A Mystery of Another Kind

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Everyone likes a good mystery! Some are obviously fictitious and invented purely for pleasure. Others are real and attract the interest of many until the physical forces at work in creating the phenomenon is better understood. The following is true and remains unexplained. I once managed an historic site for a state park. It had been closed for several years due to the state of disrepair it had fallen into. Finally the ancestors of the man who built the site decided that the place should be reopened and the only way to do that was to pay for it themselves as there was no capital budget available under the auspices of the government to do so. It then underwent extensive renovations in 1991 and 1992. Among the changes and upgradings was the installation of ceramic tiles with photographs of elements of the history of the development of the state park in which it was incorporated. Beneath each photograph is a caption explaining them. Pictured are the original dayliners which brought people from New York City, the park train station, the construction of the restaurant and Bridge, and many other historically noteworthy things. As one entered the front door you are met with questions such as "In 1908 what was planned for what is now the playing field?" and pictures of animals native to the park region. The idea is to entice the visitors to read all the displays so that they can answer all the questions. The contract for the artwork portion of the renovations was awarded to Stacey Farley of Peekskill, New York. She is one of only a few remaining artists who continue to use the technique of placing photographs on tiles. Her work can also be viewed at the Peekskill Train Station, the Westfield Train Station, the Sloatsburg Travel Plaza on the New York State Thruway, the Litchfield Historical Society in Connecticut, and many other places as well. At this point I must note that the photographs are taken from black and white photographs from the photographic archives of the park. As installed, the tiles were naturally black and white photographs as well. Sometime during the 1993 season I began to notice subtle changes in the photographs. I don't mean deterioration or anything like that, but there was definitely a barely noticeable change going on. What I saw was the slightest hint of color coming out in some of the tiles. I believe the first thing I noticed was that in the photo on the second floor landing a lady's dress seemed to be turning blue! At first I didn't think much of it until I started noticing other things as well. A few months later I thought I detected flesh tones becoming apparent in the photo on the third floor of a couple having a meal at the park's restaurant and the ivy on the building in the picture of the structure's exterior (next to the first picture) seemed to be turning green too! I still didn't think too much of it until the following year when these colors and others began to become more bold. I mentioned it to the park manager who was as surprised as I was to see it. I also passed it on to the engineering department who were responsible for designing the renovative work. As far as anyone knew this wasn't supposed to happen. I decided to contact the artist herself and ask her about it and she thought I was pulling her leg. "How can that happen? They were black and white photographs!" she wondered. Shortly thereafter she came to see for herself and was astonished by what she saw. "I've done these all over and I've never seen this before!" was her reaction. She later told me that she asked her brother, who is a chemist with a Ph.D., how such a reaction could take place and he too was baffled. The tiles have continue to take on more colors over the years. I now can see khaki on the camper's tents and the stones on the road construction photographs are becoming brown. The other colors I've mentioned continue to become bolder and bolder with each passing year. As I conduct tours I point out this amazing phenomenon and the public is just as amazed as I am about it. I'm glad that we don't have any green faces or purple hair. It's truly amazing that the tiles seem to "know" exactly what color they're supposed to be turning. Indeed, it's truly amazing that they're turning color at all! As I point this out I'm always asked "What could be causing it then?" All I can say is that at this point we might just as well blame it on ghosts or evil spirits. After all, by this juncture in time, we have exhausted all of the usual and obvious paths toward and answer. About the only other thing we have left to try is hold a séance. AUTHOR'S NOTE If anyone has a theory as to why this phenomenon is transpiring, we'd be interest, and indeed amused, to hear about it. Who knows, maybe we'll figure it out yet!