Ectoplasm
You may have seen photos of seancees from around the late 1800s: Usually there's a female medium, seated and appearing to be asleep or in a trance, and occasionally she has some kind of liquid or ooze coming out of their mouth, ear, or other orifice. That ooze is ectoplasm.
The Society for Psychical Research defines ectoplasm as a "substance which emanates from some physical medium (usually when in a trance) and from which materializations seem to be formed." (Materializations, of course, being the "appearance of a person or object in apparently solid form.")
The stuff coming from the mediums would often just be in tendrils, but sometimes would seem to form shapes such as hands.
It is said to be sensitive to light and occasionally touch.
Often, the stuff was found to be fake. Over the years, people have made fake ectoplasm from toothpaste, muslin, egg whites, soap, chewed paper, or gauze. The "medium" would often prepare the "ectoplasm" ahead of time, only to produce it from their mouth, ear, etc. during the seance.
Some involved in ghost hunting will say ectoplasm is the smoke or mist that can appear in photos, or sometimes to the naked eye. Usually those wisps of smoke can be explained away as fog or something on the lens. But it is not "true" ectoplasm. If there is such a thing.
Reports and photographs of "true" ectoplasm are virtually nonexistent these days. Perhaps it's because the stuff was never real to begin with. Perhaps the mediums that are able to do it are scared of making the information public because of the ridicule they might suffer from the paranormal community.
However, given the stuff's tendency to appear only in the dark, it seems to me that if it were real, with the development of infrared and night-vision technology, there ought to be more evidence supporting its existence, not less.
Ectoplasm is one of those things I have a really hard time believing in. I've never seen it for myself, and I've never known anyone who has witnessed it firsthant. I hate to dismiss anything outright, so I'm not going to do that, but this one sure does seem like a long shot.
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