HEADS OR TAILS
http://headsortailshome.blogspot.com/2009/09/tuesday-september-29-sign-in.html
suggests
"PHOTOGRAPHS"
PHAKE PHOTOS!
In the days of the Ouija Board, when ghosts were ten-a-penny,
And Conan Doyle was in his prime and 'phenomena' were many,
The strangest photographs appeared, revealing spirit creatures
Looking all ethereal but with oddly-human features!
These wraiths, it seems, came writhing out from convenient orifices
Often accompanied by sighs and bangs and shrieks and hisses!
They were made of ectoplasm, a really curious stuff
Not out of misty nothingness to banish with a puff!
Ectoplasm, in our day, gives rise to many laughs
Although it looks quite firm and real in old-time photographs!
Photography was very new; it was easy to play tricks;
Overlapping images then were so easy to fix.
Trick photography was involved, of that we can be certain,
And we're sure that an accomplice must have been behind a curtain!
The populace was over-awed and many were believers,
While, as with any fraudulence, there were dozens of deceivers.
The ones we must be sorry for were those who were bereaved,
Who felt they saw their loved-ones, for whom they deeply grieved.
We're still the hapless victims of tricksters! Even yet
There are those who try to fool us as we use the internet!
We must keep our wits about us! Fraudsters are very slick.
There are many variations of the ectoplasm trick.
*
A more useful trick here:
