[Eerie Music Starts] ♪ ♪ HAMILTON YOUNG WARD: In 1862, an engraver in Boston, an amateur photographer, William H. Mumler, took a self-portrait in the studios of Helen F. Stuart.

But what made this self-portrait so remarkable for the time is that it showed something else besides the jolly bearded photographer himself.

It showed a spirit, an extra, someone that the photographer would later claim was the ghost of his deceased cousin.

This would set off a wild storm of involvement, as this was the first documented photograph of a ghost.

HAMILTON: When news spread that Mumler could take photographs of ghosts, people would line up outside of Stuart's studio.

Mumler would take people's photographs, and sure enough, their deceased loved one would be standing right next to them.

This turned into a booming business for Mumler, Stuart, and the receptionist at the time, Hannah Green.

HAMILTON: As a photographer myself, what's so remarkable to me about Mumler and the spirit photography images that he created was just how he did them.

You know, we look at them now and we're like, Oh, you know, they're just a double exposure.

You know, we have ideas about how they were made, and they even had ideas back then about how they were made, but they couldn't prove it.

HAMILTON: No one was able to prove just how Mumler was making these images.

He would have the leading photographers of the day come to his studio and watch him throughout the entire process.

They would watch him do every single step, and they couldn't figure it out.

There was one person who actually backed up from the camera to make sure that Mumler wasn't touching anything.

HAMILTON: It's...it's so wild to me that these photographers couldn't figure out what a novice photographer like Mumler was doing.

And yet, he somehow is able to capture one of the first spirit photographs ever.

And that, to me, is the great mystery here.

And that's what is kinda driving me to figure out what he was doing.

HAMILTON: I wanna look at these processes, I want to look at what people are saying, how he could have done these images, and I going to try them out.

And to do this right, I'm going to try and find people who can help me.

Experts in their fields, from photography to paranormal research.

What do they have to say about these images?

Was it even Mumler who was the genius behind them?

And who were the women he worked with to create these?

HAMILTON: And as wild as this sounds, what if some of these images were actual spirit photographs?

What if these images were photographs of people's deceased relatives?

That's something that I don't think people consider enough when investigating spirit photography.

Was he able to capture a real ghost?

And so, that's really what's kind of brought me to make this film, is finding out how Mumler made these images.

MARK OSTEMAN: And to make a ghost image, the easiest thing to do is just take a picture of someone sitting there, have somebody walk in dressed in white, and walk right out again.

In a 30-second exposure, two or three seconds of that person standing there and then walking out, you're going to have a great ghost.

But it's not what Mumler did.

Again, what we were doing was to produce what could have been done, in a room full of skeptics.

And that's very different then just making a ghost image, making a ghost image is very easy.

[Soft Piano Music Starts] ♪ ♪ CRISTA CLOUTIER: Who was he is a question that has haunted me for a long time, trying to find out who is this man?

Was he a fake?

Was he real?

Did he really believe what he was doing?

CRISTA: Mumler had one of the most... One of the reasons I say that he's such a child of the 19th century is because he was also an inventor.

He had a really curious mind.

For someone who left school when he was 14 years old, he was applying for all kinds of different patents.

He was a really, really clever man.

So, something like photography would certainly capture his interest.

FELICITY T.C.

HAMER: Well, as I've always been far more interested in the woman who was around him, I um, I kind of think of him as being a little bit, perhaps, of an opportunist.

[Chuckles] Or having... I get a bit um, frustrated at the fact that he's continually um, credited with this development in um, the history of photography, because I really think that this woman who was in his proximity and is always mentioned in footnotes whenever anybody's talking about Mumler, um, she continues to kind of be in the background, and maybe that's what she wanted.

But for me, it's a bit frustrating to not see her always mentioned when his name comes up.

CRISTA: In terms of spirit photography, he was probably not the first, but he's the first documented spirit photographer.

And, he occupied a really interesting space because of his trial, because he was eventually arrested for trickery.

And, his trial really dominated the headlines in both the United States and Europe while it was going.

And, it really represented the modern spiritualist movement on trial.

It represented religion on trial.

It represented all the fears of Americans and the culture clashes that were taking place, um, and gave voice to a lot of anger, a lot of fears, a lot of frustration, a lot of hope.

It was an interesting time.

And, he was a very small figure who found himself on a very large stage.

KATRINA WEIMAR: My initial gut check of Mumler's work, I would say they're faked because they're too good.

They are very, very detailed, and they also fall into the idea of what we think a spirit should be.

And, we don't really know if that's the case or not.

