back to article Street View ghost spooks Cardiff medium

A Cardiff medium has been well and truly spooked by a Victorian "ghost" captured in the city's Tiger Bay by Google's all-seeing Street View: Cardiff Victorian ghost on Street View According to the Telegraph, "experts have been called in" to probe the otherworldy sighting, including 39-year-old Jane Cohen, who told the paper …

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  1. Christopher Cox

    Cardiff

    Woman in period clothing+Cardiff, home to Doctor Who and Torchwood=actor?

    Streetview may now also receive complaints from Cybermen who are outraged at the invasion of their privacy, that it will make it so much easier for time lords to break into their ship etc.

    Depressingly, this is exactly the kind of 'hilarious' and 'contemporary' plot twist that Russell T Davies would think up.

  2. Andrij
    Coat

    If it's Cardiff Bay and ghosts, then it must be....

    <cough> Doctor Who <Cough>

  3. Mark Eccleston
    Alien

    The 21'st century is when it all changes

    If you look behind her and to the right you can see the Torchwood hub. She may have come through the rift.

  4. mittfh
    Alert

    Aarrgghh!

    How many more journalists are going to get caught in the act of being pig ignorant of Street View? A cursory glance at that image reveals that the cut-off occurs at the boundary between two of the cameras - an artifact which is even more obvious on the full image shown on the Telegraph site, and can be reproduced on many Street View images.

    They even mention the area is used for television filming (e.g. Torchwood), so is it not possible the woman concerned is a very-much-alive actress taking a break from filming?

  5. Richard Thomas

    Duh, what's that area used for?

    What's the betting she turns up as a character in the next series of Torchwood?

  6. Chris Mears
    Paris Hilton

    Filming?

    I hate to point out the obvious but isn't this the area where Torchwood is filmed.

    Paris because she's seen her fair share of goolies.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Obvious explanation

    Nah, it's the Rift. Torchwood will be popping up out of the pavement shortly to collect the "ghost". Are we sure it's not the shade of the much-reviled (undeservedly) Eve Myles, condemned to wander the streets of Cardiff in costume, wailing for another gig as steady as TW?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Black Helicopters

    I think the ghost is actually...

    ...Jane Cohen.

    Why? Because she can't be that daft. She must know that whoever is in the picture will see one of the reports and own up. Unless it's her -- she obviously wouldn't blow her own cover.

  9. Steven Jenkins

    A Ghost?

    Cor Blimey! It's Mary Poppins! No, really it is. Was it on in Cardiff at the time?

  10. Stu
    Alert

    Jeez

    El-Telegraph are not serious about that bit about the 'not appearing as a full figure' bit, and that shimmering crap are they?

    http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=52.496264,-1.906986&spn=0,359.738045&z=13&layer=c&cbll=52.496213,-1.907126&panoid=F5u2MWLtBB9g33SQZha0kg&cbp=12,338.96332244863344,,0,37.14285714285715

    Wooo, look I found a ghostly van in Birmingham! Wooooo.

    That really is journalism at its utmost suckiest!

  11. Simon Bell

    That first pic is...

    ... obviously the ghostly spirit of Dr Who's Tom Baker incarnation, endlessly searching Cardiff for Russel T Davies...

  12. Mike

    Cardiff? Must be the rift again...

    Is she sexually ambiguous too? Definitely Torchwood

  13. Roy Stilling

    Filming

    an episode of Torchwood or Dr Who perhaps?

  14. Simon Painter

    torchwood?

    right place for the time jumping spin off cast members to be loitering in costume

  15. Luis Ogando

    Ghost my arse!

    Er... When you refer to the ghost spotter as a 'medium' do you mean she's of medium intellect??

    "But what is really strange is that she doesn't appear as a full figure - you can't see all of her."

    Or, the picture-knitting on the first photo has distorted the lower half of her body (but it's still there, look!!) and, on the second pic, she's stood behind a bollard!

    Christ on a bike, this medium almost makes Derek Acora look believable (and he's a TWAT!!).

    Alien, 'cos they're even more believable than Derek (and ghosts).

  16. Anthony Mark
    Paris Hilton

    I was astounded...

    ...to see so many online rags appearring to take this 'ghost' sighting seriously.

