SOLVED: That Hospital-Bed Demon Photo

“Proof that demons exist!”

This was doing the rounds a month or so ago, but, as it has recently re-emerged to the same gasps as last time, I thought I’d pen a quick blog post to try and clear up some confusion.

As with most things, the snap first appeared on Reddit.

“This picture was taken of a nurse’s viewing monitor. On the monitor, this black figure appeared standing on top of the patient who was lying in the bed. The patient died within a few hours of this figure appearing.” [Src]

The big thing you notice about this photograph is that it is, genuinely, a bit startling. A hunched-over, unnaturally-dark figure bent in feral fashion over a person on their last legs? Eek! Supernatural explanations abound: it’s the dying patient’s soul! it’s a demon waiting for another soul! it’s a manifestation of the dreaded old hag syndrome!

Even upon closer inspection, the figure’s spookiness doesn’t evaporate immediately. But, sorry guys, if you’re looking for proof of the paranormal then it isn’t quite time to put away the EMF detector. For this is nothing more than the rather interesting alignment of a hospital bed, a patient’s leg and some equipment.

Internet users have found a couple of ways of revealing the photograph’s bones:

But anyway, even if we didn’t have these explanations, the snap is at a strange angle, of a low-quality hospital monitor screen, we have no comparisons to show what the scene looked like ‘normally’, nor do we have any before or after shots, and the original source is clouded in mystery. In short, we couldn’t rely on the image anyway.

For more research into real-life cases please check out my ebooks.

Advertisement