Faces
Hey everybody, Nick here. I got this lot of slides about three years ago and I've never been able to figure out just what is going on. There are about 50 slides in all- all dating from between 1959 and 1969 and all of young women. Some, like the ones here have letters written on their foreheads, others have press type with their names on it affixed to either their temples or foreheads. Were the slides taken by a dermatologist or plastic surgeon or were these young women part of some now forgotten experiment. In less than fifty years these slides have gone from most likey being unambiguous data for some medical study to being a complete mystery.
*Addendum*
While if push comes to shove I'd probably agree with those of you who've suggested rhinoplasty I've added a couple more photos (the bottom two) which make me a bit skeptical. The two slides are of the same woman but taken 7 years apart- the first is dated 2/60 and the second 2/67. There are are few instances like this where the same young woman was photographed on more than one occasion which leads me believe these weren't just girls getting nose jobs.
posted by squareamerica @ 12:54 AM
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If you look at their noses, you could imagine that the slides are from a cosmetic surgeon, and they are all pre-nosejob. I personally don't think anyone of those girls really needs it, but then that's America for you!(I'm from Holland, all the girls are naturally beautiful over here!)
I also thought, like hanuman, that they could be for rhinoplasty studies. Super interesting! Thanks Nick!
I think they are too young to be rhinoplasty candidates, especially 50 years ago, when the surgery was uncommon (especially for cosmetic reasons). If there were medical reasons for the surgery, there would be boys, women and men, too. Something about this collection gives me the heebeegeebees.
It makes no sense to me that they would write on their foreheads in any study. Usually there is something held up. I mean that would have taken some time to come off. Not just a bath. They look like they have the same noses. Maybe one or two are a little different, but there seems to be something to it. It's just very odd what people will do.
Maybe a Charles Manson kind of thing?
I would have to go with initials. KP and BP look like they could almost be sisters, the same with JO and LO.
If it was my guess, I would say it was either some sorority frosh thing (which they look too young for) or it was for a highschool event.
1961 being on they foreheads might signify the graduating year or beginning year.
Or BP could stand for Bi-Polar and LO could stand for Lobotomy.
Hmmm...something about the size and shape and width of the eyes in proportion to the noses...
okay, what about this... renegade girls gang, anyone? the writing on the forehead could be homespun tats (aka gang symbols). i picture these young ladies raising a ruckus at the local malt shop and smoking in the alley. i'll bet they all carried switchblades in their purses too. or not. makes it less creepy to think of it that way though. super creeeeeeeeepy!
No, it's definitely something about the noses. They have a similar shape and the nostrils do not protrude. I saw this immediately. Their faces are also narrow. They either have a medical condition or ethnic identity in common. Do you have a friend who is a doctor who can provide some suggestions? Very, very interesting.
Perhaps, when aligned in the proper order, it spells out a message. The meaning of life or the location of a treasure? That's my guess.
Except for the part where the letters are almost all consonants. Maybe it's like Flickr, where you just assume the vowel.
Ivy league schools used to take photos of incoming students nude - it was based on some now dead theory of the shape of your head indicting intelligence and/or other attributes ... perhaps this is realted?
too bad we cant just look up these girl's names and see if they are still alive and ask them personall? or can we?
They all look nicely dressed and have nice hair... maybe an indication of wealth.
I'd have to say that they all have very shallow set eyes and similar noses in regards to facial topography.
Just throwing this out here...Perhaps either unwed mothers or orphans and these pictures may be used in case someone was trying to identify someone.
All redheads?
Do you know what kind of camera too these shots? Can you tell by the slides? Perhaps one of the slides has a stamp from a development shop.
Personally, I think they're all alien/human hybrids.
Remember, the Government was always doing some sort of secret Research without telling anyone, perhaps, this is such a case?
What part of the country, and were there dates or anything else on the slides?
For decades, women at various colleges were photographed, naked, front, side, and rear, as part of a study. It was only in the last 10 years that all these slides were destroyed.
Aaahh!! These photos are so crazy, they are making my brain delirious. What a lovely puzzle. I hope it is solved, and that you will update Boing Boing if the collective wisdom of your readers generates a good guess.
They all look like boys.
I vote for the nose thing as well.
"Or BP could stand for Bi-Polar"
except the term "bipolar" has only been around the last 10 or 20 years; they would have been called "manic-depressive" at the time.
Some of them look to me like they might have mild fetal acolhol syndrome, the ones with the upturned noses. The characteristics of the ones with widly spaced eyes reminds me of some disorder I've seen pictures of, but I can't put my finger on it (was thinking Down but that doesn't seem to match). If they all had some developmental deficiency, then the medical ethics at the time wouldn't have had a problem drawing on their forheads with marker.
Those girls aren't the most feminine of young girls, are they? I took a poll at my house, and we think they must be photos from a dermatologist's office.. all except the olive-skinned girl seem to have immaculate skin. The olive-skinned girl seems to have some skin-scarring, perhaps from acne? Creepy how they initialed their heads, though.
This intrigues me, but I have seen something like this before. The comments quite well pointed out that all their noses look simmilar, and their eyes also had some simmilar traits. I remember seeing an entire catelogue (1,000+ pics) of people with felt marker letters on their foreheads in the closet of my old biology class. It was dated around the same time and was used to discern genetic traits (eyes, nose, cheek featurs). This may be a piece or even a different collection.
Are these representative of the entire sample?
I don't think the similarity of their noses is necessarily a clue to why they've letters on their heads. More likely they just come from the same area, I went to highschool in a little midwestern german town. Or maybe they're immigrants, treated like cattle and so forth, though that span of dates does little to convince me of that.
None of these girls are blond, though. Are any of the others of any obvious ethnic background? Are any of the letters or numbers not standard american english? Lines through sevens and whatnot?
I'm a rhinoplasty surgeon and I can tell you that all of these noses are vastly different. I can't tell you why they have writing on their foreheads. If these are medical photos, they are very poorly standardized but that is often still the case.
Regarding Hanuman's comment, do a little research on plastic surgery in Brazil and throughout Asia and the US doesn't look too bad by comparison.
these are hella freaky. I mean, the straight on gaze into the camera, and their little collars and youth. They seem kind of trusting and complacent. Scary!!!
A thought came to mind...could they have various levels of retardation and been in an asylum? Some retardation is apparent in the facial features of people while others can look very "normal".
I don't know what the purpose of the writing on the forehead would signify...maybe it was a way to label the girls at group home?
Maybe it's some variation of an Ash Wednesday ritual?
Interesting. I'm guessing it's not cosmetic surgery, though. As has been mentioned, these are young girls -- most of whom were not done growing, a few of whom probably hadn't reached puberty -- from 40+ years ago, and it's not common to write on people's foreheads. I don't know if it ever was, but I kind of dout it.
Plus, none of there noses are drastically big or unpleasant, only a couple have bad skin, and several of them look like they haven't even gone through puberty yet.
I agree with jan, these photos are creepy.
Can we see all the slides? This is very interesting and I think the chances of figuring out what's going on would be greater if all the pictures were available.
