Creepy extra hand in Victorian photo spooks internet

Why is this image going viral? Photo / Getty Images

This story was one of the top-performing stories for Herald Lifestyle in 2020

People across the internet are getting spooked by a disturbing detail in an old photo that's going viral.

The Victorian-era photograph of a group of women dressed in their work attire at a linen mill in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1900 looks normal from afar.

But when you take a closer look, something is amiss.

Or, rather, there's something that shouldn't be there lurking on one of the women's shoulders.

If you look closely on the shoulder of the woman standing on the right of the picture, there appears to be an extra hand.

All the women except one have their arms folded so it appears the extra hand is coming out of nowhere.

Can you spot the extra hand? Photo / Getty Images

The hand is not attached to a body, but is resting on the woman's right shoulder.

The old photo was posted to the website Mumsnet with the caption: "What do you make of this strange photo?"

Initially, people couldn't spot anything unusual, until they took a closer look.

"Oh yeah, there is a creepy hand coming from nowhere!" one person exclaimed.

Long before Photoshop was invented, some photo manipulation began in the late 1800s – such as tinting, handpainted retouching and "airbrushing". But an extra hand seems unlikely.

The 'creepy' hand in the photo. Photo / Getty Images

Cynics said the picture had obviously been Photoshopped recently, while others were quite happy to consider a more supernatural explanation.

"It's quite late where I am and I was about to go to sleep and saw this. I feel quite scared now," one person wrote.

"Totally freaking out now. Will see this in my sleep," wrote another.