So, without, you know, obviously talking to him, um, or being around during that time period, I would say, they're just too good to be true.

KATRINA: You know, when we're talking about spirit photography or anomalies in photos that we can't explain, um, there's a couple of different types.

Sometimes, you see an apparition or what looks to be a human.

Um, sometimes, you see light anomalies, other times it's shadows.

So, there's various different kind of shapes and forms and all sorts of good stuff that can show up in a photo.

Not all of it is supernatural, of course.

Some things are misidentified, and of course, we don't always know the environment in which the photos are being taken, so they can be hard to decipher.

MARK: On the other hand, when people want to see spirits, it's pretty easy for them to accept what they see.

The more you see, the less it feels like a spirit.

So, the trick is to have something that gives us just enough to hang on to, but not too much.

KATRINA: So, photography in general is really hard, I think, to determine if there's a spirit in it or not, because number one, we don't really know what a spirit is.

We don't know what's making up the phenomena that people are experiencing that can't be explained at this moment.

So, our ideas of what things should look like or what things should be are kind of biased to begin with.

But I think the majority of the time I meet people who are showing me photos and the things that they're getting are just misidentification.

You know, maybe, they're not looking at it the same way I or one of my colleagues will look at it.

Um, so, one of the most common things we see is um, some sort of like, light anomaly that appears to have some sort of mass to it.

And what it normally is, is a spider stuck on a spider web, and for whatever reason, the camera or the video is reflecting the light in a really weird way where it looks odd.

And, I don't blame them for thinking, "Hey, this is odd."

Is this something?

But again, that's kind of where investigators can come in and say, "Okay, well, we've seen this a million times."

This is what it is.

♪ ♪ CRISTA: The story goes, and when I first researched Mumler, I helped to spread this story that he was alone in the studio with Mrs.

Stuart, and it was Mrs.

Stuart's gallery.

Um, she was ostensibly the photographer.

And I collect Mrs.

Stuart's images, so I'm a huge fan of Mrs.

Stuart.

But I've come to find that there was actually a man working in that studio.

And, it was a friend of Mumler's, um, so Mumler would be going to visit him, I believe.

And this man was teaching him about photography.

CRISTA: And one day, the man Mr.

Plumber had to leave the studio, and Mumler, as he says, deciding to while away an hour, decided to take a self-portrait and see what happened.

And, he stood next to a chair, which this is an odd choice because this is a time when exposures are super long.

And usually, you sit in a chair that has like, two things holding your head in place, and it was really uncomfortable.

But for some reason, he was able to stand still.

He's even holding, you know, that black cloth.

He's holding that next to him.

It's a very handsome picture.

He looks very proud of himself.

And when he developed the picture, there was the image of a young girl sitting in the chair.

He would claim that this was his cousin.

He recognized her as his cousin.

What is important was that there was a woman in that picture, and she hadn't been there in real life.

HAMILTON: To me, it all comes down to this first photograph.

This, to me is sort of the keystone of the whole thing.

Right?

So, who exactly was with Mumler when he took this photograph?

That's, that's the thing.

If we're able to figure out who was in the room with him, I think we'll have a good idea of how this narrative kind of takes place here.

Was it Stuart, the owner of the studio?

Was it Green, the receptionist who would later become Mumler's wife?

Or was it this man, Mr.

Plumber?

Um, it's almost like a weird game of clue.

You know, Stuart, Green, Plumber in the studio with Mumler with the Ghost.

I think if we're able to nail that down, we'll be able to have a better understanding of what happened here.

HAMILTON: If you look at the photograph, it's unusual to me.

Um, for one thing, as Crista said, he is standing up.

I've had one of these photographs taken of me, and you have to be still for something like 30 seconds.

And so, for him to be standing is unusual, and I think that's something to call out.

I also think it's unusual how the photo is framed.

Normally, when you're taking a portrait like that, I don't think you would have the chair be empty and in the picture, right?

Usually, if you're taking that self-portrait, you're going to be center frame, and you would be sitting.

So, I think he intended for the spirit to be in that chair.

It's just framed up too perfectly for me.

And so, we can deduce from that that this was intentional.

It wasn't just him whiling away an hour just for a self-portrait.

There was an intent behind this because of how the photograph was framed, at least to me, in my opinion.

[Sound of Nature] KATRINA: Even though I think Mumler's photos are probably explainable, its also, it doesn't mean that all photos are explainable.

It doesn't mean all video is explainable because I've seen some really weird stuff.

I've experienced it.

And there was one show I worked on where the director of photography changed the sensors on his camera.

