This isn't anything obscure.In fact, this is one of the more popular urban legends around about paranormal occurences being caught on film. This particular legend has been debunked numerous times in the past by fans, photography experts, and even the actors and the director himself. However, people will believe what they want to believe regardless of what you tell them but a little background on this case...
The lurker in the window
Direct your attention to the photo above. As you can see in the screencap, there's Ted Danson and his onscreen mom holding an adorable little critter. Also clearly visible is the other little critter lurking amongst the drapes. Judging from the height of the figure, it's rather short and seem to resemble a young boy, possibly around 13-14 years of age. There are several variants to the legend but the most common one (search online and you'll see) is of a 9-year old boy commiting suicide ala shotgun. The variants go on to detail how the parents of the boy moved out of the apartment where the movie was eventually shot and the footage captured. It goes on to detail how the mother sued the studio for refusing to remove the image from the film. There's even a version where the mother goes insane upon seeing the image of her son in his burial clothes and had to be confined to a mental institution, where she remains to this day....OOooOoO...
The Cardboard truth
The truth however, is a lot less exciting. The figure was actually a cardboard cut-out that Ted Danson's character kept in his apartment (apparently, he was a narcissist). The cut-out is even seen again later in the movie as shown above. In addition, the interior shots were taken in a soundstage in Toronto so there was no 'apartment' for a ghost to haunt. You would think that this would be the end of this particular legend but some people just won't let a good story lie.
Now almost 20 years on, we have paranormal 'experts' stepping forward to resurrect this ghost of movie's past. A short bio of these experts :
"Dr. Dave Oester co-founded the International Ghost Hunters Society in 1996, which is widely accepted as the largest organization of the genre on the Internet. Along with his companion Sharon Gill, he travels across US in his RV to visit and investigate sites of alleged haunting. Author of around 20 books and lecturing all over the country, they even put together self-taught Ghost Hunting programs"
Considered an authority on these matters, he revealed in an interview that he felt that the boy in the movie was genuine. He mentioned that Hollywood producers in those days didn't know how ghosts appear and what forms they manifest in. Lacking this knowledge, the producers would, quite naturally, write the whole thing off as a case of mistaken identity. Talk about being lost in your own world! It saddens me that this so-called authority would weaken the stance of paranormality in the eyes of the world like this. By being so firm and resolute about something that was proven to be wrong, he has given skeptics greater ammunition to shoot paranormality down. It's similar to crapckpot preachers and televangelists zealously defending 'miracles' that were staged to defame them except in this case, it's self-inflicted. Sigh...yes, my face is in my hands now.
"In 1994, Christopher Wilson confessed on his deathbed that the fabled picture taken by his grandfather Robert Wilson, in 1934, of a creature sticking its head out of Loch Ness was a hoax. The confession was subsequently itself called a hoax, and the story calling the confession a hoax was hinted to be one itself. Which means the Loch Ness monster legend is needed alive and well, and remains just as fascinating. The question towards the "Three Men and a Baby" ghost boy isn't whether it is true, nor if you believe in it. The question is what do you WANT to believe in, and WHY"
This excerpt illustrates my point quite clearly. People will believe whatever they want to believe, regardless of whatever evidence you present to them. You may shake them for a while but eventually, they will pump themselves up internally to either develop a spanking new, equally absurd belief or rationalise things such that they were never wrong in the first place. As for me,i'm just here for a meaty story. While this has been debunked, there are others out there that might defy all explanations. I'm still here and i'm still looking...