They do share some common facial features. Something either genetic or related to embrionary development has to be the reason for the study. I think it is a study. The chances of getting a random sample with so strikingly similar features is nil. They were selected for their facial features or by a shared condition that caused the facial features. It could be a study or some normal trait or ancestry or a study of a disorder. Most congential disorders cause facial alterations. That is one of the reasons why we fixate so much on the face when evaluating "beauty", and "beauty" as related to human reproduction is just an indicator of reproductive fitness, any genetic alteration or developmental problem is going to show up there.
In 1960, a polio vaccination program went into effect in the United States. Schools all over the country began innoculating students. My guess is that some large schools photographed those who were innoculated and used the photos to identify them and track their health or possibly to make sure that students didn't get vaccinated twice, as most schools, including mine, innoculated everyone over a period of months.
In 1960, a polio vaccination program went into effect in the United States. Schools all over the country began innoculating students. My guess is that some large schools photographed those who were innoculated and used the photos to identify them and track their health or possibly to make sure that students didn't get vaccinated twice, as most schools, including mine, innoculated everyone over a period of months.
I took them all into photoshop and adjusted the colors based on their skin tones and it looks like they all have varying shades of red hair (yes, I know the photos are reddish). I wonder if this has anything to do with it or if they are related in some way.
Interesting, nonetheless.
Could it have been some sort of sororoty initiation thing? (although that last young woman looks a little too young for college)
The similarity of the noses is quite striking. It suggests a common ancestry or ethnic group. Considering the time period & all of the insane testing that was done at that time these images could be from any sort of pseudo-medical study.
It would be interesting to see if among the 50 images spread out over that time period there are any images of the subjects after time has passed.
Perhaps these were one-off shots from something like a class picture taking. One shot was taken with initials or names os the photographer could make sure all the other (not "labelled") shots were properly identified.
Just a guess. They could have held up info on a card so I don't know why it would be written on them. But it's a possibility.
They have some facial characteristics that might suggest fetal alcohol syndrome (which also causes skeletal abnormalities and can cause mental retardation).
I rule out the idea that this is some sorority thing because they don't seem to be amused at all. I'd also think that they aren't mental patients because of the way they're dressed and the fact that they all have their hair done.
How about the fafct they all appear to be siblings
red hair near identical triangle region of nose and eyes
you've wandered into an old family scrapbook with childrens initials and possibly birthdates on their foreheads probably in grease pencil
at Berkeley I did genetic studies on a condition that is similar to this and might actually be it. You will notice the arch of the eyebrows and that they all had unibrows that have bene plucked..."Waardenburg syndrome—a genetic disease first identified in the 1950s generally characterized by facial abnormalities. In Waardenburg syndrome, the inner folds of the eyelids or the tear duct may be displaced (type I of the disease), there may be congenital deafness (type II of the disease), and often there's abnormal pigmentation of the iris, the skin, and/or the hair.
Typically, people with the syndrome have one brown eye and one blue, and their hair may gray prematurely or they might have a white forelock. But not all of the gene carriers have these distinctive markings, and the majority of people with two different-colored eyes do not have a medical condition. Sometimes damage to the pigment-containing cells of the eye may be caused by something as simple as an allergic reaction to eyedrops or another eye irritant. "
The shape of the noses (broad and slightly flattened at the top), wide-set eyes, long-ish upper lip and cupid's bow mouth shape of all these girls says William's Syndrome or Noonan's Syndrome to me.
That was my very first thought, actually, when looking at them, as a veteran of many a picnic full of kids affected by those conditions (of which my youngest sister is one)
Why on earth they would write things on their foreheads I have no idea. Very odd, that.
Is it for certain that the writing is on the foreheads and not on the negatives or done during the printing?
But why in the world are they not holding a sign instead of this bizare marking...could the key be there?
You know the experiments where one must guess what's on ones forehead by analyzing others reactions?
I'm not a doctor - just a medical student - but these pictures do not suggest any common medical condition to me. The only condition earlier posts suggest is rhinophyma. However, rhinophyma is more common in older men and results in a significantly enlarged nose. Cosmetic surgery was significantly less common 50 years ago, and I have never encountered medical photos in which patients were identified by "forehead tattoos." I would be more inclined to believe the cult hypothesis, personally.
is it wrong that LO, AR, & KN remind me of boys in drag
ethnic identity and similar facial structures. not following professional convention of holding up relevant information but marking the body. i'm going to throw my hat in the ring and speculate on some exiled nazi (or wannabe) continueing goerbles' work (spelling? bah.) it's so torrid... or it could just be some weird uncle's screwed up family album.
The noses look a little like those seen on kids with fetal alcohol syndrome, especially the bottom one. They would be milder cases of
FAS if so.
to me this could be something from a mental insitution, or a wayward girls home type thing, or some kina of study from a chemicl type thing...who knows...where did you get the slides?you can maybe back track it from there....
I agree--I think it's sure got to be about the noses. And from what I know about this era, it's imho entirely likely that they are the exact age that they would have had their noses done: 17-19 years old, the "coming out" age; Some of the women do look really young, but they could easily be older and just photograph "young"--as in too young for surgery. I think a nosejob of this era(think Marlo Thomas, for example)was seldom postponed past the very early 20s or late teens. Fascinating! And just plain great pictures, too.
Love your site. I'm going to add it to my links if that's okay.
Many of them look very masculine. Like men with longer hair. Maybe their going through some hormone study?
Don't really think it's the noses - they are pretty alike but actually most noses are pretty alike, no matter what their owners think. This is a sample of 8 from a field of more than 50. It could as well be the ears, which all look pretty much the same from what we can see, though those hairstyles could be covering up some unexpected points.
Maybe it's some sinister racial experiment aimed at proving that this or that skin color or hair color of shape of nose, ears, eyes, lips is inmherently superior?
Or else it's some Fifties real nice suburban gang teen's scrapbook of who's with whom, who's attached to whom, (the initals) and who (shown by symbols) has yet to make out / be made out with.
Or they are all sinister aliens from the Planet Tharg, where even as we speak the Effertroi are preparing to launch a surprise attack on Earth by mobilising the secret sleeper grannies that even now are in our midst.
I've got to be honest - these pictures creep me right out. Like Marla, I think there's something funny about their faces' shapes - they seem elongated to me. Are their skulls/foreheads unusually large? That girl third from the bottom (dark hair, white dress) looks much much too young to be involved in rhinoplasty.
Wow! This is interesting! I might be able to help:
I have a very similar kind of nose (very wide at the top, strangely pointing downwards) due to the cartilage being broken at age 10 and growing into two separate bones, side by side. In fact, my nose and I could easily be part of this photo group.
Since the bone(s) are now so wide, the septum (middle part of the nose that divides the nostrils) is pushed to the side. For some people this is fine, I personally have no problems breathing, but some do. I bet these girls have deviated septums and had problems breathing or snoring.
Here is a good shot of my nose for you to compare (I was taking a picture of my hair)
http://www.luthientinuviel.com/mecurlyhairmay19.jpg
The contrast isn't as good, but you see how similar.
