One of the unexplainable ghostly images that showed up in Stella Lansing’s film while she was shooting high tension wires.

No ghost hunt is complete without a discussion of The Strange Case of Stella Lansing. Lansing is a pioneer in the paranormal and started her journey into the unknown before any of the movies on paranormal activity were released.

Terms like paranormal, supernatural, and ufology will overlap as we probe this unusual case. These terms seem especially viable as we UFOlogists anxiously thrum our fingers in anticipation of the long- awaited government report on secretive UFO programs.

Paranormal vs Supernatural

Let’s start by examining the terms Paranormal and Supernatural.  There’s a difference.

Paranormal are those things that are currently beyond our ability to understand or prove, but hopefully one day science will  be able to. Things like clairvoyance, telepathy, and telekinesis fit into this niche nicely.

Supernatural are also those things that are currently beyond our ability to understand or validate, BUT the fact is, science will NEVER be able to. Things like guardian angels or demons fit here.

So is a ghost Paranormal or Supernatural? I firmly believe we are on the road to proving the existence of ghosts. For me, ghosts fit into the Paranormal. However, we may never be able to establish their existence without a doubt — except for people like you and I who have had ghostly encounters. So ghosts don’t fit into either category at the moment.

Ufology is the study of reports, visual records, physical evidence, and other phenomena related to unidentified flying objects, according to Wikipedia.

The Pioneer

The Strange Case of Stella Lansing encompasses all three of the above. Since 1967, this Massachusetts housewife, nurse, and mother of five has produced over 50 rolls of 8mm movie film revealing UFOs, time travelers (maybe ghosts), and other unexplainable images.

Stella took two self portraits of yourself. Photo 1 reveals Stella’s normal appearance.

Photo 2, taken seconds after the first photo, show  odd growths on her face.

Experts in photography have suggested mechanical problems like a light leak in the camera, trying to explain the eerie images.

To prove her authenticity, Lansing used six different cameras, two different film types. She took pictures at night, during the day, and in five different states. Once, at the last minute, researchers switched cameras with her.

Endeavors to prove fraud or faulty equipment all resulted in the same outcome — when Stella took her videos or photos, unexplainable images occurred.

Dr. Schwarz and the Strange Case

Berthold E. Schwarz, noted psychiatrist and author, studied Lansing’s case for over twenty years. It was her meticulously documented records that prompted him to examine her findings.

He found no signs of fraud nor did he find a logical explanation. He asked: “How do we explain this?” And concluded: “It’s a real mystery of the first order.”

Mystery Men

The Occupants — Lansing captured four mysterious men  on film.

One of Stella’s photos reveals what looks to be time travelers (or ghosts) and has been named The Occupants. It’s an image of four mysterious men. 

“I never saw them when filming. I can’t tell you what they came out of or what they were in. They must have come from the soft, white object which seemed to go away to the southeast — the object that was hovering while I was filming, for example, during the sequence preceding the zigzag burst of light,” Stella said.

The Occupants images cleaned up by an artist.

What’s even stranger, Stella used 8mm motion picture film to record her images. It is a silent film. When it was transferred to video, voices could be heard.

Analysts didn’t know and couldn’t explain how Stella’s silent 8mm film, with no sound track, could produce sound. Furthermore, analysts noted that the frames are so small on 8mm film that it would take an elaborate studio set-up to alter the film plus the expertise of a professional to do so.

The Occupants, with their short haircuts and non-uniform attire, look more like researchers than a military crew. Could they be time-traveling archeologists from Earth’s future? Or ghosts bleeding from their fourth dimension into our Flatland. 

Lansing’s Clock Series

This is referred to as the clock series that appears in more than one of Stella’s photos.

Some of Stella’s most bizarre images are called the “clock series.” These odd images appear in the shape of a clock and surround such things as airplanes and church steeples. They appear at night as well as during the day.

When these images are enlarged, they are disc shaped and look like spacecrafts. Other individuals standing next to Stella are unable to capture these strange UFOs on film.

A close-up of one of the images in Stella’s “clock series” resembles a spacecraft.

With no valid explanation for the phenomena, Dr. Schwarz wondered if Stella somehow affected the films herself. He had her undergo psychiatric evaluations and brain wave analysis.

From Dr. Schwarz’s research, two theories  surfaced.

1. She was performing mind projections.

2. Her camera was capturing another dimension. A dimension that exists in a borderline way.

No Fraud. No Logical Explanation.

It is reported that Stella cooperated in every aspect with scientific investigators in a willing and open manner. After years of research, Dr. Schwarz was convinced of her authenticity. Moreover, a friend of Dr. Schwarz’s and famous mentalist, Joseph Dunninger, also examined Stella’s case and found no signs of fraud nor any logical explanation for her phenomena.

According to Dr. Schwarz, her photographs point to the physical existence of possible UFOs and associated entities. However the supposed psychic events that accompany this evidence suggest “other dimensions to this phenomena,” he said.

ProbeFiling

Dr. Schwarz isn’t alive for me to ask what he actually meant by “other dimensions.” Sadly, neither is Lansing. Did he mean dimensions meaning other realms? Or dimensions meaning other unexplored factors to this phenomena?

If he meant other dimensions — as in other realms — my ghost hypothesis comes into play from my research done on Carl Sagan’s Flatland. After studying Sagan’s explanation of the possibility of a fourth dimension, I’ve come to the unverified hypothesis that the ghosts we see in our world exist on a fourth dimension.

The fourth dimension is time. Thus, travelers have the ability to go forward or backward in time. Additionally, this might explain the mysterious appearance of The Occupants on Lansing’s film.

A YouTube About Lansing

Below you will find a fascinating YouTube video on The Strange Case of Stella Lansing. It’s dated February 20, 2012. Lansing died on September 20, 2012. I find the dates  relevant in that she died seven months to the day from the release of the video. She was 86. Dr. Schwarz died September 16, 2010 — two years and four days before Lansing. He was 86 also.

Someone with expertise in numerology could tell us what this means. I, unfortunately, am not that person. But I must ask: Did their strong connection somehow influence their deaths? 

Challenges

My biggest challenge researching  The Strange Case of Stella Lansing was finding information. There is very little. Dr. Schwarz has a Wikipedia page with a one liner on Lansing and even his information is brief.

It’s almost as if — here comes the conspiracy theory — someone doesn’t want us to know more about this strange case. Why? Because it might shatter long accepted beliefs such as: we are alone in the universe. Or there are no such things as ghosts. Or time travel will only ever be the creation of science fiction writers. 

I did discover one interesting blog on Lansing. However, I’m a little hesitant to link it since I could find no verification of some the information presented. But it was a fun read, revealing Lansing once saw a grotesque humanoid creature. If you read it, let me know what you think. 

To summarize, it is my belief that the images Stella captured are 4 dimensional entities bleeding into our 3D world. Due to some unknown gift only she possessed, Lansing captured this leeching of a fourth dimension as it occured. 

I challenge you to offer another explanation for paranormal activities, and why some of us see them and some of us don’t.

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Clara Bush

Clara is creator of the popular Science Fiction novellas, "The Creep Mesquite Anthology." It's SyFy with monsters and a little romance, available on Amazon Kindle.

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