Is this crash victim’s spirit leaving his body? Photo ignites a debate

Saul Vasquez saw the ambulances, and the emergency personnel huddled over someone at the scene of a crash Tuesday near Stanton, Kentucky.

It looked bad. Really bad.

So he pulled his truck over to the side of the road, rolled down the passenger window and took a picture of the scene.

When he posted the photo to his Facebook page he added some special instructions.

“I took this picture just few minutes ago from the cab of my truck it was an accident between campton and Stanton on the service road just off of the mountain parkway, zoom in and pay attention to the shadow just off the top of the state trooper hat,” wrote Vasquez, who lives in Mount Sterling, Kentucky, according to his Facebook profile.

Above the trooper’s hat was a white, translucent object, sort of shaped like a body.

Many people who have seen the photo believe Vasquez caught a photo of the crash victim’s spirit leaving his body.

Vasquez told Lex 18 TV station in Lexington that he did not doctor the photo in any way.

The photo has been shared more than 13,000 times on Facebook, where it has kicked up conversations between skeptics and believers who said they got “goosebumps” when they saw it.

“I believed it the moment I saw it,” one woman wrote.

“If that’s not proof of the soul, I don’t know what is,” wrote one man. “Nothing can convince you if you look at this and still deny it.”

“This phenomenon is very common in psychology, it’s called Pareidolia. Please, look it up,” one man suggested.

But this man didn’t believe the fuss: “It’s not a soul if you look at it carefully its just part of the tree branch and leaves. Maybe shot out of (focus).”

Officials told LEX 18 the person on the motorcycle was the only one involved in the crash and that he died later at a hospital.

This story was originally published July 15, 2016 at 1:59 PM with the headline "Is this crash victim’s spirit leaving his body? Photo ignites a debate."