The haunting photograph of a Shropshire ghost that fooled the world

In November 1995, a fire tore through Wem Town Hall, sparking a paranormal mystery that gripped the county for more than a decade.

The now-famous image shows a little girl standing in a doorway amid the flames, staring directly into the camera.

Local photographer Tony O’Rahilly was said to have stood across from the Shropshire building as it burnt down, but did not see the girl until after the image was developed.

At the time, Dr. Vernon Harrison, former president of the Royal Photographic Society, said there was no evidence that the negative had been tampered with.

There was speculation that the girl was 14-year-old Jane Churm, who was accused of accidentally started the disastrous Great Fire of Wem in 1677 and was reputed to be haunting the town hall.

Wem folk enthusiastically embraced the story which put their town under the spotlight. But two years after Tony died in 2007, the picture was found to have been tampered with.

The ruse was uncovered by a Black Country paranormal specialist along with ASSAP, a paranormal education and research charity, and Parasearch, a paranormal investigation unit.

Tony had, according to Parasearch, tampered with the image to make the girl appear as though she was in the burning building.

“It was faked, he did fake it,” said historian and author, Andrew Homer during an interview in 2018.

Andrew, who was the paranormal specialist who helped debunk the mystery, said the fire was “a major blow” for the tiny town of Wem.

“I think that he thought by trying to generate some publicity for Wem it would just help Wem out - I think that was his motivation,” he said.

In 2010, eagle-eyed Shropshire Star reader Brian Lear spotted an eerie similarity between a girl standing in the street in a 1922 photo of Wem and the girl pictured amid the flames.