Wednesday 4 April 2012

Mysterious Pics


Had something strange happen when I was in Suffolk for a few days last week. It's probably got a really simple explanation, but I'm not technical enough to know what it is, and I wondered if anyone else does.

What happened is this. I sometimes take photos on my iPhone when I don't have the camera handy, and so I took it out to snap the garden of my friend's cottage. I clicked on the "Photo" symbol and glanced at the last photo on my camera roll, which was this:


FUNNY, I thought. I don't remember taking this photo! . Where did I take it? What is it? A church porch? No, there is no church attached to it. A gatehouse to a big estate? No, the arch is too small for a carriage to get through. Perhaps the entrance of a cemetery? But I haven't been taking photos of any cemeteries. Anyhow, it's too small to be a cemetery chapel.

Puzzling... But T and I had been cycling around slightly aimlessly (though very pleasantly) taking photos here and there. So perhaps I'd just forgotten it, I decided, although it's not like me to forget something like that.

It wasn't till I got to London and downloaded my pictures onto the computer that I thought to check the details of this shot .

And it was taken at 7.11 PM last Saturday, which was 20 minutes before sunset. Around then we'd been expecting a neighbour to drop by at the cottage for a drink. Did I really go out and take this picture then, I wondered,( growing increasingly puzzled...)





Then T noticed that this was actually a very low resolution picture, entirely different from the other photos on my phone. We checked the size and it is indeed very low res. He then said, with the air of Hercule Poirot solving the mystery, "It wasn't taken on your phone!"

I think he's right. But why is it on my camera roll? (His Hercule Poirot skills don't extend to providing an explanation for that!) I've had the phone over 18 months, and received many photo attachments on it, but none of them ever got onto my camera roll without my knowledge.

So that's one puzzle, although of course there must be a logical explanation for it somewhere.

Then, when looking at the Suffolk photos, I came across this one (below), taken a few years ago. I didn't know what it was when I took it, and I still can't quite figure out what is going on or what the story could be. But it looked sort of interesting.

I know this blog has some very creative readers ... and if that is you, and you'd like to use this slightly odd image as a story prompt, I'd be very interested to see it! If you do, you could also send me the link and I will add it here.



51 comments:

  1. Mystery is such fun . . . I haven't a clue of how to solve either puzzle. The last photo looks like jet airliner going camping . . .

    ReplyDelete
  2. cracking up at the last picture! that is just odd. and the first one well yes, odd too.
    wishing you a nice easter holiday.
    tracie

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wonderful post! I think you could write a nice story about the photo. Give it a try.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hello Jenny:
    As, sadly, we are unskilled in both the art of detection and of story writing, we fear that we fail you utterly.

    ReplyDelete
  5. It seems that you have written a Mystery Post today!
    I am afraid i can't really help either but would like to know the answer, and i hope one of your readers will know!:)

    ReplyDelete
  6. did someone send you the photo?

    ReplyDelete
  7. I think that's a British fighter plane from the cold war days. Interesting photo. It would be difficult to fly it out of there, if it were still operational.

    ReplyDelete
  8. If it was me, I'd have decided the mystery photo was a supernatural manifestation... an omen....or proof of my incipient senility.
    See where lazy thinking gets you!


    On the second photo, I've got no story .... but that plane is on wheels... which means it's been towed to the caravan site.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I can offer no help but I sure do like the mystery of it all!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Very mysterious! The last photo looks like something out of a 1960s American sci-fi show!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Well, obviously you have a haunted phone! (Oh, no, I'm sure you don't really. It would make a fab story though!)

    ReplyDelete
  12. I haven't read Agatha Christie's books for so long.

    I really like your header photo, the purple flowers coming out.

    Thanks very much for visiting my site. It's an honour when I read your profile.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I usually manage rational explanations for puzzles in life but I believe you when you say you're struggling with this one. Technology has been known for strange interactions and interruptions so I'd probably put this one down to that for now! I'll keep popping by....!......Lena...x

    ReplyDelete
  14. Very mysterious pictures! I haven't a clue. I am no help at all. :)

    ReplyDelete
  15. I don't have an iPhone (or any other cell phone) so I can't help you with that but it's a nice picture all the same. Kind of odd how things happen like that sometimes.