  17. Fluffykins Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    Dumb bat

    "Jane Cohen, .... added: "But what is really strange is that she doesn't appear as a full figure - you can't see all of her.""

    Of COURSE it's got to be a spook. It'd have absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the Google cameras stitch together a mosaic of photos, would it?

    Ooooh look, ghostly bollards as well.

    Ooooh look, a ghostly straight line of ghostly distortion right where one frame is stitched into the next.

    Ooooohh, wooooooooo, woooooooooooo

    We demand a ghostly bollards icon. Until then - well, she's probably done something imaginitive with a bollard.

  18. parakeet

    Err

    Anything to do with Mary Poppins taking place over the road?

  19. breakfast Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    What? This is a genuine mystery!

    Someone dressed in historical-looking clothes? In the area where they film Doctor Who and Torchwood?

    Most mysterious. picture. ever.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    Too Early

    April Fool's Day is next week!

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Hey, that was my joke they've stolen!

    As I pointed out on day 1, there are amusing seams where the photographs are merged. F'in cheapskate tabloid skanks.

    OMIGOD WHAT HAPPENED TO MY LEGS I CAN'T FEEL MY LEGS

    By Anonymous Coward Posted Thursday 19th March 2009 13:02 GMT

    Happy

    AND MINE JUST GOT HIDEOUSLY ELONGATED!

    Tragic accident at

    http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&ll=52.197178,0.147221&spn=0,359.973822&t=h&z=16&layer=c&cbll=52.197173,0.147358&panoid=6YkO2k0LAPv6-OWX3jbM-w&cbp=12,351.44711677243276,,0,49.815573770491724

    rofl!

  22. Richard
    Coat

    absolute numpties

    The reason you cant see all of her is because the blurred bit is where they have imposed views of the road over where the google car is, distorting the bottom of the picture. Doesn't take a genius to figure that out, or does it - I did.

    Oh and if the dicktards look closer I think thats a mobile phone in her hand. Wow a ghost with a grip on modern technology

    Icon cos if I was a ghost, I'd be going through peoples pockets

  23. TeeCee Gold badge

    Plank alert!

    "But what is really strange is that she doesn't appear as a full figure - you can't see all of her."

    Unsurprising as the picture in question is quite mind-bogglingly obviously a montage taken at different times and from different angles. Now I'd have thought that the dumbest complete fuckwit in the entire Universe could have easily spotted that. Apparently not.

    Today's top tip: Newspaper Editors. Avoid embarassment by ensuring that anyone you ask for a quote can actually find their own arse without using both hands and a map.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    could be...

    those fools in torchwood messing with the rift again?

  25. Michael
    Stop

    IT'S A....

    ...PUPPET!!!!!!

  26. Luke
    Stop

    Tiger Bay?

    It hasn't been called tiger bay for years, it's Cardiff Bay and has been for ten years.

  27. Bod

    Given the location...

    "This woman is very smart - but she is dressed in clothes that you just don't see these days unless it's in a period drama on TV."

    Period drama, or perhaps a certain BBC sci-fi that's based on that very location ;)

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    I've been waiting for this day all my life...

    Mary Poppins is back!!!

    I must get to Cardiff post-haste and join in the revelry.

    <Mine's the one with infinite pockets.

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    Nuts!

    I realised a while back that the Telegraph is just the Daily Mail with long words. What a ridiculously crap article.

  30. Andy Miller
    Black Helicopters

    Torchwood

    , but don't tell them I told you.

  31. Gav
    Alert

    Which "Experts" exactly?

    "Local medium Jane Cohen, 39, said: Apparitions have often been caught on film but are invisible to the naked eye."

    Local medium Jane Cohen, 39, thought; "I know nothing about this or the technology that produced it. I have done absolutely no background research or taken the 5 minutes effort that would be required to show a perfectly natural explanation. But, in the time honoured tradition of out-of-their-depth mediums everywhere, I will take a wild and illogical leap to a conclusion that backs up my woo-woo beliefs and career."

    Telegraph Journalist Sarah Knapton thought; "Well that's another quarter page of pap filled."

    Besides anything else, you can see all of the figure, it's just distorted by the join in the image.