And not for, he was not into ghosts at all.

It was purely for cinematic reasons.

And when he did that, we caught five different anomalies on his camera.

And our other cameras never caught those.

Those are the cameras that had the standard sensors on them.

So, it does kind of beg the question, you know, are we not looking at things the right way?

Are we not taking into consideration all the things we need to think about when we're talking about trying to capture this type of activity on camera?

CRISTA: So, this is what he said, that he would just show it to people as a lark, and then people got sick of it, and then he decided to let it go.

But one day, Dr.

Gardner came in to see him.

And, Dr.

Gardner was a big spiritualist.

He was really big in the spiritual movement, and Mumler knew this.

And Mumler you know, very mysteriously showed him this photograph and said, "It's my cousin," and Dr.

Gardner was, of course, like, entranced by this.

What is this?

And he made Mumler sign something to this effect.

I think he even took the foot, asked Mumler, if he could have the picture.

Mumler signed it and said, "This is my cousin."

He dated it and thought, "Oh, I'll just let the fool have his toy," is what he said.

And, Dr.

Gardner then took it to the papers, the newspapers, which Mumler did not count on.

And that's how things um, started to really take off, where people showed up at the studio demanding spirit photographs.

[Soft piano music] ♪ ♪ HAMILTON: So, the important thing to note about this first photo and why I think everything kind of boils down to this first photo is just how different the ghost looks compared to the ghosts that come later on.

If you look at the body of this ghost, right?

You can see shadowing, you can see detail in the dress that she's wearing.

The ghosts that come later on in Mumler's work, they're almost blob-like, you know.

They don't have any detail.

There's not really any shadowing.

It's just like this spectral entity of a body.

In this first one, there's definition.

Later on, the most important thing becomes the face, right, because you want the sitter to recognize the deceased loved ones.

The face becomes the most important thing later on.

Now, this one almost looks like a typical double exposure.

Um, and I think that speaks to the process that develops between now and then, right?

Later on, he's under the scrutiny of people watching him.

And so, I think he has to be quick, and he has to do something where he can't get that definition in the body.

Whereas now, he's either alone, which I don't think he's alone, or someone is in the room with him, whether it's Stuart, Green, or Plumber.

And so, he has time to get that definition in the body.

We can learn a lot from this first photograph.

KATRINA: What I think is interesting about Mumler in his day, and what we see today, is that during times of extreme stress and sorrow, and kind of chaos in the world, right?

So, in Mumler's time, we're talking Civil War.

Um, in our time, we just got out of a pandemic, and you know, a lot of people lost people.

Um, when you see things like that, there's an interest in the supernatural.

And whenever there's an interest, you're going to have people who want to take advantage of that.

REVEREND LESLIE YOUNG-WARD: Grief is...um, it's a natural human emotion to the loss of an important object or person in your life.

Human beings experience grief at the loss of anything that's important to them.

The problem in our culture is that we deny death, we act as if people don't die, and therefore, grief is very hard for Americans because if you don't believe people die, then you don't know how to respond when they do die.

And people are afraid of grief.

And that's one of the reasons I work in hospitals to teach ministers about how to do grief ministry because they don't know, because our culture doesn't acknowledge grief and teach us how to grieve.

REV.

LESLIE: But also, the pictures of people who are dead, there are stages of grief.

I mean, you go in and out.

But one of the things, the second stage, first is a sort of a psychic numbness, you know.

You cannot believe that the person is gone.

It's just shock.

And then, after that is a sort of a yearning, longing for the person.

And I think that's more the stage that you're talking about, like, looking for the person, that yearning, longing, thinking you've seen them.

REV.

LESLIE: Um, and you know, there are cultures before earlier than ours where they had mourning rings and anything that reminds them strongly of the person that they've lost, including photographs of that person that are done.

FELICITY: So, what does that say about you know, just um, the need for...to kind of visualize what is felt, you know?

So, the bereaved feel the kind of like, lingering presence of the deceased, and it's helpful to kind of have a place to focus that grief to, and to visualize what is felt.

You know, I think it can be really therapeutic.

Um, and I'm glad that you're, you're considering that um, that aspect of it, I think because it gets uh, so often overlooked in favor of like this ah, you know.

[Laughs] FELICITY: Like, you know, every year around Halloween, somebody gets in touch with me about this, you know, and it seems to be kind of like, the extent of people's interest in it, you know.

Is like, how could people fall for this, you know?

It's like, well, because they wanted it.

It wasn't you know, they wanted something that kind of um, proved the existence of what they felt, I think.