It’s weird, though, other people (like my mom) have had plain old deviated septums without the super wide top of nose like me, and these girls, all have. I have never heard of anyone having two bones in their nose like me, but it’s got to happen- when you break your nose as a child without it being fully formed it’s easy to do. I wonder if they were doing a study- how well can they breathe, did it affect their lives in any way? Or were they getting it fixed?
So interesting. I never see people with noses like that. I want to know more!
-Mary
I showed them to a genetic counselor who specializes in recognizing and helping to diagnose genetically-based facial variations, and she said that most of the faces look normal.
Reminds me of passport photos...though I've never heard of writing on the forehead. Maybe it was thought that having a person's initials and a year on the photo would make the document more authentic.
I don't think these women have anything to do with a mental institution nor group home. They're done up too nicely for that.
I didn't notice anything strange about their faces until I started reading the comments, so the similarities we see might just be due to the power of suggestion.
Is there any indication of where these photos were taken? Have you tried googling some of the names? I'm inclined to believe that it's for some sort of experiment, but yeah, the initials on the forhead don't make much sense.
Hmm.....
I think you're all off base about facial abnormalities. The lighting in these photos is what is funny. They're all lit straight on, which is not usually done. It makes contoured things like eye sockets and nose bridges look flat and similar. The lighting is washing out the differences in facial features contours. Look at their expressions. They don't look apprehensive or frightened. Just bored to mildly attentive. Also, they're 'dressed up', with unusually fancy hair and dressy clothes. Whatever they were doing, it was important to their parents that they look their best for it.
They all certainly seem to be not very happy in these pictures. Certainly no one appears to be smiling.
They all look distinctly European to me, specifically German/French. Except KN, which seems to have something a little more easterly going on, and JO which has some Scandinavian.
All I can say is that they could definitely all be boys, and they make me very uncomfortable. There seems to be some sort of comfort, trust, in most of their faces, so it does not seem very sinister, just odd...
The only reason I can think of to write on someones forehead is so that others can see what's there but that person can't. That suggests an experiment of some kind. The somber faces indicate to me it's not a game or other social activity. Also, close up shots of faces are often distorted by non-profesional photographers. Any distortion in facial features could come from the photos being taken by someone who doesn't know how to use the camera.
Whatever is going on here, I don't think it's anything sinister. The girls' appearance just doesn't bear that out. I thought the lettering might be an artifact added after the photo, but on several, it has the same glare as the forehead, indicating that it is on the skin. Notice that none of them are wearing eyeglasses? Glasses were very common 50 years ago, and if you look at any photos of groups of women, probably half will be wearing spectacles. If you wear glasses a lot and take them off, a mark shows on the nose. None of these photos show the slightest indication of that. One group that might have had a low incidence of eyeglass wearers would be athletes. Many competetive ballplayers have exceptional vision. If these are athletes of some sort, that would account for no spectacles.
What about photo identification of some sort. They seem young for drivers' licenses, and they have carried pictures for less than 50 years, but maybe these are negatives used to make up some kind of ID. That would account for having identifying information drawn directly on the face. It makes it impossible to disassociate the face and the initials, if that's what they are.
I'm thinking about this way too much. Someone figure this out soon so I can get some sleep, please!
Writing text on a someone's forehead is an act of power, and a humiliation of sorts. So my theory is that the young ladies may be prisoners of a sort - perhaps from a juvenile correctional facility or maybe even a mental institution (think "Girl Interrupted").
Look at this recent photo from GIs taking prisoners from Iraq and you'll see the same technique:
http://bagnewsnotes.typepad.com/bagnews/2005/05/marked_men.html
I was wondering the same thing about might the markings be on the negative but one of the girls has hair covering her initials (if that's what they are).
As far as the permanence of the markings, they could have easily been done in makeup pencil (like eyeliner) and rubbed off right away.
It has to be something about the Noses ! Or,these girls can be the result of inbreeding or something.
Darn....I was gonna go to sleep but NOW I Can't !!
A post above asked whether the labels are actually on the subject's forehead or were added to the negatives or original slides. If you take a close look at JO and LO, their hair partially covers the label and it's clear that the subjects themselves are labeled.
Two problems with the nosejob theory: where are the *after* photos, and why do all the subjects have fairly similar features? It may be consistant with a plastic surgeon in a small homogenous community whose *after* album was lost, but that doesn't seem particularly likely. Why would someone keep the *before* and *after* images in seperate collections rather than associating them with eachother?
I'd also be qutie interested in seeing more examples.
My personal guess is that these are either subjects in a study of some kind or they are patients in an institution and the photos are meant to allow researchers or staff to identify them later. I can't imagine why they would write on skin rather than hold up a card, but that may be the quirk of some particular photographer.
That they're using something other than names suggests anonymity is important, which makes a study rather than an institution seem more likely. That they're using 2 letter or sometimes 3 letter combinations limits the number of possible participants. If we assume they're initials, that limits the size of the whole group to a few hundred or less before such labels would become impractical.
This might be asking much, but could you publish ALL of the photos? It would likely help solve this odd mystery.
Could you also offer us some more details about these photos:
What was the context of how you acquired these? Where exactly are they from?
Were they found with anything else?
Here's a few (obvious) things to consider based on the examples you've posted:
•They're all women
•They're all white
•They also look somewhat "European," as opposed to "American"
•There is an age range (but the elderly and young children do not appear in these?)
•The letters are both 2 digit and 3 digit
•The numbers are 3 digit and 4 digit
•They look well-kept (clean, groomed, etc.)
•They all appear to be within a certain socio-economic class
I really doubt they're rhinoplasty studies: the women in the posted images don't necessarily need any (any huge or malformed noses?)
This looks like some medical research trial - photo records of subjects. The letters or numbers are to identify the faces/people anonymously (often done in studies - don't use their names), but the complexity of the letters/numbers seems to suggest a coding or typing of them. If we could see all of the photos, perhaps the system could be figured out (for example, something like B = Brown Eyes, or whatever).
Freaky.
Guys, the nose theory is a non-starter. You're just seeing the camera's depth-of-field. End of story on the noses.
My bet is that it's some kind of religious thing...
The photos are clustered
either some pairs/trios are siblings, or they are shots the same person photographed at different times in their life
-Vince
I would guess that these are photos of children and teens with Velo-Cardio-Facial Syndrome. In the 1950s, this disorder was touched on, but was not really pushed with dedicated research until the 70s. A university could have taken these photos during initial studies on a low budget (possibly overseas like Czechoslovakia where some of the original studies can be traced to). All of the children display variations of the facial signs for VCFS, but I am no doctor. During this period, it was common to mark foreheads with eyeliner or other soluble markings opposed to possibly getting the pictures mixed up when marking them after development. This is especially important when the subjects were only available for a short time (i.e. when the researcher was visiting a school).
Dave G., Germany
I think it is interseting to note that the last one is wearing a hat. If it were a study of deformities of the shape of the head or face, then she would probably have removed it for the photo. Besides, none of them looks noticably abnormal. Plastic surgery studies seem unlikely, as does any sort of initiation ritual.
