hi,

for anyone reading this who may know something about red-eye in photography and what causes it and also for those who know some technical things about the human eye; i'd like those of you to pay attention and see if you can help me figure this one out.

something has peeked my interest.  it's an incident that took place circa 1971.  my younger brother saw this first and practically drug me to go see it for myself or rather to see it and tell him what i thought of it.  he was always a practical joker but this time his face was extremely pale.  when he spoke his voice quivered like he was cold and the normally slow rythm of his speech was instead urgent and breathless as he tugged roughly at my arm.  it was well after dark, and one of those nights when we often left our aunt and uncle's house very late.  i was waiting for the announcement that we were heading home finally.  it was a forty-five minute drive home through hilly, twisty, pothole marked country roads which left one with a strong case of sea sickness before it was all over.  i wasn't looking forward to it but to the ride on the interstate which would be smooth and straight for the rest of the long trip.  it was already late then when my brother came rushing into the room where i was laying on the carpet engrossed in one of my cousin's comic books.  i was saving what energy i had left for the torturous ride home through the hills of southern ohio.  he wasn't dragging me into mischief which seemed to find him at every turn.  i was tired from having to follow him around all day to keep him out of such in the first place.  he was around eleven at the time and i was about thirteen.  i was more than content to wait him out and stay put right where i was.  no way did i want to endure a spanking and verbal abuse before and during that long awaited ride home.  he'd do the dumbest things when he knew full well mom and dad were tired.  it was like yanking the tail of a skunk and expecting not to get sprayed for it.  there he was begging me to come see some kids.  i told him it didn't work, that i already knew there were no other kids in the house besides us, 4 other siblings, all older, and my cousin.  yes, this is the same house where i've seen over eighteen ghosts over the span of fourty-six years.  that hadn't even crossed my mind that day as we'd spent the entire day outside.  i was tired.  i knew he was so i told him to tell me later.  he said it wasn't something he could just tell me later and began to drag me across the carpet by the arm.  that tore it!  i got up and told him to back off or he was going to get it.  that's when he offered to give me money to come and see this "something".  he actually cleaned out every bit of money in his pockets, put it all in my hand and closed my hand around it.  this was new! lol  he was very near tears and begging me to come and see.  i warned him he'd get it if this was a trick.  he said we had to go to the cellar.  i asked how the light was, lol.  there was one incandescent light hanging from the rafters down in that bare cellar which housed the coal furnace and my aunt's home canning.  there was a coal shovel against one wall near the coal room which had a cover on it.  other than that there was nothing else down there.  it was always kept clean of cobwebs and bugs by my aunt who disliked such things.  anyway, there we were at the top of the stairs which led down there.  it was a straight shot down with a small landing and about three more to the right which led to the concrete floor.  i asked him how stupid he thought i was and he didn't even laugh.  i said, "ok, how about you go first and i'll follow?"  he agreed but only if i stayed close by him.  i saw the fear in his face and eyes.  i asked what he was afraid of and he said he wasn't sure.  i asked him if there was an animal down there or something and he said no it wasn't that.  i told him, either tell me what's down there or i'm not going!  he said there were kids down there, dressed funny and well, the rest i'd have to see if i saw what he'd seen.  i asked who they were and he had no idea.  he had checked the place for another car and asked our aunt if anyone else was visiting but us.  no one was.  i thought maybe they'd gained access through the coal shute but he said he didn't think they needed a window or a coal shute to go where they wanted to go.  he said he couldn't understand but that i'd have to look myself.  down we went and i held onto his shirt so he couldn't run back up past me and lock the door on me.  it was dark down there so i made him go turn on that bare bulb by himself before i stepped down any further.  he was going to prove that the bulb wasn't burned out.  lol  he turned it on and he spoke in hushed tones motioning me to come down while he looked underneath the stairwell.  they stairs were just treads with open area beneath each tread.  