Did a Conecuh County game camera photograph a ghost in 2011?

The now-famous Zach Davis game camera photo.

Halloween is less than a week away, so today I present you with arguably the best ghost story published in Southwest Alabama in recent memory, a story that was published in the Oct. 31, 2011 edition of The Mobile Press-Register. Written by award-winning reporter Connie Baggett, the story was titled “Dead man walking? Hunters’ camera captures ghostly image.”

According to the story, then 26-year-old Zach Davis and his father-in-law had spent a Saturday in the fall of 2011 working on hunting land somewhere in Conecuh County. On that day, between 4 p.m. and sunset, they stopped to watch deer come and go from a food plot they intended to hunt over during the upcoming deer season. A game camera had been capturing all the action, but when Davis checked the camera the next day, he found something very unusual in one of the digital photographs.

The story goes on to say that one of the photos contained a “ghost image” from the spot he’d been watching the day before. Davis, who was a Sheriff’s Department employee at the time, admitted that at first glance, he thought that the camera had taken his picture during the time that he’d been working in the food plot. A closer examination disproved this idea though. He’d been wearing a “camo head-to-toe” that day, but the person in the photo appeared to be wearing khakis pants and a plaid shirt. The person in the photo also appears blurred due to motion.

The game camera also stamped the photo with the date and time it had been taking, a feature that aids hunters by letting them know when game animals are most active. According to the time stamp, the photo had been taken at 5:12 p.m. while Davis and his father-in-law had been watching the food plot. Neither man saw anyone walk through the area.

According to the story, Davis and his father-in-law also searched the ground for any footprints that may have been left behind by the man in the photo, but none were found. Davis also checked the photos on the game camera that were taken before and after to see if the man’s image had somehow gotten transferred, but none of the other photos showed a man, only deer and the surrounding woods. Davis told The Press-Register that since that day, the game camera has also captured sports of bright, glowing light, but nothing like the image of the mystery man.

The story went on to say that a friend of Davis’ had the photo enhanced at a local business and discovered that the man in the photo is looking directly at the game camera as if he knew that it had snapped a picture.

Davis showed the image around, and individuals living near L Pond said the person in the photo looked like Pott Weaver. Weird thing is, Pott Weaver died in 1984. Other people who saw the photo said that it looked like Pott’s brother, Horace, who was killed in a log truck accident a number of years ago. Davis would later pick Pott Weaver’s photo out of an old family photograph, saying that he looked most like the person in the mysterious game camera photo.

Davis noted that Pott Weaver’s former residence, an old house, isn’t far from where the photo was taken and most of his belongings remained in the house at the time of the incident. In fact, if you look at a map of the area, you’ll see that there’s even a Pott Weaver Road not far from L Pond. Davis’ mother, Peggy Sue Weaver, told The Press-Register that Pott Weaver walked through the area daily on his way to feed his dogs. Her husband was related to the family who lived at Pott Weaver’s old house, the story said.

Peggy Sue Weaver told Baggett that if she thought the photo had been faked, she’d have been the first to say so. However, the more the family tried to prove that it wasn’t a ghost, the more questions arose, she said. She admitted that the whole situation was creepy enough to keep her from visiting the food plot. Davis noted though that he wasn’t afraid to return to the food plot, especially if it meant bagging a big buck. Davis said he was operating under the idea that if the “ghost” didn’t do anything to him or his father-in-law on the day the photo was taken, it would never mess with them. They would have also seen the “ghost” with their own eyes if it had been mean to be.

Before I wrap this thing up, I’d like to add that after this story was published two years ago, I tried unsuccessfully to track down Davis and his mother for interviews. Everywhere I turned, I reached a dead end. If you know how to get in touch with either of them, let me know because I’d like to interview them about the photo and what’s happened since.

In the end, what do you think of this incident? What do you think about the mysterious photo? Has anyone else out there seen anything strange in the vicinity of L Pond? Let us know in the comments section below.