I think it is more likely that they are either unwed mothers, war orphans, refugees or something like that. Whatever it is, something about those photos makes me very uneasy.
"Anonymous said...
Many of them look very masculine. Like men with longer hair. Maybe their going through some hormone study?
10:53 PM"
Seconed!
The markings definitely appear to be on the skin and not just written on the negatives, because hair or the highlight sometimes appears over the top of the letters.
The two basic possibilities that present themselves are that these are either some sort of medical/institutional documentary photos- specifics are harder ot formulate as Rhinoplasty seems to have been disproved. Possibly they were mental patients.
The other possibility is that they were part of some sort of gang- not neccesarily a sorority, but people have all sorts of funny little rituals they do with eachother- the famous one being the "bees up the foreskin" routine practised by some friends of mine as a sort of "alternative 18th birthday celebration".
The fact that they aren't smiling suggests that something serious was going on, at any rate. Very creepy.
I looked up Noonan's Syndrome and there are some similarities to this such as the slant of the eyes (all but two have this). However, one aspect such as short necks don't apply.
Interestingly, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) wasn't recognized in the United States until 1973.
I do believe the photographs are some sort of cataloging of a physical trait...just don't know what.
Mary, I compared your image with the girls and your nose doesn't look like their noses/physical features.
A broken nose is different from being born with congenital similarities as the 60's girls have. They seem to have some sort of disfunction as well.
This is just weird!
I showed them to my fiancé, who is a radiographer and should know a thing or two about ID markings in medicine.
She doesn't think these are anything to do with medicine simply because a) What's wrong with writing the letters on a piece of card and having the subject hold it up and b)the girls are dressed up too much for a medical photograph i.e. hats and well groomed hair. But things may have been different back in the early 60s.
My opinion is that they are ID photos taken during a graduation ceremony. To identify all those he/she was taking pictures of the photographer took one picture with the persons initials on their head so that they could identify them later and make sure the correct person got the correct pictures. They are all fairly well dressed with well groomed hair, it does look a bit like they were attending a special event.
Looks to me like all the photos were taken in some sort of booth as most of the subjects have enlarged pupils.
The weird nose qualities might be due to the camera lens distorting the size/shape of the nose relative to the rest of the face. That's because the nose is closer to the lens than the rest of the face, and the wide angle lens will accentuate that. A rule of thumb when shooting portraits is to use a longer lens. Try looking at yourself in the passenger side side-view mirror of a car to get a sense of the effect.
These girls all look like they've had their noses broken.
if intended as a study (medical or photographic), most likely there would be some type of standardization to the photos - none of these were taken at the same angle, or in the same lighting, or with identical backgrounds. also, why doesn't that last girl have any identifying mark?
Almost all the faces look very masculine to me. My money is on some kind of hormone study....as previously suggested here. I still find it strange that they have decided to write the subjects' initials (presumably) on their foreheads and not on a card...its a little freaky.
Theres something interesting in the combination of thick thick eyebrows, reddish hair, squared jaw, thin lips, low bridge of the nose, and relatively clear skin. I'm thinking that whatever they have in common could be a hormonal issue, hence their being photographed around puberty. Most of the faces look really androgynous, and make me think of a chromosomal disorder of some kind. Maybe with more close inspection, you'll find that more than one of the pictures included are age progressions.
Wild guess, but given the time period, 1959-1969, they could be pictures of Hungarian or East German immigrants, perhaps taken before the trip and after. The initials on the foreheads could be there to serve as identification should anything happen, and they're written directly on the person rather than on a card to minimize the chance of tampering. Perhaps they were taken to facilitate a later meeting between two people who had never met (the picture of the refuge/immigrant was sent to a contact in the US who would then be able to identify the person once they finally met, and so could minimize the risk of capture by the police or other agents.) The later picture would then be taken once they had made it where they were going, and returned to family/contacts abroad to document their safe arrival.
Having one or two of the names on some of the other photos would be helpful to understand where they might be from.
Could it possibly be a genotyping study similar to the tests Germany did before the war? Maybe these girls had a distinct feature that was perceived regressive or superior. Or maybe you found some amatuer artists work that never panned out.
An early version of tagging. Instead of tagging the picture, you tag the person and take thie picture. Brilliant!
it's interesting though, that in two of the picture, the girls hair is covering the mark as if it had been there when they woke up and "did" their hair or whatnot. Seems like if the mark was put there and then photogrpahed immediately, the hair would have not been casually overtop of it. seems to suggest long term marks.
I'm just wondering why these girls look so scary to me. Something about them is not normal. Some of them have quite normal noses and they still look weird.
These photos were taken as part of the first Red Headed Gender Reassigned Teenage Super Soldier experiments of the late 50's and early 60's. The letters are the initials of their code names. These photos are the only lasting documents of their existence, meant to of been destroyed upon their discovery and stored in the surgically extended colon of an unnamed 4 star general.
The soldiers code names are as follows: KP = Kid Pinky, LO = Lady Octane, RR = Red Red (because she is the gingerest), DK = Deep Kill, JO = Justice Oblivion, KN = Krystal Night, BS = Black Silence, BP = Baby Poison, JS = Jade Scorpion
In the case of the few squad members that have numbers under their initials, these refer to the R.H.G.R.T.S.S. guidebook regulations that each soldier had violated at some point in their previous military career.
Violation 1961 = Mishandling Class 9 explosives in a civilian area.
Violation 661 = Garroting a superior officer.
Violation 261 = Fraternising with the enemy.
RE: Why aren't they holding cards?
Maybe they don't have arms or hands!
MS
They are too young to be in college. Have you ever looked at your parents' high schol year books and noticed how much older everyone looks? I would guess that these girls are only fom 12 to 16 years old.
i am still sticking with way ward girls home(just cause they are dressed nice and have their hair done means nothing, it could be a really nice home and you bring your own stuff to wear type thing) or really nice mental instiution like you aren't crazy enough to go to the state run hopsital but enough that your parents can't deal (same as i said before, bring your own stuff)or the beging of drug testing for a mental disorder...or even maybe some kind of study that delt with that ethnic group, showing how they looked then and years later(why is beyond me, but the government spends lots of money on stupid things all the time)....some kinda of where are they now(how have they moved up in life..possible dealing with a difficulty/mental illness)....they could have something going on below what we can see and these where pre-fixing photos of a study of some sort....Maybe they are surviors of some sort, or victims of some sort...they all look joyless....
We need to see more photos!
The girls are far to young for a cosmetic surgery or nosejobs. Don't forget it's the fifties. I go with "name initials writen on the forehead". Why? Cause they're 13 ... ;)
I'm as certain as I can be from just looking at old slides that the last two examples are the same girl. The distinctive small bare patch in her right (as we look at it) eyebrow and the shape of her nostrils persuade me of this particularly.
The last picture has no forehead mark and is a much 'nicer' picture (better lit, more colour), which leads me to suspect we may be looking at before and after pictures for some kind of makeover. I'd love to see all the rest of the pics to see if they could be paired up too.