  32. Darren B

    Mary Bleedin' Poppins

    Well I am no expert but that is clearly Mary Poppins, I assume she either flew in on her umbrella or the rift in Tiget Bay is active again and Captain Jack is ready to do battle with Dick Van Dyke now sporting a welsh accent.

  33. Duncan Hothersall
    Heart

    So proud

    that the guy flicking the Vs at Google is on the oh-so-glamorous Lothian Road in my own fair city.

  34. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    @mittfh

    Oh shut up you bellend. If you'd read the article you'd realise the telegraph were reporting on *someone else* having interpreted this as a sighting and calling in the experts. You know, the way journalists journal things!! I'm sure they are as sceptical as the oh-so-amazingly-superior you!!

    And can everyone shut up about torchwood - it's clearly mary poppins which is on at the millennium centre (shock horror - some research from an el reg commentard - whatever next!!)

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ TeeCee

    Now, there's a 20% Time project to get behind: Google Arse, complete with Crack Map. Of course, inevitably Microsoft would respond with Virtual Arse, offering Bird's Eye views, but then Google would retaliate with Fart Simulator, offering the opportunity to fly a variety of farts from the Silent But Deadly right up to the Follow Through across the topography of user-submitted arses from around the world.

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Guess Who Was Responsible?

    Surprised it hasn't been reported more widely, but I suppose it doesn't make for such interesting reading- Google themselves planted the 'ghost': here's the South Wales Echo article revealing the truth:

    http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2009/03/26/google-s-ghostly-mary-poppins-mystery-solved-91466-23235039/

  37. Tim

    Hmmm

    Personally, I've been very disappointed that Street View is not living up to it's name at all, I was expecting something much more wicked and maxxxed. Innit.

    However, there's something ironic that the, er, saluting, gentleman in the final pic is making such a greeting of friendship to the Googlecar while he is standing next to the base of a large CCTV post.

    On a different note, has anyone managed to find an image of a policeman anywhere on Street View?

    Tim#3

  38. Andrew Moore

    Oh thank god...

    ...I thought Jade Goody had come back...

  39. Anonymous Coward
    Flame

    Thank God

    The Reg is read by sane IT professionals, not a load of stereotyped geeks with an unhealthy interest in the minutiae of crap science fiction.

  40. Paul Hamlet
    Thumb Up

    Google did it!

    It's been reported in our local rag the cardiff echo that goggle planted the charaters all over the uk. Including paddington bear, sherlock holmes and others for us all to find.

  41. Paul Hamlet

    Google did it! Pt 2

    http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2009/03/26/google-s-ghostly-mary-poppins-mystery-solved-91466-23235039/

    But today we can reveal that she is just one of a number of fictional characters that Google chiefs decided to cheekily place in the new map.

    And while they chose Cardiff for Mary Poppins, Paddington Bear can be spotted on London’s fashionable Portobello Road, Sherlock Holmes has been caught in Oxford, and the Beefeater has been indulging in a spot of shopping at the Birmingham branch of Selfridges.

    Google’s Laura Scott told the Echo: “The mystery has been revealed.

  42. David Pollard
    Coat

    @ Anthony Mark

    "... astonished to see so many online rags appearing to take this 'ghost' sighting seriously"

    Most of their readers connect via ethernet.

  43. Martin Silver badge

    clothes?

    I never understood why the supposed spirits of tormented souls also have clothes.

    Are these the ghosts of a pair of Levi's that died before their time?

  44. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: sane IT professionals

    SYNTAX ERROR

  45. Hollerith

    One glance and some historical knowledge...

    Even if the viewer had been too stupid to look at what she was seeing and noticed the photo was a composite, the next glance would have revealed things awry with the 'ghost from the past' -- i.e. no gloves and other details that showed that this could not be something from the past. Of course, there was nothing from the past because ghosts don't exist (not in my science book, anyway) and Occam's Razor offers a dozen better solutions.

  46. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Isn't it

    the serial killer...

  47. Sean Adams

    HAHAHA!!

    Oh man people can be stupid. I mean no offence to those who believe in ghosts (as I do - they're fourth dimensional echos of our life's wavelength.....moving on) but seriously!! One image of someone in unordinary clothing and all of a sudden it's a proven ghost sighting?