REV.

LESLIE: But lots of times in grief groups, I've had people talk to me about bereavement support groups.

I've had people talking to me about, um, I felt like she was in the room with me talking to me.

Um, and that's part of the whole process of... ...we lose the person in person, the physical reality, but we keep them alive, uh, in the memories.

And early on in the grief process, there is a sense that they're still with you...um, and then later on and talk to you.

Hearing people talk to you, maybe in the middle of the night, you know, wake up and be sure that you've heard their voice.

That's all a normal part of grief.

When you are talking about spirit photography, and the photographs say of a person, a son that you've lost, whose behind you in the picture, um, most often, you would see that as your son.

Because number one you want to believe it's your son, and you do believe he is still with you and so you would see that image and find a way to make that image into your son.

[Nature and Music] CRISTA: Mumler claims that he was alone during this whole thing, although later he credits his wife, Hannah, with helping him develop spirit photography, and he says, quote including the first time.

So, that might insinuate that she was there.

I think Hannah, his wife, certainly played a huge part in whatever it was that he was doing.

Um, Mrs.

Stuart knew how to profit from it, certainly.

Um, I believe Hannah is the one who gave him the language for it.

Hannah and her mother gave him the language since they were already spiritualists.

HAMILTON: So, who is Helen F. Stuart, and who is Hannah Francis Green?

FELICITY: Well, we may never know who these women are, but I think that it's one woman, and I think it's Hannah Francis Green.

And I think that for a short period of time, um, she was using the name Helen F. Stuart as an alias.

Um, I think that there might be several reasons why she would create this persona.

Um, she was potentially trying to flee a negative relationship or maybe had been abandoned and was just trying to recreate herself and find a way to support herself and her two children at a time when that would have been exceedingly difficult, I imagine.

FELICITY: So, I think it was easier for her as a single woman at that time, for whatever reason, whether she was fleeing the relationship or had been abandoned with the kids, it would be easier for her to build herself as a professional photographer, build this business first as a producer of hair jewelry, She's first listed as a producer of hair jewelry, and then as a photographer, the first to be listed in Boston Directories as a woman working as a photographer, which is really among about almost 70 photographers.

So that's really worth noting.

It would have been easier for her to do so as a missus.

So, I built a timeline [Chuckles] and because I kept, I kept hearing these women kind of like noted in like, kind of like, always as a footnote, they were never central to the story.

And then, the more I tried to map out what their roles might have been, it just became increasingly clear that they were in all likelihood the same woman.

FELICITY: Doing away with the possibility of magic, which I think is certainly possible.

Um and I always want to leave open that possibility that we just don't know.

But I think, if we are going to assume some kind of calculated effort here, I think that it was likely Hannah Francis Green, Helen F. Stuart's idea.

There are reports of her having had mesmeric abilities from a very young age, like, Hannah Francis Green.

Um, she had already... And then, she had already been establishing herself in um, the production of hair jewelry, which is already connected to bereavement.

It's already, you know, like, part of this kind of industry.

And then photography, which would often be incorporated into this hair photography, this hair jewelry, rather.

Plus, by the time this first photograph had been created, she'd already photographed a lot of people in the community, and she'd likely kept all of the negatives, um, so that people could come back to her on the case of somebody's passing and get a reprint to have it worked into the locket, which she always advertised on the back of her carte de visite.

You know, most photographers would say reprints available upon request, but she would note that she produced hair jewelry.

FELICITY: And of course, Stuart was an established photographer, you know, and that's kinda downplayed in these stories, too.

But like, I have right in front of me right now about 20 of her carte de visite that I was able to find on eBay and whatnot.

And I've seen many more in Boston Holdings.

So, she was really prolific.

So, she would have had a ton of negatives.

And um, all accounts say that they were her studios that he was working at, at the time of the discovery.

And then, she just disappears.

[Laughs] Like, she just disappears.

And we have spirit photographs that are attributed to Stuart that are of a higher quality than his that can be positively dated and attributed before any of his can be.

Different examples of her backstamp.

And as you can see, it always says hair jewelry made to order, which is notable.

I haven't encountered that on any other carte de visite.

But she always made sure that people knew that they could order it.

So, here's an example of vignetting, which is not unusual at all.

It's a way of kind of like, isolating the face from a group photo or from a three-quarter length portrait, if you wanted to, say, put their face in a locket.

Something like this, often after somebody had passed.

♪ ♪ FELICITY: But as you can see, she was a pretty, you know, accomplished photographer.