As a rhinoplasty surgeon, I can say, with certainty, that the last two photos show a Before and an After. That girl has all the stigmata of a rhinoplasty from that era.
THEY LOOK LIKE SORORITY PLEDGES TO ME...
Something to do with a eugenics program in the U.S? That was a pretty sinister set of studies...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics
The other thing that springs to mind is something to do with unwed mothers.
I agree with Omphale--the last two are almost certainly the same person. These are really creepy, though, and I do hope that someone solves this unsettling question soon!
Many seem to have hypertelorism (eyes wide apart). That's a symptom of many syndroms and diseases.
What about inmates from a women's prison? Some of those girls look pretty rough, perhaps these were pictures taken of them when they were admitted to the facility. Seems like the letter might represent their cellblock or something.
They are all male. My guess is this is some sort of gender study.
could these pictures be of girls alongside transgendered boys-as-girls? several of these have distinctive throat shapes which suggest the development of the adam's apple, though not all. and perhaps these could be boys dressed up as girls to see if test subjects (i.e., this comment thread) thought they looked 'normal' or not, whether they were passing adequately as female, together with actual girls as control.
These are indeed rhinoplasty studies. The practice of placing identity marks, in this case initials, was not that uncommon in that era.
In fact I have a number of slides like this myself in my medical collection. Although, usually for facial surgies the subject would just hold a sign.
Interesting what the imagination of some of these readers produce.
Another two cents here. Most of the girls' pupils are dilated. So, either the pics were taken with a flash in a darkened room, or some agent is causing the dilation. There were a number of studies during this period on hallucinogenic compounds - often to evaluate their effectiveness in pharmacological warfare. Just a thought. -Trey
Fetal Alcohol syndrome?
Could they be pics of girls as they enter a reform school? Nunnery? Reform School Nunnery?
Wait, that last one was a movie I saw.
As noted by "Anonymous", they may be suffering from William's Syndrome.
From the WS website,
http://www.williams-syndrome.org/forparents/whatiswilliams.html#1
" Most young children with Williams syndrome are described as having similar facial features. These features which tend to be recognized by only a trained geneticist or birth defects specialist, include a small upturned nose, long philtrum (upper lip length), wide mouth, full lips, small chin, and puffiness around the eyes. Blue and green-eyed children with Williams syndrome can have a prominent "starburst" or white lacy pattern on their iris. Facial features become more apparent with age."
I wouldn't rule out the fact that the person taking these photos might be a pedophile of some sort or maybe had a mental illness. This could be part of his own personal experiment. Perhaps his was obsessed with certain facial features which these women exuded. Maybe the women were compensated for his lttle project. Crazier things have happened!
If it were rhinoplasty-related, wouldn't there likely be at least a few profile shots? At least, here and there? My point being the letters wouldn't help identify a profile. Note also that the "handwriting" in a couple of the posted shots seems clearly different, which makes me think the photographer wasn't doing the writing. At least, not all of it.
The last two picture are definitely the same girl. Could this just be a simple before & after make-over pictures? The rest all being "befores"? Could the "after" pictures
be differant enough to require a way to ID them?
I think these are just marks on a set of picture "PROOFS" that were made available for the subjects to pick from. The initials are probably just an indicator to the set.
These kids are male? WTF? These look like normal young girls- nobody is that much of a looker from age 11-15. I mean, the one with the Peter Pan collar could be as young as 8 or 9. Way too young for a nose job OR a bad girls school.
Besides....wouldn't a nose job study also include a side view? In that case, the initials on the heads would be useless.
Some have more stuff written under the initials. I doubt we'll ever figure anything out, but I'm sure the real answer is far less interesting than what some of you are coming up with...:)
I love BS 261's little person necklace. Super cute!
Hey, you say the last two represent the same woman but, given the age of the photos does anyone else note the weirdness that her eye colour changes before the advent of coloured contact lenses?
shervster and others suggest Waardenburg's syndrome, with the wideset eyes. However they don't have different colour eyes and a white forelock.
The long frenulum in some suggests Fetal Alcohol syndrome
I don't think that FAS was a known syndrome back then, however.
Perhaps someone was doing a survey of "FLK's" (funny looking kids- i.e. children with developmental defects and abnormal facies) to see if there was a common syndrome in them.
The blank stares suggest some might have developmental problems
Ok, this may totally be out of left field, but call me crazy... some of these girls don't look to feminie. You think they may have been born male somehow raised female and they were keeping a secret way of labeling the photos. Ok, maybe that's just stupid, but hey... I thought I'd throw it out.
They look a lot like boys to me. Maybe they are photos from sexual reassignment surgeries? The first case was a Danish on in the '30s if google serves right, so these could be American's first batch after the procedures reached overseas.
Once it is suggested that they are all male it is hard to see them any other way.
It's probably a study of how there are different skull structures around the forhead, because they seem to have different ones.
Other than that, I was a bit creeped out! Sound like a spooky mystery.
And why they're all girls?
Where did you get the photos?
You should trace them back, Nick!
though VERY interesting! :D
omar
I think it has something to do with transgendered people. None of the subjects are particularly feminine.
I agree that their faces look weird, in terms of distance between the eyes, etc. It's quite possible that they are clinical pictures, for patients who has certain syndromes. Since they are all young females, Turner's Syndrome comes to mind.
http://www.turner-syndrome-us.org/
FOR STARGATE SG-1 FANS...
Young Jaffar females in a witness protection program...
;^)
Hmm, what a puzzler. These girls seem too young to be seeking rhinoplasty, let alone back from 60's. I think they're all related, like a family. An experiment? Mabey this blog, itself is an experiment?
okay, i'll abandon my knife wielding, cigarette smoking, bad girl theory to throw in some others. the nose thing is so yesterday and i'm liking the transgender/hormone imbalance theories, so HERMAPHRODITES they are! it's too good and something that parents and doctors would have obsessed about in the 1950's. in the 50's didn't they lop it off and make them all girls? seeing the other photos would help. i don't know...
another theory is that they were all fathered by the same man and branded so he would know who they were and to which wife/girlfriend they belonged to when he flipped through his wallet. sick pervert.
i also like the photographic sitting proof theory, but why aren't they holding cards. why draw on them?
last, but not least, anyone think that KN looks like ben seaver from tv's growing pains? anyone?
for what it is worth: looking closely at the positions of the markings on the backgrounds indicates that photos # 1, 6, 7 & 8 were all taken without moving the camera - so very likely at the same time.
Dammit ...they're all young boys!
Is n't it OBVIOUS???!!!!
Could they all actually BE boys? And this is a frat hazing thing?
Damned if a single one of them actually looks like a girl if yo uake the hair away.
I don't think the nose on the last two pics is different, just at a different angle.
Underage prostitues that got arrested and had to be booked but couldn't be identified outright by the pics?
unwed mothers?
I think the facial theory is closer to the truth...I'm guessing it was a simplified way of catergorizing (in this case) problematic girls. In other words, some would have certain physically obvious features like fetal alcohol syndrome and others would have some sort of genentic problem as well.
