A woman texted her daughter to ask about her whereabouts on Tuesday evening and her child replied that she was on the bus in Yishun and on the way home.

The text, sent at 7:39pm, was accompanied by a photo the child took, showing the interior of a public bus.

The mother took a closer look at the photo, and lo and behold, she saw what appeared to be a woman with long hair sitting or standing on top of a parked van at an open-air car park.

The woman did what some would do in such a situation: Take the matter to Facebook to ask what the masses see and if their eyes are playing tricks on them as well.

This led to a spirited discussion (pun intended).

The Facebook post

The Facebook post was put up on Feb. 13 at about 8pm, about 20 minutes after the photo was apparently taken.

At first glance, the photo posted appeared innocuous.

But on closer inspection, the faint image of an entity with long hair and in a white dress on the left of the photo could be vaguely made out.

The woman asked in her post: "What on earth is that on top of that van?????!!"

Responses

The earliest responses to the post were mostly to express shock or to clarify which part of the photo they were supposed to be looking at to spot the ghostly apparition.

The subsequent responses were to ask about the location the photo was taken and the bus service number.

It was subsequently revealed by the mother that the bus was service 811 and it was travelling past Block 269A Yishun Street 22.

Woman recognised husband's van

The image was shared widely enough online to the extent that a resident of the estate recognised the van in the photo as the one driven by her husband.

This led to the driver to inspect the vehicle first-hand with a video recording to show that there was no apparition on top of it.

This elicited a mock-shocked response from the mother who made the post: "Maybe she has moved to another place. Didn't have time to meet."

Optical illusion?

As with any good ghostly apparition photo, some in the comments section tried to explain how the image came to be and the workings of the optical illusion.

The most convincing explanation proffered was that the ghostly apparition was caused by the reflection of a bus handle — there were two in the foreground and three in the background.

The position of the apparition overlaps with the location of the leftmost bus handle in the background.

However, this rational explanation was not enough for some.

One of those who disagreed wrote: "Cannot be a reflection whereas this woman with long hair wearing white clothes. Hair down. Where on earth did anyone on the bus wear such clothing?"

This elicited an elaboration of how the optical illusion could have occurred: "It's the angle of the handle grip when photo is taken, that makes it looks like it is someone with a long dress, the black hair is actually the strap secure to the bar and the handle itself."

Regardless, most who saw the post were tickled, astounded by the sight or expressed concern.

One commenter wrote: "Ehhh.. last time my sec school also got ponti... it's all the girls that kena... it's been witness by many and girls were possessed and needed many students and teachers to hold the girl down... tell your daughter be careful... play safe better than sorry."

But one person quipped: "Photo was examined by experts, they found the photo was not photoshopped."

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