just bare wooden stairs.  i came down while keeping my eyes glued on him.  my three brothers had locked me in the outhouse too many times for me to be taken by this ruse, if it was one.  i came to the bottom of the stairs and stood on the concrete floor and he told me again in hushed tones not to scare them.  he said they were scared.  i asked of what and he didn't know.  i came slowly towards him warning him not to pull anything because when i caught him i'd beat the crap out of him for it.  he reassurred me it wasn't anything like that and motioned with his hand for me to look under the stairs.  i saw them there, two boys of about my brothers age, dressed in strange clothes.  they were visibly shaken and scared.  he warned me not to touch them because he didn't know what they'd do.  i asked what he meant by that and he said just to promise not to touch them.  i agreed and he said he was going to the landing.  i asked him what was going on and he said not to worry as he wasn't leaving me down there with them.  i asked why he'd say that, they were just kids like us.  he asked me to tell him what i saw.  i began describing the basement and he said, "no, the kids."  i described them thusly, both had dark hair in a dutch boy cut, white long sleeved shirts with a wide center band of white embroidery work.  their pants were just past the knee and looked like velvet of some sort.  the outside of the legs was embroidered with much needlework of bright colors.  there was a button or two just past the knee where there was also a narrow band of cloth to finish it off.  their shoes were girly looking with big bright buckles, black leather with a square toe, and a boot looking heel.  the boys themselves looked milk white with blue eyes.  they were trembling in fear and huddling together with their hands on each other in a protective stance.  he said ok, now turn off the light and look at them.  i began to warn him and he said, "for God's sake!  just do it, i'm not going anywhere and you can beat the crap out of me if i do!"  that was strange.  i said ok.  i turned it off and said, "now what?"  he said to look over at them now.  i did and he said to tell him what i saw.  i said i saw they were still there from the light up in the room which had the cellar door in it.  the light in that room was only a 15 watt bulb or so.  just a bedroom lamp far away from the cellar door.  still i could see the outline of the boys and their movement.  he asked what else i saw.  i looked for a moment and told him their eyes were red and glowing.  he let out a very loud, "whew!" and murmured to himself that he wasn't crazy afterall.  i asked what was going on and he said to turn the light on.  i did so and there they were again.  he asked what color their eyes were and i told him blue.  he asked me to talk to them and ask them some questions to see if they'd answer me.  he said they wouldn't answer him.  i did so asking why they were afraid.  as i approached them they shook worse and were obviously afraid of me.  i told them not to be afraid because i could help them if they'd talk to me.  i took a few steps and my brother yelled this time for me to back up and remember my promise not to touch them.  i told him bug off, it wouldn't hurt them.  he said he wasn't worried about them and looked ill.  i looked at him studying his face and body language.  i asked him what was wrong.  he said to come upstairs and leave the light on.  i told the boys that i'd be back and help them if they wanted my help.  we went upstairs, my brother and i and he began asking me to repeat what i'd seen of them.  how they looked.  i did so and he kept reasking what color eyes while the light was on, what color after the light was off.  i told him and he asked why they were different colors.  i said maybe their eyes glowed like cat's eyes glow in the dark, i didn't know! lol  he finally asked me if i had ever remembered seeing anyone's eyes glowing in the dark.  to prove a point we went outside and experimented to see if the other's eyes would glow.  our eyes did not glow in the dark.  we went a distance away from the house to prove this point in the pitch blackness of the night.  there was no moon.  it had been a hot day in summer and the nighttime was cool and welcome even if it was pitch black out.  we went back in and he asked me this, "if our eyes don't glow in the dark why did their's?"  on top of that he wanted to know why their eyes were red in the dark and blue with the light on.  after some internet research into why cat's eyes glow in the dark, i found that they have a reflective layer at the back of their eyes which reflects incoming light back at the source.  at different angles it's a different color and the brightness varies according to the angle.  