Amateur in it's categorizing but still an attempt to understand children who act out or have learning disabilites. Very interesting, actually.
the last 2 are definitely the same girl in different outfits
I vote rhinoplasty. As several other people have mentioned, the pictures were obviously taken in a photo booth (note the dilated pupils) which also explains the slightly bizarre facial expressions. They were sitting in the dark until the flash bulb popped.
This also explains why the initials are written on the forehead, instead of being held up on a card. The pictures were taken with a flash, and a flash will bounce off white paper, rendering it unreadable. I'm sure they were written in grease pencil or something, so they'd wipe right off after the picture was taken.
Has anyone noticed that there appear to be two different backgrounds that used? See, for example, the last two photos (presumably a before and after).
A clue, perhaps...
I was struck by the lack of earrings. Weren't earrings prevalent for young women during this period? Could this indicate a school or institution that prohibited them?
Also, I downloaded and installed Verilook SDK from http://www.gold-software.com/download4061.html which features a face matching algorithm. It did indeed identify faces F9 and F10 as the same person with similarity rating of .780669 (whatever that means). You might find it helpful to enter all your faces into this program.
2, 3 and 6- at least- really do look incredibly masculine. essentially all sexually ambigous infants given gender reassignment surgeries around the time these young adults would have been born were automatically assigned female identities. curious, curious.
Strange!
Is it possible to see the photographer (room) in the pupil?
Can you post more scans please?
The really odd thing is to me, that the markings are very different. An other oddity is that JOs (IO?) marking is bad to read. Who would accept this insecurity for a study?
Another oddity are the numbers under the two letters. In one case (AR) it seems to be the year, in another case (DK) it could be the month and year or a number consecutively.
For my opinion the girls look normal, a little bit bored.
But why are the pictures so different?
If I would take pictures to track something, I would be interested in taking the same pictures for later comparison. They are made by a dilletant. (AR / AN i.e.) Second why are used different background colors? (Red, Brown)
And why is the woman in the last picture wearing a hat but has no marking?
P0lylux
We don't have all the pictures so here are the facts that I can see from the pictures we do have.
As Tim said...
* There are no men or boys
* There are no Africans or Asians
* There are no little children or women
* They have a either combination of two or three letters and with and without numbers which are either three or 4 digits written on their foreheads
* None of them seem to be extremely poor or wealthy but in the same socio-economic range. They are dressed like girls in the middle 20th century, from a developed country and aren't wearing any obviously ethnic clothing or jewelry.
Here are a few other facts...
* The pictures are not from printed photographs, they are slides
* None of the letter/number combinations are the same
* All the pictures show the head, most also show shoulders
* They are all standing in front of a brownish looking sheet or drop cloth (which could just be because of bad color in the slide)
* There are no measurement markers in the pictures (for height or length or something) and there are no other marks drawn on the girls' faces other than the letters and numbers
* None of the girls seem to be showing much emotion (fear or anger or something)
* All the pictures show the same view; there are no profile or three quarter views
Can you tell us what country were these slides taken in and which part of that country? If they were taken in the USA and it could make a difference if they were taken in the Deep South compared to say California or New England.
The photographer could have put some sort of movable type sign in front of the girls like they do in a mug shot or had the girls hold up small chalkboard or at least a piece of paper with the letters written on it so the girls wouldn't have to spend a day or two with letters written in ink on their foreheads. Doesn't that mean this was an unplanned project? (Although the photographer did think ahead enough to put a drop cloth behind them.) If they were from an institution (correctional, mental, girls’ school, orphanage, unwed mothers putting their babies up for adoption) wouldn't there be a placard? If the photographer used slides instead of photographs didn't s/he intend to show them to an audience and if so who would be in that audience? Since these girls all look under 18 wouldn't the girl's parents have to given their permission or been involved in some way? Why aren't the girls names used, to protect their privacy and if so then why did it need protecting? If these were really nose job pictures then why aren't there any profiles and before/after pictures? Do these girls look like their families could afford plastic surgery? Why aren't there any men, boys, women, young children, Africans, Asians or people of other races in these pictures?
Im almost certain that these are males. Look specifically at LO , PR and KN. Look back over old year books from school and im sure you'll spot an old mate that looks exactly like one of them.
To me, the hair looks fake. It appears to be resting on the scalp as apposed to be actually growing out from it.
Previous posters have mentioned the numbering as a form of humiliation of sorts, if these people were actually males which wanted to be females then im sure there would be alot of opposition to the idea and humiliation of the people involved.
The last 2 photo's are taken 7 years apart, the first is dated 2/60 and the second 2/67. Before is the already feminine male and after is the transformation to female. Im guessing the rest of the photo's are taken before the hormone treatments and surgeries are performed.
There is something about this that just sends shivers down my spine...
I've been reading everyone's comments and am very intrigued by this! I've given it some thought, and maybe they are orphans. They were told to "look their best" for the pictures...it would also explain the somber looks on their faces, and the differences in ages (KN looks a lot older than most of the girls).
They do look manly, and yes, their noses are odd, but I agree with the person who said the real answer is probably way less interesting than what we're all coming up with.
The bottom two seem to *confirm* the rhinoplasty theory, not blow it out of the water. That is, they're both pictures of the same person, but her nose has a different shape in each photo. The second nose is an obvious nose-job nose.
IMHO she looked better before.
Nick
You say the pictures date from 1961 to 1969? How do you know?
Definitely before and after in the final two and it looks like a few years too.
There does seem to be some evidence of rhinoplasty in the final two, so the others are all before?
No hint of an adam's apple on a single one of 'em, so they're not boys. Definitely some unusual faces, but I tend to agree with the poster who said that the flatness of the noses comes mostly from the lighting.
just a observation all girls ? But no ear rings & no visible holes ?
If the last 2 pictures are pictures of one person then I asume the last one is taken a few years later. Then she would know the photo-situation; notice, she doesn´t look IN the camera anymore.
Another puzzle-piece I'm interested in: Do you think the handwritten letters are taken by one person or could they be written by varying persons?
Conspiracy theories abound, but I think this has to be simpler.
Nobody seems to have noticed that the colours of the backgrounds are matched to the predominant colours of the girls' hair, faces, clothes. There is a definite intent behind the colour choice of the backgrounds.
The girls are well dressed, some have jewellery, they are well groomed and their hair seems to have been prepared.
Now suppose this was all done by a photographer in charge of the annual school pictures. Instead of 50 gazillion white cards, he marks their foreheads with a make up crayon (note the earthy natural tone of the colour of the lettering).
He now has some reference as to who is who on his list of kids and so he can match them up later in the studio. I also agree with a previous poster who noticed the dilated pupils, a sign that this was a studio, and perhaps involved waiting on the sidelines in the dim light for one's turn.
As for the apparently morose countenances... come on... they're not morose, just not bursting forth with laughter. Most of them actually seem in a fairly good mood, with a hint of a smile or smirk. Do you remember yourself smiling away at a school photo shoot? Especially in those days, it was important to convey a professional adult look.