Anyways, all that to say that I feel that it's very unlikely that it was a mistake, and there are a lot of reasons to assume that she would have recognized... ...she would have recognized that there would be an interest in this product.

Um...and again, she was already a noted mesmeric.

She wasn't a mesmeric physician at this point, but she already was kind of known to have mediumistic abilities as Hannah Francis Green, not as Stuart.

Stuart was known as a photographer...um, and the one who ran the studios.

But of course, they were likely the same person.

[Laughs] [The sounds of a moving car] [Music] HAMILTON: We just got some incredible news.

The Eastman Kodak Museum just emailed me back.

I've been in talks with them to view their Mumler collection in person, and also film it for the film.

They normally do not allow filming of these pieces, and even viewing them is a rarity.

But we were just given permission to both view the pieces and film it.

This will be the first time that I will see a Mumler piece in person, and I'm through the moon.

Through the moon?

I'm through the moon, through the roof.

I'm over the moon and through the roof.

That's it.

That's where I'm at.

It's going to be incredible.

I can't wait.

It's going to be amazing.

♪ ♪ HAMILTON: Smaller than I thought.

WOMAN: Yeah, yeah.

HAMILTON: I've just seen the scans in there.

They're absolutely huge... You see how the hand doesn't look like a hand at all.

That's gorgeous.

♪ ♪ I just got overtaken.

That's just how I've been doing this research since, I guess, 2015, so seeing one in person is just really remarkable for me.

It's Boston Mass.

It was before he went to New York.

So, this is an earlier one.

It's incredible.

The hands are what's so strange.

They definitely look like they've been drawn on.

It almost looks like, you have them up right up against the body, and there's a layering effect with the hands over top.

It's like they've been adding on.

We can almost see where it starts on it.

♪ ♪ Even the neck of the person, it just kinda goes into this form.

The form doesn't have any sort of...sort of detail at all, except where the hands meet.

There's no shadowing on the spirit form, except for in the face, which would explain, you know, Hannah's...using Hannah's images that she would use for jewelry.

But, you can almost see right around the neck where it just kind of goes into this amorphous blob of a body.

HAMILTON: On these old ones, too.

♪ ♪ Yeah, you can immediately tell the difference here in the style.

It's interesting that they would have different spirit photographers in their personal album.

And these are what Mumler did later in life.

Mail-in spirit photography.

KATRINA: Yeah, so I think when we're looking at modern day spirit photography or people who just happen to capture things on film...um...versus Mumler, if we're thinking or making the case that Mumler was faking things on purpose, then the parallel I see with that is that it certainly happens today with people faking things to make money, people faking things for power, for fame, for likes, for clicks.

It's really no different, I don't think.

CRISTA: It's interesting about Mumler and money.

He charged $10 a picture at a time when most people were charging anywhere between $0.10 and $0.50.

So yeah, he made a lot of money.

And certainly, when he was in Boston, he had you know, people lining up outside his door.

At first, that changed.

His fortunes fell.

He ended up moving to New York after trying a few different things in Boston that he couldn't seem to get off the ground.

So, he moved to New York.

He picked up spirit photography again.

And um, in the months, let's see, I think he started photographing in New York around December 1868, and his trial was, he was arrested in March, April.

I think he was arrested in April, 1869.

Um, and he had photographed probably 500 people was the guess during that time.

So, yeah, he did really well.

And then, they thought that with the publicity from the trial that he would really make a lot of money.

But in fact, he struggled after that.

Again, fortunes up and down.

That's kind of the story of Mumler.

KATRINA: One of the most challenging things in the paranormal field is that this phenomena isn't proven yet.

And because it's not proven, you're always going to have people that will say whatever they want to make a buck.

Or to be famous or for power, whatever it is.

And, they will always try to prey on others who will believe what they say.

REV.

LESLIE: Okay.

If spirit photography were fake, if there was some sort of a charlatan that was you know, impressing images on photographs, so that people would get a picture of their lost loved one and believe that they were with them, I don't see how that hurts them.

Because that's a part of grief is the experience of feeling like they're with you and you see them from time to time.

So, I don't see how that would hurt them at all, depending on where they are in the grief process.

But early on, if that's comforting to them, I think it's important to have that kind of comfort.

[Sounds of a Banjo] [Mark Osterman playing the banjo] MARK: It's like the medicine men, the people that sold patent medicines.

There's a great story of a man who would set up a table and he'd put a candlestick, a Bible, and a length of rope, and he'd go back and he'd rearrange it, and then go back and rearrange it again.

By the time he rearranged it three or four times, he had an entire crowd of people around.