    I'll have to think on a storyline for a bit. It's an interesting shot that makes me wonder what the real story is behind the plane landing there.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Love mysteries. This will keep me thinking for quite a while, thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  17. huh quite the conundrum on the first shot...too bad you can not identify it or where it is from...the second is indeed a pretty crazy shot...building an airplane to get the heck out of here...lol

    ReplyDelete
  18. I've got nothing except you've heard of butt dialing? Maybe you have a talent and can do photos too ;o)

    ReplyDelete
  19. I'm a little lost here, too. I am not very good at mystery photographs...

    ReplyDelete
  20. Mystery is fun , though sometimes difficult for my gray brain.

    ReplyDelete
  21. since the Iphone is a mini computer and it has been the subject of various hackings and spam - suspect the later nd would delete the photo promptly...the other photo would make a great story, but i think it may have been written as on of the Star Trek series (the next generation when they visited a post semi apocolyptic eart).

    ReplyDelete
  22. Hello Jenny,
    You have some real mystery photos on your hands! Thanks for your recent visit to the Cottage at the Crossroads. Couldn't help but notice that you're from England. My husband's ancestors are from England-the Windhams or sometimes spelled Wyndham. We have wanted to make a trip there for some time now. Do try the strawberry butter-it is divine and I'm still enjoying it on biscuits!
    Jane

    ReplyDelete
  23. We dearly need Poirot for his famous wrap-up scene with everyone on the edge of their seats in a room! Quite astute of your Hastings to point out it may not be from your iPhone at all.

    It's funny you mention Poirot because I just finished a book with him (and other famous detectives) featuring in it. Have you ever read Dickens' unfinished tale, "The Mystery of Edwin Drood"? Well, some Italian authors built on this existing text and humorously worked a Conference of famous Detectives around it to unravel the unsolved mystery. Amusing tale, though not Dickens' best work (in my humble opinion), nor probably the Italians'.

    Your second photo is quite surreal! It is triggering a memory of a scene from an old Woody Allen film ("Sleeper", can't remember exactly) though I'm sure there was no camper trailer in the movie.

    - Jenny

    ReplyDelete
  24. How intriguing!!! The first picture could be the mausoleum of some rich and important family, since it is indeed too small for a chapel.
    The second one is probably some kind of museum or exhibition. We have one about an hour's drive from where I live; they have a Concorde on display and many other planes for people to look at, and in some you are allowed to climb in. They have a hotel nearby, but maybe the one you are showing us here have a camping ground instead of a hotel.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Just wondered.... do you tune into iTunes on your phone? Do you have an iPad? Could it be the result of iCloud transferring from computer to phone, albeit accidentally? If none of these then I guess it's a case of technology gone mad. I would be eaten with curiosity if it was me.

    ReplyDelete
  26. No, Valerie, I don't use my phone for much except internet and calls. I don't have an iPad although I should get one. The strange thing is that I have been taking photos of churches etc. as we cycle about, and so it is the kind of picture I might conceivably have taken. Somehow that makes it seem more odd to me, no real reason why it should but it does.

    (If it was a story I would then have a meeting with a mysterious stranger, and I would find myself walking in that door in real life, and I would take my phone out and ... the picture would have vanished.) I am keeping to the idea that it must be some kind of a glitch and may ask in some computer forum if nobody comes up with a feasible idea here.

    Mieke, (I always hesitate about spelling your name, I have never heard it spoken so I don't know if it is Mieke or Meike) Yes, it could be a mausoleum, except that it has a wall stretching out on either side and usually they are stand-alone. that's what makes me think it's an entrance. The hedges are very neatly trimmed, aren't they?

    As I recollect, the plane and caravan were just in a field, not a museum.