If the photos were for a research project, wouldnt there just be a wall behind their heads instead of a colored sheet (like in portrait photos)?
Largely, I find the comments to be creepier than the photos. Only one picture, to my mind has a distinctly masculine cast (one girl has a very square jaw). That so many of the viewers are suggesting that these girls are intersexed or male or mentally handicapped in some fashion, simply because they don't meet the modern-American, non-ethnic, small-featured standard of beauty is fascinating to me, as is the fact that I can only interpret this as some of us needing to defend ourselves against the idea of these girls who may not even exist anymore. Some of these girls are beautiful, some average, some less than to my eye. I think part of the severity of the clearly emotional response to these pictures is the drawn quality to the faces. Even the girls with broad faces have these long noses and downturned eyes and it provokes a sense of sorrow in photos that were probably not designed to have emotional content. But then again, I'm a girl with a long nose and downturned eyes, so maybe my own need is to identify with them as opposed to ward them off.
I'm a doctor and my feeling is that these are medical photos. It's odd that the letters are on their foreheads, but I could see some Doc in the 60's doing that rather than wasting time buying cards. These aren't rhinoplasty photos since the girls are too young (and the procedure wasn't as widespread as it is now). I think these girls are all syndromic. It will be VERY hard to determine the syndrome just from the photos, but my bet would be fetal alcohol syndrome.
Key features include: Widened interpalpebral distance (distance between eyes), flat nasal bridge, elongated face shape, etc.
Anyways, either way these are super creepy!
As interesting as the pictures are, it's the comments that reveal the myriad pathologies of our modren world. Obviously, they are from the Rorschach family album.
I definitely think the last two pictures are of the same girl. Why no forehead mark on the last picture? I think, because it's an after shot. Look at the eyes, eyebrows and chin. The lower lip is a little thinner, but maybe she had some kind of labial reduction or maybe she's just older. I trust the guy claiming to be Grant Hamilton MD.
many times, children, with broaden bridge of the nose, have allergies... could these have been indicators of skin test sites(testing various configurations), thus need, for long term mark while waiting for results or codes for special allergns...\
minor mystery can't wait to find out
also there is something familier about a couple of the girls,like from news articles etc.
Theories that don't wash:
Prison/reform school/mental institution - because they are dressed too well and have thier hair made up. Also they don't look scared.
Nosejob - First, nothing really looks wrong with the noses, second, they are too young, third, no profile and writing on the front of the head. Also I don't see any difference between the noses on the two pics of the last girl who we think are the same one taken at different times.
Theories that don't convince me:
Common genetic disorder causing similarities especially a similar nose shape - Because they look rather normal to me. I think also that a lot of people are used to a lot more ethnic diversity than it would be common to find fifty years ago in many parts of the US. Though I don't rule out these people being from Europe.
I think they mostly look like they could be of Irish or Scottish descent. I think they were probably middle to upper-middle class American girls.
Everyone says of the writing on their faces that it would be less convenient than names on cards held up. This is especially true if there were any plan to have profile photos as well. I'm surprised there are not.
I conclude that the writing is not there primarily to be photographed, but to keep track of them while they undergo a battery of tests during a day.
Since it has been mentioned that if the letters are initials it would seriously limit the number of participants in a study, I prefer to suspect that they are labeled according to categories they were placed in.
I note that the lens used is distorting to the faces, as has been mentioned, it is obviously a wide-angle not recommended for portraits. Their faces are also made to look flat and the edges of their features have high-contrast due to an on-camera flash. This leads to the conclusion that this was a very poor photographer who thought that pointing and shooting was all that was needed for a good visual record.
While none of the girls look very attractive, I don't think they are actually boys. I don't think that the adams apple would show at that age. Any cues would have to be in the face, and they would be subtle. But I don't consider myself a good enough judge of feminine faces to totally rule out sex reassignment, hermaphroditism or hormone studies. I just don't thik it is very likely.
Most of the theories put forth are if not silly, hanging on only very poor evidence that the commenters have difficulty actually pointing out to others. We don't know enough to deduce the origin of these photos and our imaginations are running wild.
The images that I see posted reflect the girls at 2 stages in their lives. The first being around 12 or 13 and the others around 17 or so. The facial characteristics appear similar to some, because they are of the same several girls. The first in the series matches the darker haired girl toward the bottom of the column. Take a closer look at each photo. As for why they have marks on their foreheads? Could have been some kind of high schooler's report on how traits stay the same or change? It would explain the marks as opposed to cards held up. Just my observations.
If I may offer a somewhat dull hypothesis:
The girls are part of a larger group that are having a group photo taken.
To aide the creation of the group photo's caption, the photographer also took individual photos of each of the girls.
The initials identify each girl. Why are they on the face, and not on a card? Because there were many girls, maybe 50 or 100; with a big long line of girls lining up to have their photos taken, they could easily have passed an eyeliner marker back along the line, writing initials on each other's heads. Very quick and efficient, and temporary.
Why do they look so weid? Because the photographer is using the wrong lens.
Faces look bad when photos are taken close-up with a wide-angle lens. Ears shrink, noses expand, yes separate: example
But these photos aren only being used to create the other photo's caption, so it doesn't matter. This also explains why the girls aren't smiling. No one was going to see these pictures, only the photographer.
Why is the photographer using a wide-angle lens because that's the one he would (correctly) use for the group shot. Such a lens would not distort faces when used from a large distance, and would be a good choice, to fit everyone into the picture.
Note that the wide-angle distortion is also visible in the last photo: because the subject is off-centre, their nose appears big and bent around the centre-point of the frame.
Those were different times. Lots of organizations were still collecting information regularly. A decade earlier, for example, it wasn't unusual for teachers to take photos of their students at their own expense ... some parents couldn't afford them.
I'm wondering if this isn't a subset of a larger collection, chosen for some completely separate reason.
The letters on the forehead might be weird, or just something that happened without much forethought.
Here's my theory: these are head shots from a modeling or talent agency. The agency would would distribute these pics to potential clients. Referring to the models with numbers instead of names keeps the clients from contacting the models directly and bypassing the agency. Writing directly on the faces keeps the clients from using the photos without permission.
So why don't these people, uh, look like models? Well, maybe its the kind of agency that makes money by charging $50 to be in their book. Good looks are not important; only having $50 is important. Or maybe the reason these photos are available is because they weren't the top choices.
I agree that they all look very masculine. Back in those days gender was reassigned for kids born with "ambiguous genitalia". The markings are inconsistent but could signify geographic origin and or treating physician or hospital.
After reading all the comments and then looking at the series again, I can't see these people as girls at all anymore. I'd have to guess that it was some sort of medical/psychological study done on hermaphrodites, specifically xy chromosomed nurtured as xx...
There are medical terms for the above, but I'm too lazy to look them up.
In the 1950's and '60's, not every school yearbook photographer could afford equipment to print names of their subjects on the negative, and in the interest of saving time would disdain to write out a mugshot board for the proof sets. (Cranking out up to 1200 headshots in a single session would be somewhat taxing without adding chalk, no?) Rather than trying to keep up with what frame on which roll "Karen Peterson" or "Leslie Oswurtz" were, a photographer would take two frames: the first being the shot for the record books followed immediately by a shot with some marker to identify the subject. Keeping track of who is who then became a matter of matching initials and or numbers from a student roster... even if the consecutive frames were separated in processing, the face could be matched to a name by finding its twin.
