Samurai Ghost Boots Photo?

I came across this story about a so-called Samurai Ghost Boots photo while at work today, and I’m not quite sure what to make of it. Apparently a man took a photo of his daughter last summer, while they were living in Japan. Behind the girl, there appears to be a pair of boots and legs, and part of a shirt. People are claiming it is the ghost of a samurai warrior, I guess because the photo was taken adjacent to a samurai graveyard. The photo clearly shows that there is a human-like figure behind the girl. It’s not rocks or background vegetation causing matrixing. But I do have some thoughts…

This photo of a four-year-old girl on a beach in Zushi, Japan, seems innocent until you look closely behind her legs and back.

A closer look appears to reveal a mysterious pair of boots and part of a blue shirt peeking out from behind her

The photo, which was uploaded to Reddit by a friend of the girl’s father, is making the rounds on Internet. Many are speculating the photo shows a Samurai ghost because the beach the girl and her dad were on was across a samurai graveyard.

“My daughter thinks the whole thing is just so funny,” Martin Springall, who took the photo, told ABC News today. “She thinks it’s a ghost, but not a scary ghost — a nice one.”

Springall said the photo was taken on July 6, 2014 during a weekend trip to the beach. He added his family now lives in Toronto, Canada, but had been living in Tokyo at the time.

“I took a few pictures, and when I was looking through them at night, I noticed what appeared to be a pair of boots behind her in one of the photos,” he said. “I took several of her in the same spot, but only one had the boots.”

Springall said he freaked out, and he later showed the photo to his friend Brian Publicover during a camping trip in Japan in August.

Publicover put it up on Reddit’s “Ghosts” subreddit, and theories poured in.

“Some thought it could be the ghost of a World War II sailor,” Springall said.

He added the photo is “completely legitimate” and not retouched in any way.

“My daughter is really shy, and she wouldn’t have taken a picture if there was someone standing behind her, which I would have definitely noticed,” Springall said.

My main theory here is that there is simply a person standing behind this little girl. It’s the easiest and most rational explanation. First of all, the photo was taken almost a year ago. Shy as his daughter might be, can he really say, almost a year later, that he’s 100% sure that nobody else was there that day? It’s an insignificant detail that most people would not remember unless they were specifically trying not to photograph anyone else in the picture. But let’s take his word for it and assume he’s correct. He could have been busy fiddling with his camera while someone walked behind his daughter, got in the shot without he or his daughter realizing, and then walked out of frame before Mr. Springall spotted him/her (perhaps busy looking at his camera screen to preview the photo?).

Second, this just looks like a flesh and blood figure. Nothing ghostly about it. It doesn’t even really look like a samurai or World War II figure. Just boots and a light blue shirt. So I’m not sure why he’s jumping right to the ghostly explanation. Third, it’s quite possible that this is a hoax. Just because he claims the photo wasn’t tampered with doesn’t mean it wasn’t tampered with. Lastly, it’s possible that it’s a photo of a ghost, I guess. But to me, this really just looks like someone standing behind the girl, and Mr. Springall just can’t remember if there was someone there when he took the photo. What do you think it it?