    Yes, Jenny, Poirot would know the answer. After the trip to Egypt I watched "Death on the Nile" with Peter Ustinov, and WHAT a hokey and contrived plot it was, I had forgotten what Agatha Christie was like. But so watchable!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The spelling is Meike, and it is pronounced like my-ke, the last "e" sounding just like the e in the word electronics, not like the e in e-book.
      You are right, mausoleums usually stand alone. Hmm... really, really intriguing!

      Delete
  27. Putting aside all talk of the two bottles of red you happened to drink that day I suspect the phone has somehow connected to another's images, although I know not how. I do not possess a phone that takes pics.
    The plane looks like the cockpit of a Vulcan Bomber. Just the type of thing an enthusiast would plant in their garden, I would! A notable plane, and one that was a mere two minutes from bombing western europe during the Cuban missile crisis.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Very suspicious! You could have posted these on April Fools Day. :-) I'm hoping you find answers.

    Darla

    ReplyDelete
  29. The data for the first photo should tell you whether it belongs to the phone ie is the prefix to the image number the same as the others on the phone. If not if you download it to an Apple computer iPhoto should tell you what camera was used and the date it was taken (and not just the date it appeared on your phone). That might go some way to solving the problem.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Huh - that´s interesting; how did the pic get there?! :-)

    Haha - yes, I tend to go too long without a haircut too, the days passes too quickly and I always think that I´ll call the hairdresser "tomorrow" (which never happens)! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  31. Thanks, Graham. I will try that, as I know someone with an Apple computer (I don't have one). Meanwhile, I've taken a look at the image numbers on the phone, and there is a missing image number after the mystery pic, which I seem to recall showed on my phone as as a failed image (so I deleted it)

    Weird thing is that I have not had the phone anywhere near a computer either immediately before or immediately after the image appeared, and it was not even connected to wifi. The image appeared during a whole stretch of several days in which I was struggling to make internet connection by standing on a chair and waving the phone in the air sort of thing! Although the image has a consecutive number, it is very much smaller and of a far lower resolution than other images on the phone.

    Sorry, this is a bit technical sounding, so probably we should continue this discussion by email!

    Adullamite, it did occur to me that the person in the caravan had spent all their money on the plane, and so couldn't afford to live in a house, but just sat in his caravan of an evening gloating over his plane.

    Oh yes, a lot of mysteries in this world!

    ReplyDelete
  32. OH! Jenny! Jenny! Jenny! How wonderful of you to stop by and visit me at The Writer's Reverie! I so happy to meet you and will be a joyful follower as I"m one of those Brit wannabe's who devours all things British Isles and longs for a sabbatical of reading and writing in a thatched roof cottage in the middle of the English countryside with a quaint village tea shop in walking distance. Love your travel journal and pictures here.

    As to this post, it reminds me of a wonderfully mysterious book of illustrations called "The Mysteries of Harris Burdick" which are a collection of amazing illustrations submitted to a publisher by this fellow who disappeared off the face of the earth the next day. Still unknown! He had stories to go with his haunting and whimsical illustrations that were accompanied with one line captions that teased the imagination. After many years, the illustrations were finally published "as is" by Chris Van Allsburg, and this year a companion book with short stories of each written by some of the top writers of fiction was published.

    Love Poirot and all things Agatha and cozy mysteries in English manor houses. Your pictures are a luring writing prompt, indeed. Perhaps I'll use them with some of my students next year . . .

    Love your vintage kitty profile pic, too. We have much in common. Be visiting again - hope you'll do the same.

    Joy!
    Kathy from across the pond . . .

    ReplyDelete
  33. You are creeping me out!Between you and the boy that I babysit for I'm never going to leave my room.

