"The hands resist him", ghost picture. Was there a boy?

Gather around the campfire, children, because we’re going to tell you an old story about a ghost painting from eBay auction. Like any good ghost story, this one has a surprise too. The choice where our story will take place on the World Wide Web or the twilight zone is up to you.

In February 2000, an unidentified couple from California placed an ad for the sale of surrealistic paintings on the eBay online auction. The picture shows a little boy and girl standing in front of the door. Behind the door in the dark, children’s hands beckoning from nowhere. But something is wrong with the girl. Her hands, like those of old dolls from sinister films, hold an object with protruding wires. Is this a weapon?

Bill Stoneham - The hands resist him (Bill Stoneham - Hands resist him)

But the picture did not blow gothic or something frightening and creepy. The sellers’ stories below were much worse.

The painting was found by them behind an old abandoned brewery. They decided to hang the picture from where they came from in the room of their four-year-old daughter. One morning, the daughter complained that the two children depicted in the picture “come to life” and “go out into the room for the night.” An alarmed father, decided to put a security camera, which worked, reacting to movements, in the room for the next three nights. The camera worked several times and produced photographs, one of which captured a boy "seemingly coming out of the picture."

Photos, which were also posted on the site, are shrouded in inexplicable horror and give freedom for interpretation. If you use your imagination, you can see how the boy emerges from the picture, while the doll girl, reminiscent of the famous Chuckie killer doll, is shooting strange weapons at the boy.

“We decided that the painting needs to be sold,” the seller writes and adds that they will not be responsible for any “events that occur after the sale.”

So painting joined the resources of the Internet network. At least 30,000 people clicked on the links to this picture of the web page, some even reported strange and frightening sensations when viewing this picture from their computer.

One of those who watched the picture said that he had heard something like prayer readings by an exorcist, and also felt an explosion of hot air. Another reported that he fell ill while watching the picture and had to burn the grass of white sage in order to clean his house after that. Another user reported “clouding of reason and loss of control.”

The seller, for the speedy sale of the painting, decided to retreat and wrote: “There are no ghosts and supernatural powers in the picture, it’s just painting. And for most of what happened, there is an explanation - a play of light. ”

But it hardly helped to restrain the true believers. Numerous websites and chats are dedicated to the legendary eBay auction ghost picture.

But no one was as impressed with this legend as 55-year-old Bill Stoneham, an artist who works for Cyan Worlds, the company that created the best-selling computer games, Myst and Riven. Stoneham, you see, was the guy who wrote this work 30 years ago.

The eBay auction ghost picture was actually sold by Stoneham Gallery in California in 1973, after which he did not see it.

At least until August 2001, when the gallery owner in Grand Rapids, Michigan, sent an email to Stoneham. The gallery bought the painting from a couple from California on eBay for 1200 USD, and the owner tracked it down according to information from the label on the back of the painting. He advised Stoneham to browse the web pages that describe the legend of his painting.

Stoneham was scared.

“This is my face in the picture,” he said. “Now, this is an eerie feeling.”

He was this little boy in a picture that he painted from an old, faded family photograph depicting him with a little neighbor’s girl.

The artist began to read legends about ghosts, allegedly living in the picture. His first thought was: “Why did they hang a picture in the child’s bedroom?”

His second thought was: “I wonder how the picture could cause such a violent reaction?” Later, the artist will say that he deliberately used Jungian and metaphysical symbolism. The door is represented by the gates of opportunity, and the hands represent "other lives."

He never intended to make the picture creepy, supernatural, or even create anxiety in people’s minds. As for the “weapon,” he said that it was a dry-cell battery with wires extending from above, like the ones he used as a child to create models of airplanes.

Since then, painting has changed his life in many ways. This inspired him to create his own web page, and start writing again, for the first time in many decades. According to him, the violent reaction to his painting, of course, is not what he expected, but still it is flattering to him.

He enjoys his fame not only on the Internet. On the radio, various talk shows in Dallas, Jesse Jessup on KDGE-FM, has the rubric "Essay Ghost Painting Competition." A competition in which listeners send essays about a painting. Competition entries were judged by “creative horror”, winners were determined on Halloween.

Stoneham was one of the judges and read with alarm, accidentally found records.

“People were very addicted, saying that the child in the picture was abused by drinking parents,” said Stoneham. “It’s like you are in a coma, in a cramped room, when everyone is trying to speculate on your life.”

Meanwhile, he entered into an agreement with a gallery for the sale of copies of The Hand resist him at $ 450 apiece or a smaller version for $ 185.

Stoneham was once asked if he knew the bizarre cases associated with reviews of the picture: “Well,” said Stoneham, thinking for a moment. ““ When we moved here from my old apartment, the U-Haul car broke down. ”

Article translation by Jim Kershner for SpokesmanReview.com