Once, he had the crowd of people, he put the table away and started his pitch selling medicine.

It had nothing to do with what he was doing.

So you know, maybe the act of putting a hand on a camera was just to have people think that he had some kind of mesmer effect on the camera.

But there's nothing to be gained by touching the camera.

MARK: Are these images of ghosts on Mumler's prints?

They're ghost-like on Mumler's prints.

They may be spirits, but they're conjured spirits by the photographer.

Mumler was using the process of the day, which was the wet collodium negative.

It's a process by which you have to pour collodium onto a glass plate.

[Somber music] ♪ ♪ MARK: It has to be dipped into a silver solution while the coating is wet.

It has to be taken and then developed before it dries.

So that's the negative making process.

♪ ♪ MARK: And then, once he had the negative, he would make an albumin print.

The albumin process is a, it's a paper that's coated with egg white that bears a chloride.

It was purchased that way.

He didn't have to make that part, but he would have to float the paper on silver nitrate just before he would use it.

And then, it was printed in the sun.

It was essentially, a sun printing process.

MARK: And so, when, when you're asking, how did he make the images?

There are many ways to make ghost images.

But I think what you really mean to ask is, how could he have made these images with people watching?

The way he made the photographs was that he made the ghost image, so a separate negative, a ghost image, before the sitter came in to have the life portrait made.

♪ ♪ MARK: We have a cabinet card here.

And this is an 1870s cabinet card.

And what we're going to do is- we're borrowing the head from this image, and we've made a copy of it.

But in monotone, we don't want the brown color for rephotographing.

And all we need is the head.

Now, we're going to decide.

I think we want her facing down.

So, we're going to decide on a body.

They would photograph the photograph and then make a negative and make a print.

[Soft piano music] ♪ ♪ MARK: The hands never look right, so I'm trying to follow that tradition.

[Chuckles] It's kind of like, AI hands you know.

MARK: Let me see if that will work?

I'm going to have the photographer, kind of like this, looking down.

And most of this we are going to have to get rid of, chemically, on the negative.

We are going to actually eat it away on the negative, to leave room for the person.

So, we are only going have kind of this much.

He says confidently.

MARK: Yeah, that'll work.

So, there you go.

[Sound of painting hitting wood] That's what we're going to shoot.

[Squeaks of Mark walking around studio] ♪ ♪ [Sounds of Mark getting a blanket for the camera] [Sound of camera wheeling backwards] ♪ ♪ MARK: This is where the ghost is now.

It's like looking at the final picture.

♪ ♪ HAMILTON: That's the layer.

Oh, my goodness.

You got to see that.

That's where it gets so surreal.

MARK: Here we go.

Plate holder in the camera.

Cap on, dark slide out.

Then, we're going to expose for about 10 seconds.

1,001, 1,002, 1,003, 1,004, 1,005, 1,006, 1,007, 1,008, 1,009, 1,010.

And then, we develop the plate.

[Sounds of Mark developing photo] [Sound of Mark counting] ♪ ♪ MARK: Well, there she is!

And so, what he would do is make the ghost negative.

And then, he would take the life image.

The life image was made with, again, the collodian process, but typically the collodian process yields a negative that has a kind of creamy coffee with cream color highlight.

MARK: So, what we have here is a contact printing frame.

It's a wooden frame, and...and the first thing that would go in is the glass.

Then, we'd put a negative into the frame, and the negative goes image side up, so the side that the collodian was poured.

And then, the paper would go sensitive side down.

So, it's essentially sensitive side to sensitive side.

Then, the back cover goes on.

And these are called split back printing frames.

And the reason they're called split back is that the lower end holds the paper and the negative in contact while you tilt this back and inspect the printing.

You would take the paper and you would inspect the image.

If it's not enough, you close it up and then you put it back in the sun again.

Now, if I show it to you this way with the albumin paper in contact with the negative, you can see that it has um, you know, a picture.

MARK: However, in most cases, and even on this one, there are tack holes all over this one because what they did was to put tracing paper over this side.

The reason they did that is, if you slow down the sun's rays going through this paper, it makes more contrast, so you can get a stronger image that way.

So, that's what would have happened in Mumler's era, because he definitely wouldn't want to have people see that.

That would be bad.

So, I'll show you what he would have done.

And there are different ways we could approach this.

The first thing we could do is just hand this around to the audience.

And so, the audience is inspecting this, make sure that it's... You could take the glass off.

There's nothing secretive in there.

There's no bunny inside.

That would go around, and then they would take the negative.

You know, the negative just has you on that negative.