    ReplyDelete
  34. look forward to reading the stories

    ReplyDelete
  35. It does look like some kind of British fighter plane, Jenny. As for the other spooky photo - the gatehouse? - shame you can't put a photo into a search engine - your mystery might be solved.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Very intriguing. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  37. Interesting challenge, I like to think that in that last photo is a story and could be: "For years he served in the Royal Air Force, was one of the pilots more copies than ever had, unfortunately it was time to leave their profession and not bring himself to leave his plane, struggled, moved all wires and finally got the car will let you bring your room to a small area on the outskirts of his hometown, there next to an old caravan where lived spent the last years of his life. "A hug.

    ReplyDelete
  38. Hi Jenny, I sent the link to your post to my detective son and he sent this in reply.


    Oh that's easy.

    - The photo is a picture taken at St. Winifred's Church, Holbeck, Nottinghamshire. Here's a page with a different photo:
    http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/63411

    - The photo was taken by David Regan in 2011 using a Kodak Easy Share C613 Digital Camera, which is a 6 megapixel point-and-shoot camera launched in 2007.

    - Lastly, any time you save a photo from a web page (by holding a finger on it on the iPhone) or from an email attachment, it adds itself to your Camera Roll, just as if you'd taken the photo yourself. I suspect someone was visiting a web page called "The Churches of Britain and Ireland".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It looks like the mystery could be solved. I've been puzzled by this one. Now I'm absolutely fascinated. I coudn't get at the metadata from the photo on the blog but it's presumably still there. Hmm. Another problem to solve.

      Delete
  39. BTW my husband who worked with Vulcans said immediately that it was the cockpit of a Vulcan, but we’ve no idea what it was doing there. We’ll dig further and see if anyone else knows.

    ReplyDelete
  40. I'm much more fond of Ms Marple myself. ^^

    Ooo a mystery!

    Reading up comments on it is as much fun and deducing a plausible theory for it. ;)

    ReplyDelete
  41. Little Nell's son is a flipping genius! Here's what the caption says about the church. "St. Winifred's Church, Holbeck
    Designed by Louis Ambler in 1913, this small private church was erected entirely by the Welbeck estate workers at the instruction of the Duke & Duchess of Portland. In the graveyard there are some impressive tombs of the Portland family, some of which were exhumed from the burial ground near Welbeck Abbey."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Better not let him see this Jenny! BTW,thank you for your lovely comments on my blog but did you mean to leave them on ‘April Fool’? I haven’t published it - thought you might like to stick it on the library one where it makes more sense :)

      I loved reading the Lewis Carrol Easter message on your other blog; I’ve never seen it before.

      Delete
  42. Your readers are brilliant, but I'm a little sad that the mystery is solved.

    ReplyDelete
  43. I enjoyed reading the whole story and how the mystery was eventually solved!

    ReplyDelete
  44. Ohhh - you MUST solve this mystery! I am a little spooked by it...and wonder: did a friend send it to you? It's not as if it got taken by accident as it looks well positioned, etc, plus it's not blurred.
    Ohhh - spooky! Mind you - Suffolk is full of spooky happenings is it not?

    I'm participating in the A-Z Challenge this month, but fear that my posts are not updating in the Feed, so re-check my blog for all things Greek from A-Z.

    Bex
    www.leavingcairo.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  45. Did you save the picture from a website or from an email? If you did, those would also go into your Camera Roll. It is very easy to hold your finger over the picture and just click "save image". If you did not save it, it is surely a mystery. In the first picture, it looks like an entrance to a garden. In the 2nd photo, it looks like a RV is parked under a cockpit perhaps in an aviation museum?

    ReplyDelete
  46. Definitely a fighter plane, though what it is doing where it is, and why, are beyond me. Perhaps war was declared on the teeny tiny kingdom of Trailerparkia?

    ReplyDelete
  47. hahaha, I couldn't help smiling when I read this strange story :-)

    ReplyDelete
  48. Hi Jenny, thanks for popping in to Perth, I love that the first post I read of yours is a mystery, intriguing..you know there's got to be some sort of logical answer, but it's so much more fun going down the 'who dunnit, where are we' road haha! Looking forward to reading more.....

    ReplyDelete

Blog Archive