red-eye occurs when the flash source is too close to the camera lens.  also the photographic subject has to be in low light meaning their iris is more open.  the blood vessels at the back of the eye reflect the color of those vessels, red.  bigger eyes produce more red-eye.  when the cellar was lit with a bulb the boys eyes were blue.  when there was no light on that same area where they stood their eyes shone bright red.  true, they had big eyes to begin with.  my eyes however didn't have a bright flash right nest to them to produce the same effect that would occur with a camera.  there was no light down there it was for all intents and purposes pitch black in the cellar itself, except for the creepy red glowing eyes.  it was rather disconcerting to see them move and turn.  my brother saw their eyes the same way.  he asked me this, "if our eyes don't "glow" in the dark and the iris isn't red why is their's this way.  i went and got my aunt to discuss it with her.  i asked if anyone she knew ever had eyes that glowed in the dark.  she said no and saw the concern on our faces.  we asked her to go into the basement and turn out the light as it was left on.  she did so and came back up like she hadn't seen the boys.  we asked to see if the kitten was down there as we thought we'd lost it in the house.  she went and looked and sure enough, no cat, lol.  obviously no boys either as she searched every corner for the cat and hadn't seen them.  she asked which cat it was and we answered too quick each describing the cat in two different ways.  we were had!  she had our cousin count the kittens outside and they were all there.  we made our apologies and tried to slink from the room where our parents were.  they caught us doing so and asked our aunt what we had wanted.  i told my brother that i should've known better than to go down there with him.  now there'd be hell to pay for it, all the way home! our aunt ratted us out without one thought for us, lol.  dad asked why we'd ask such a thing and i told him we had a class project which asked this question.  i asked if anyone they'd ever known had red glowing eyes in the dark.  none of them knew anyone like this.  dad almost went right back to the discussion and stopped to turn and tell us to stay put.  i could've belted my little brother for that! lol  dad came closer and asked what we had seen.  he said it was ok to tell him and he wouldn't get mad.  he promised.  i told him and all of a sudden he and our oldest brother who'd been standing there listening to the conversation of the adults were headed down those basement stairs with my uncle coming in last, lol.  he had a fake leg and was slower.  they searched the cellar from top to bottom and found no one there.  everything was locked up tight and they came back to question us both.  satisfied that we'd told the truth they returned to the kitchen and to our aunt and mom.  they asked what was going on in the cellar and dad told them.  my aunt screamed and grabbed her chest.  she kept yelling, "they saw them too!"  and my brother and i made ourselves scarce real quick.  so, there you have it.  red glowing eyes, with no bright flash like with a camera.  so how'd it happen that he and i both saw them in precise detail?  then we saw their eyes glowing red.  why don't i see red-eye in people when i look through the view finder?  even if i'm still looking through it when the flash occurs i still don't see the red-eye but it shows up on the film.  if the camera causes the film to imprint this how does it do so?  is it properties in the film which can record this?  or has the bright flash and maybe the filtering properties of the lens make this happen?  you see, if a camera can produce this result in living human beings how could we use lenses and light to produce an optical viewing device which could see these ghosts?  it occurs to me that the jade disks of which i spoke of in one of my postings may have been such a device.  maybe whoever made these did so in order to see what the human eye could not.  the russian photographer and other photogs after him used a "crystal" lens to see things from the past and future.  maybe a crystal lens on a video camera with infrared film might show us the unseen world that so many of us knows surrounds us all the time.  for those looking for the jade disks story it's listed among my postings.  there are links to "pravda", a russian reporting agency, like a newspaper.  we both saw the red glowing eyes with our own human eyes.  neither of us wore glasses at that time or had any vision problems of any sort.  how about it people, can we all get together on this and try to find an explanation which might allow us to "see" the other side?  i'd like everyone's input even if you have no expertise at anything.  also, if you catch anything in intuition about this i'd like to hear about that too. 

take care, and i hope to hear from all of you very soon. 

patty1019