There's no ghost.

So, let me hand this to you.

And now that would go around the audience.

MARK: While, the plate is passed amongst the audience, the photographer, Mumler, would take the plate with the ghost image and just by palming in his hand.

There's a reason why he only does these as small images.

Palming the plate, all he has to do is go like that, bring the other plate in place, lay it on top like so.

You can tilt it up as long as it's against... As long as it's against something dark, you don't see the ghost image.

Here it is in the printing frame with the ghost negative, which you can't see because it's against the dark background.

But if I put white paper behind, you can see it very easily.

Of course, that would be the worst thing that could possibly happen in front of an audience, especially an angry audience.

MARK: The photographic paper would go in place.

So, the sensitive side down towards the image side and the back of the printing frame would go on.

It's a pressure printing frame.

Now, before he prints, he must put a diffusion paper on the facing side.

So, I'm going to turn this around, you can't see the front of this because I have it at an angle where you can't see it.

When you put the diffusion paper on top, and then he would put this in the sun to print.

After a certain amount of time, he would bring this back, take the diffusion paper off, open the back, and then peel back the image and show the actual photograph with the head and the ghost at the same time.

If it's fine to print, then he would take it out completely.

So, go like this, take out the entire print to show, which is something we're going to do next.

We're actually going to do the printing.

Show the entire print.

Again, you can't see the ghost in the printing frame, but you would see the ghost in this print, which would be pretty amazing.

MARK: So, you take this, and put it in the sun.

[Sound of nature] So, you take the object, and then as you grab the object, right, and you look it where you grabbed it, then you bring out the object that you dropped.

It's called the drop.

It's a simple thing.

It's dropping what you have.

And if you're good at it, you can open your hand so that, you know, it doesn't look like you're holding something.

So, you go in...you drop it.

Right, you know it's in here because that's squeezed.

It can't be in there because look, the hand's open.

Then gone, and there it is.

MARK: So you know...here, we have the printing frame.

The printing frame has the diffusion paper on the face.

There's the back.

We're going to open up half of the printing frame.

I'm going to tilt it this way, so people can't see the negative.

And then, as I pull back the printing paper, you'll see the live subject and the ghost on the same print, which is baffling to anyone who's seen this demonstration because they saw the negative.

They saw the printing frame was empty, and yet there is something done in front of them that actually works.

HAMILTON: Mark did such a fantastic job of really capturing the essence and beauty of what Mumler was doing.

To me, these are just wonderful and truly works of art that he created here.

HAMILTON: So, is this the final piece of the puzzle?

Is this the answer to what I've been searching for, for the last seven, eight years?

I don't know.

For me, though, there's a few things that I kind of want to call out.

So, the first thing is, if you look at the face here, the face doesn't have as much detail as some of Mumler's work.

And I think that, to me, is the biggest kind of call.

Um, it looks more spectral.

You know, it has more of the look of the body than it does the actual faces that Mumler was able to do.

If you remember, the thing that was so remarkable about Mumler's piece is that the detail in the face versus the detail in the body.

So, I think there might be a step missing.

I will say that I think the body looks great.

I think Mark is right on track with saying that the body was cut out or drawn on.

I think there's some real validity there.

And so...to me, the body looks more similar to Mumler's than the actual face does.

HAMILTON: The one thing that kind of doesn't really fit for me, though, is that it wasn't just sort of people off the street looking at how he was doing it.

The leading photographers of the day were in his studio watching his every move.

You know, they were investigating every piece of equipment, every step he was doing.

And so...while, I do think there was a sleight of hand, I don't think that these photographers would let Mumler keep the negative away from them.

I think they would need to hold the negative in their hands.

So, I think there's something missing here.

I think there's a step missing that we don't know what it is yet.

FELICITY: I think there definitely could have been a sleight of hand.

And as I mentioned, um...Stuart, Hannah Green...Stuart, would have had a ton of plates to choose from.

So, most people who came into the studio, she might be able to find, if not an actual photograph of somebody from their family.

It was so kind of blurry, you know.

So, it could have been I forget the name of the author now, but there was some article that was written where they talk about the poor mothers coming in and recognizing some foggy dumpling as their, you know.

If, if, if the bereaved wanted to see somebody, they were going to...they were going to complete that illusion, you know.

It didn't have to be, it didn't have to be an amazing end result because ultimately, it's what they wanted to see.

FELICITY: So Yeah, I do think there could be a sleight of hand.

They would, you know... I imagine that these sessions would be kind of emotional, you know.

And so, there'd be a lot of occasion for distraction.

