and have it get bigger in perspective each time and move throughout the frames? It?s cool.?
Destiny said she thought the photo phenomenon was ?weird.? Asked whether she might return to the site, she shook her head.
Kandace said she was ?shocked? when she saw the photos. She said she thinks ?a spirit? heard the group talking and came out of the woods. She might return to the site, but said she wouldn?t sit on the stone couch again.
The girls? sister, Samantha, 17, said she thinks the eerie image is ?the ghost of the mother looking for the killer of her and her baby.?
Houser?s sister, Brittany Houser, doesn?t put much stock in the legend. ?I sat in the couch like five times (on previous occasions), and I?m still alive.?
Her mother, Linda Houser, thinks the phenomenon is ?amazing. My cousin tells me she sees figures by people sometimes. I thought she was nuts, but now I?m not so sure.?
Brian Houser said he planned to return to the site on Tuesday night to take more pictures with multiple cameras.
?If something else shows up, it?ll be cool.?
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