    One question for the "medium". Being that ghosts apparently exist in a different plain to us, etheral or otherwise, why then does she cast a shadow? Ya know, shadows, those little black patches where light has been blocked or obscured - last time I checked, ghosts didn't invest much into the shadow thing.

  48. Nanki Poo

    Ha ha

    My fave has to be the last photo... casual IT bod dress, laptop bag, obviously up with StreetView... 'fess up, which Reg reader is this...?

    Though I do like what I found while checking if I was clocked passing the gCar (I wasn't)... the cyclist is the one to watch... http://tinyurl.com/crblkj

    Not that funny... until you look back afterwards... http://tinyurl.com/caevrg ... Never a good idea to take your hands off the handlebars while having a large counter-balance bag on you...

    nK

  49. Damien Thorn

    The royal family response.

    My ARSE.

    There are no such things as ghosts, no santa either - has he been spotted on there yet?

  50. Toastan Buttar

    @Sean Adams

    Glad to see you counted the shadows.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Doctor_Who_monsters_and_aliens#Vashta_Nerada

  51. Sam
    Unhappy

    Ref: Mary Bleedin' Poppins

    snip

    "... with Dick Van Dyke now sporting a welsh accent."

    I thought these comments were moderated before being posted.

    In the name of all that's holy Reg - how could you let this idea escape to afflict the world?

    I'm going to get very very drunk & I hope to drowned out the voice in my head.

    (Can we have an icon of Edvard Munch's The Scream?)

  52. David
    Thumb Up

    @Tim

    "has anyone managed to find an image of a policeman anywhere on Street View?"

    Plenty of them about (well, the ones not hiding inside cars). Here a couple of Strathclyde's finest, staring suspiciously at Google:

    http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Cook+St,+Glasgow,+Glasgow+City+G5,+UK&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=13.157147,39.550781&ie=UTF8&ll=55.850867,-4.260421&spn=0.01219,0.038624&t=h&z=15&iwloc=addr&layer=c&cbll=55.850881,-4.260604&panoid=d8N1I5rx7ZRaVgqZrMLFCA&cbp=12,221.30000000000015,,2,9.227757705269553

  53. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fictional characters

    Paddington bear is indeed on Portobello Road. North of Westbourne Grove.

    So does this mean the charming gent in Edinburgh might be Begbie from Trainspotting - fresh from having "chibbed some dozy Yank tourist" and purloined the aforesaid's laptop?

    Incidentally, Google have now removed the original image of the charming gent. Luckily, though, he still appears in the next frame. But Google is struggling to cope with the viral-caused demand...

  54. Walking Turtle

    Main Street to Montain View

    Should GSV hit my town *AND* drive by MY ambulating body (quite unlikely but ya' nevver know)(tm), I hope to have the good sense (and one hand free) to lift the well-decorated beret atop my noggin a few inches, revealing the "Indict Dick and Dubya'" logo on the baseball cap directly beneath it. With the other hand, the Appropriate Salute.

    Hm. Skinny finger of full figo? Decisions, decisions...

    That robust prospect, once leaked upstream to the Chocolate Factory 'loompas, oughtta' keep 'em off *our* streets, one thinks with some hopeful warmth.

  55. Bod

    Paddington Bear

    Odd that the main image has been removed. Maybe Paddington himself complained !

  56. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    Gobshites

    Yes, gobshites!

    All of them!

  57. rhydian
    Go

    A quick look at the Wale Millenium Centre performance listings...

    And you'll see that Mary Poppins is being performed in musical form. Is this a new form of google advertising? Or just a suitable choice of "trap street" for cardiff?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street

  58. BS

    Big Brother blocks content

    Google have blocked the guy in the original link, but you can still see him:

    http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&layer=c&cbll=55.94563,-3.205434&panoid=YdLhR7qbnqbXHyf9pE4eSA&cbp=12,303.84823083077083,,2,7.699999816023958&ll=55.945721,-3.205476&spn=0,359.990344&z=17

  59. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Transvestite?

    "El Reg's ghostbusting department was able - without the aid of a Ouija board "

    The next time el Reg tries to blur a story they shouldn't use obfuscation as a method.

    I believe that the board of Arthut Ouija was not available at the time so it must have been his sister Ann's board.

    Thanks to the Pythons

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