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Salem mayor spots ‘eerie’ face in lamppost light

Kim Driscoll

As if Salem wasn’t scary enough, Halloween, it seems, has arrived early this year.

On Wednesday, Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll came across a spooky sight. In a tweet, she shared a picture of what looks like a man’s grimacing face trapped inside the glass case at the top of a lamppost.

“Anybody else see a face in this light?” Driscoll asked on Twitter. “. . . Totally eerie, eh.”

The creepy image looks like a face with a furrowed brow and a mouth in the shape of an “O,” scowling at the people below.

The photo was taken outside the J. Michael Ruane Judicial Center, at North and Federal streets, according to a city spokesman.

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Perhaps it’s the spirit of a ghost trapped in the glass for all of eternity. Or maybe it’s just the light from the overcast sky shining into the object, playing tricks on the eye.

Whatever it is, people instantly sided with Driscoll. One person who responded to the mayor’s tweet said they could clearly see it, and thought it looked “Voldemort-y,” a reference to the evil foe and master of the Dark Arts from the Harry Potter novels.

“Definitely. Yes,” the person said of the picture. “Doesn’t look too happy either.”

If such a thing were to appear in any other city in the region, it would be easy to scoff at the face as comical, if not just plain odd.

But this is Salem, after all — home of the infamous witch trials and host to one of the largest Halloween celebrations in the country.

Eerie, indeed.


Steve Annear can be reached at steve.annear@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @steveannear.