And certainly, if Hannah Green was in the room trying to kind of amp things up, you know... ...and it was like, a kind of seance, kind of um, like, a therapeutic session, you know, that ultimately is what they wanted and needed, so who cares?

You know, who cares if they weren't taking advantage.

They were producing something that was um, much wanted and needed and sought out.

CRISTA: It's an interesting, it's an interesting thought who was in on it because that assumes, again that it was fake.

And, I'm not saying it's not.

It's super, super suspect.

But I don't really know if I'm comfortable making that assumption since we can't... Here, we are over 100 years later and we're still trying to prove it, 150 years, and no one could during his lifetime.

MARK: Well, if you're going to do this in front of people who are watching, I can see no other way, period.

There is no other way.

Um, if you're doing this as a product for people coming to your studio who are longing to see their long lost husband or wife, child, um, then he doesn't need this sleight of hand.

It's done in the dark room.

Also, they would be the ones providing the picture.

So, I can't imagine a person coming in with an existing picture, handing it to the photographer.

And then, two days later, he gives them a spirit photograph that has the same picture and not have them know that that's from the picture they handed him.

Now, if it's just an amorphous ectoplasm cloud, that's a different story.

But if it's actually from a photograph, they knew, they had to know that it was from that photograph.

Of course, people are gullible when they're in grief.

REV.

LESLIE: As I said about grief, what we in our society do is avoid it.

So whether, you're talking about spirit photography in my mind, or whether you're talking about the idea that someone comes to the foot of your bed and stands and talks to you during a certain part of the grieving process, that's normal.

At some point, it gets to be not normal grief.

But that's down the road because we try to rush grief in our society.

Okay, we give you a week off or maybe two weeks for bereavement.

Grief takes a year at least.

So, I think any way that spirit photography or the sense, any way that you can feel closer to the one that you've lost.

REV.

LESLIE: And one of the things that I do for anniversaries of, say, mother's death is I cook something that was something I love that she cooked.

So, you're just talking spirit photography is just another way to feel close to the person that you've lost.

I think it makes great sense.

HAMILTON: And so, at the end of the day, I don't think there is a clear answer to how Mumler made these images.

But at the same time, I don't think this was an exercise in futility for the very reason that I hope this film shed a lot of light on the role that his wife played in the creation of these spirit photographs.

She seems to have been this sort of keystone of this whole operation to me.

And the more that I look into her, the more it seems just what a heavy hand she had in this.

And so..while, history books have always talked about Mumler, and you know, like Felicity said, his wife was always in the footnotes, I think she needs to be right there with him because you don't have spirit photography without her.

You just don't.

Now, whether that's you know, Hannah or Mrs.

Stuart, or they're one in the same, I'm not sure.

I'm kinda leaning that they are the same person.

Um, but I don't think that takes away from the impact that she had on what Mumler did.

HAMILTON: So, I don't know.

I mean, there's still mystery here.

You know, there's still a mystery.

There's still something to find on how he made these images.

I'm sorry, on how they made these images together.

But at the end of the day, I'm really happy because this was such an important journey for me.

I really you know, stepped out of my comfort zone and went on this journey and traveled up the coast of the United States, up into Canada.

To follow Mumler, to literally chase ghosts.

It was an incredible experience for me, and I wouldn't take that away for anything.

HAMILTON: So while, I don't have a definitive answer, I'm just glad that we could shed a light onto the impact that his wife, Hannah or Mrs.

Stuart, had with spirit photography.

I also think that's beautiful that they were able to create something so wonderfully magical that it endures today.

And that's, I mean that's wonderful.

That's what I love, and that's what keeps drawing me to these images is the mystery, yes, but also just the magic of them.

And, I hope I've been able to share some of that magic with you all.

So, thank you.

[Turns off the light switch] SONG by the Slowinks ♪ I felt you near tonight as I step out for a walk.

♪ ♪ In the right light, I can turn back the clock.

♪ ♪ These streets are filled with ghosts, ♪ ♪ hard to crack a smile.

♪ ♪ I miss you the most, stay with me a while.

♪ ♪ Trees like memories bend in sway, ♪ ♪ they echo with your name.

♪ ♪ You've gone away, and yet you remain.

♪ ♪ These streets are filled with ghosts, ♪ ♪ hard to crack a smile for you.

♪ ♪ I miss you the most, stay with me a while.

♪ ♪ I miss you the most, stay with me a while.

♪ ♪ You bring a light even now.

♪ ♪ Twinkling star.

♪ ♪ Unforgettable ♪ ♪ ♪