Previously: “Abandoned by Disney”
Humans have long been fascinated by photography’s ability to capture a moment right as it’s happening. We’re fascinated even more, though, by things revealed in photographs that our own eyes couldn’t necessarily see at the time the image was taken. Most of the photos taken during spirit photography craze that hit at the turn of the century have since been determined to be obvious fakes… but what if those “Anomalies” they captured were real? And what if somebody REALLY didn’t want us knowing they were?
Interestingly, one of the pieces of this creepypasta has sort of been divorced from its source material and become a piece of lore all its own. It’s usually referred to as “Charlie Noonan’s last photograph,” or something similar — and within the larger frame of “Anomaly,” it’s photograph two, where it’s filed under the name “Charlie Noonan’s Last Interview.” Just, y’know, FYI.
[Like what you read? Check out Dangerous Games To Play In The Dark, available from Chronicle Books now!]
Make sure you click through to read the rest of this one — you won’t want to miss the images that accompany it.
Greetings.
I guess I should say upfront that I’m new here, so be patient with me, as I don’t know all the rules or etiquette or whatnot. A friend of mine linked me to this board after I told him the story and showed him the materials I’m about to share with you. He thinks some of you will appreciate it, but to be honest, from where I’m sitting this site seems more like a haven for idiots than a serious “paranormal image board.” Whatever. I’m motivated to share this stuff and need to do so anonymously, for reasons which will become clear. Technically, I’ll be breaking the law, but if I understand how this place works, this thread will disappear in a day or so anyway.
Here’s the deal. I am a production editor at a small independent publisher in the U.S. I won’t say which or where, so don’t ask, as I’d like to keep my job. The pay isn’t that great, but it’s an easy gig, and I like the people I work with. A lot of what we publish are what you’d call coffee table books.
The kind people flip through when they’re bored, but almost nobody ever reads them cover to cover. Bland pictorial histories of certain cities or states that sell well in regional gift shops. The occasional book of maps or a biography. A few museums outsource their gallery catalogs to us. That kind of thing. The work is boring, but it’s steady and we get enough jobs and our books make enough money to stay afloat, which is a lot more than most small presses can say these days.
Because we’ve been around a while, our name is somewhat known to history buffs and people who think they’re an expert on such-and-such town in Nowhere, Idaho or some esoteric topic nobody really cares about. We get a lot of unsolicitied manuscripts from people that really shouldn’t be writing books and unsolicited CDs full of photographs from people that shouldn’t be taking pictures. Because we’re small, and don’t have a separate acquisitions editor position, the job of going through this “slush pile” gets passed around the office.
Very rarely, somebody will find something worth pursuing and pitch it to the rest of us, but our Senior Editor/Publisher gets the final say. For the last nine months I’ve been working more or less nonstop on a book that everybody at the office was pretty excited about. Our copyeditor found it during his turn with the pile. An old guy I won’t name had contacted us out of the blue and offered us the chance to publish his rare archival photo collection, provided we treat the subject matter with the respect and seriousness he felt it deserved.
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