It was like something out of the 2000 horror movie “What Lies Beneath.”
The internet is freaking out over a photo of a “phantom hand” in the ocean off northern Australia, which some paranormal activity buffs have claimed belongs to some form of aquatic apparition. The pic is currently going viral as internet denizens try and decipher the underwater anomaly.
“Soooooo can someone tell me what this is?” wrote Monique Sicheter, 20 in the caption to the spooky pic, which was taken while she and her friends were frolicking in the postcard waters off Magnetic Island, Queensland.
“After sunbaking for quite some time, we decided to go for a swim and take a couple of photos before heading back home,” the Townsend native described to news.com.au. “At the time the photograph was taken, the water was crystal clear, and there were no other people anywhere near us.”
She added, “We did not see anything in the water, as it was so clear, and we were definitely looking in the water, as we have to watch out for things like stingrays and even crocodiles sometimes.”
It was only after she returned home that she noticed the alleged phantom hand lurking beneath the waves in one of the pics. The chilling pic shows Sicheter standing in the shallows while, in the lower right-hand corner, a pallid mitt appears to be reaching through the water as if trying to grab her leg.
“I only noticed the ‘hand’ in the water two days later when I was showing a workmate and they pointed it out. I didn’t know what to think,” the aghast gal explained. “I felt shocked and confused, and couldn’t get my head around if it really was a hand.”
Hoping to shed light on the ghostly photo-bomber, Sicheter posted the snap on Facebook, where fans flooded her inbox with theories on its identity.
“That is a call for an exorcist my friend,” exclaimed one commenter, while another wrote, “You about to get your leg grabbed and drowned by the babe in ‘Paranormal Activity.’”
One comment section comedian wrote quipped “oh no big deal, it’s just the ghost of someone that drowned and now they want you to join them – it’s sweet when you think about it.”
Some even said the alleged hand belonged to a dead body or a “mermaid.”
However, Facebook realists threw cold water on the undersea specter theory. “It’s an upside-down crab or octopus,” scoffed one spectator. “Or it could be a glove floating around in the water.”
“Jellyfish, light, water distortion and an angle making it look weird,” another theorized.
One armchair scientist chalked up the phenomenon to the image of someone’s foot or hand getting refracted through the water. “Water refracts and scatters light and therefore warps visual presentation,” they explained.
“Looks like it’s literally just a reflection of your own hand,” said another.
Still, others weren’t convinced with one doomsayer exclaiming it was ridiculous to claim it was a crab or other critter when they clearly saw a “right hand, four fingers and a thumb in skin tone.”
“I personally have no idea what it could be, as there are no reasonable explanations on what it is” summed up Sicheter.
This isn’t the first time people have claimed to have caught a spooky image on camera. In November, an Australian man was left shaken after a bone-chilling CCTV clip appeared to show his pet pup Ryder playing with a ghost dog in his backyard in Melbourne.