Except for the markings, they look like fairly ordinary school ID photos, perhaps from a private girls' school. (Why aren't they holding cards? Maybe the school wanted tight, face-only shots for their files? Just speculating.) But why make slides rather than prints? That would indicate that these photos were made for some kind of group showing. Are there no markings on the slide frames or the box (if any) that the slides came in?
The woman identified as "AR" is clearly comedian Bill Maher.
They are immigrants, war orphans or some other people who will be transported, almost like cattle through a number of booths/stations before finally reaching their destinations. They have the writing so they can be identified quickly in a line.
I spoke to a yearbook photographer who's been in the business since the 1970s and he said his earliest recollections had a police-style card the students held with a number, that was visible on the proofs, but was cropped in the final photos the students bought. I can see such a card in my elementary school group photos.
I don't think there's anything odd about the way the girls look, but it's really hard to tell without an experimental control (which we don't have).
I just think the symbols on the forehead are odd. What sort of medical operation would do that (as opposed to holding up cards or something). Do you think they might be the persons initials?
my hypothesis is that they all have androgen insensitivity syndrome. that is, they are chromosomally male, but their body is insensitive to the hormone androgen which creates male characteristics. thus from the outside, they seem to have vaginas and are usually (especially in the 60s) raised as girls. the lack of androgen results in female characteristics like breasts, but they tend to have very androgenous faces.
jamie lee curtis is a well known example of someone with this syndrome. don't these "girls" have a similar look? some of them are pretty, but in a very androgenous, jamie lee curtis way (especially the last two and the one who is looking slightly up and dreamy)
Okay, here's my attempt:
They're not unusual looking, just not made-up, and photographed in a flat light.
They're all young girls, so it's related to school.
They're all well fed and well presented, so they're not refugees or orphans.
They have 'open' faces, so they're not criminals or wayward women.
Any similarities in their faces could be due to them coming from a small town in a settled part of the world, such as Eastern US, or Europe.
Despite the brutal approach implied by the writing of their initials on their foreheads, they're relaxed, so they're in an unthreatening situation.
The photos are clearly focused on the faces only, but they're slides, not prints, so they're not intended for convenient lookup eg for identification purposes.
So, I reckon they were taken by their schoolteacher who had an interest in facial characteristics and their relation to intelligence. They were intended to support his revolutionary new theory, which never got published due to his untimely death.
His widow threw them out because of her distaste for his hobby of taking photos of young girls.
Anyone who finds them is now cursed to spend the rest of their days writing Python scripts to overlay the photos to try to re-create the teacher's theories.
Do I win the prize?
When I was very young, my family lived in Nevada while my father was in the Air Force. I believe it was that time (we moved around a lot back then) that we briefly had a housekeeper named Margery who had letters like these tattooed on her forehead. This was maybe 1973 or 1974. I remember being told sternly by my father and mother not to stare at the tattoo or ask her about it.
I do remember that she seemed very slow and docile and could have been autistic or sedated, as she would sometimes stop in the middle of whatever she was doing and stare blankly into space.
She wasn't a very good housekeeper and was probably more work to have around than not.
She was sent away after an incident where she repeatedly slapped my brother who called her "Margarine" either by mistake or mischief.
I asked my mother about her some years ago and she said something about her being "from the base" but that she "didn't want to talk about it."
I'd guess now that Margery was about 19 or 20.
Can you show us please the others who have press type with their names on it affixed to either their temples or foreheads as you wrote?
P0lylux
A suggestion:
You might consider sending the photos to the "History Detectives." It is a PBS show that figures out historical mysteries.
Web Site: http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/
Most rhinoplasty photos that I have seen include a side view, so I would consider that to be an unlikely origin.
Can we see some of the others? In particular the ones who have "press type with their names on it affixed to either their temples or foreheads"? Maybe research on their names will reveal something. I think they're probably part of a school class. None of them look strange to me, nor do they seem at all distressed. The final two photos disprove the idea that the letters on their foreheads are tatooed on.
based off of Anonymous (3:56am) who's father was in the Air Force...
my guess would be they are prototype circa 1960's cyborg clones! they weren't as clever as the ones they have today.
Can anyone identify the pendant worn by the subject in the 7th photograph? BS on the forehead.
Those young ladies wrote the letters on their own foreheads and were most likely taking part in a study of internal and external perspective that were all the rage in the 60s.
She is wearing a dance pendant. Girls would make them out of beads and give them to each other like friendship rings. Usually exchange with your dance class partner if you were good friends. I know this because my sister had oen
Are we sure BS has 261 on her forehead?
Strange 2. The number looks much more like an upside down 192 to me.
For that matter, all the other numbers can be rotated 180 deg....
(cue Twilight Zone intro...)
The backdrop seems to be some kind of material, where subtle ripples are apparent in a few of the shots.
Also, lighting against the backdrop suggests some kind of staged/studio setting. Notice the subtle color-coordination between the subject and the backdrop?
The markup being visibly on the person's face suggests to me that they are not ID photos meant for public consumption.
Lack of a smile indicates these are not pleasureable for the subjects, but not necessarily that they are unpleasant, rather neutral.
Their ages are all young, I'm guessing barely adults.
Lack of obvious disfiguration could suggest an emotional/mental condition being tracked; references right on the subject, immortalized in the photograph, seems like it would be more for the convenience of the present/future observers of the photos than for the benefit of the subjects themselves.
There do seem to be simple similarities among the subjects such as wide eyes, perhaps disproportionate noses (someone suggested a tweezed unibrow but I don't see it myself).
I think volunteer research is the most likely answer though I agree with many here who've said it feels creepy.
How many slides are there all total like this? Oh never mind... I'll just go count and see how many are missing ...
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... just kidding!!! LOL! :-)
I am so intrigued by this. I keep coming back to read the newest comments. I have been totally captivated by these photos. I would love to see them all, as well. So very interesting.
The hugely dialated pupils and the timeframe of the pictures makes me wonder if these aren't girls who have undergone frontal lobotomies. Dr. Walter Jackson Freeman II performed them routinely up until 1967. Perhaps he had imitators?
For a fascinating story see:
http://www.soundportraits.org/on-air/my_lobotomy/
I used to drive around to yard sales in Maryland and buy up any cameras that still had film in them to see what forgotten pictures I could develop. But I never found anything nearly as cool/creepy as this.
I do hope someone solves this. Not only is it driving me crazy but the fact that I keep checking this for updates is starting to really freak out my girlfriend.
It would be great if more of the set were posted.
All of you who think these are male or transgendered youths are barking up the wrong tree. I assume most of you are under 30, so you are probably unfamiliar with what you are seeing here. As an old-timer, take it from me: this is what teenage girls look like without make-up.
A gender experiment maybe? raising some people as opposite genders and marking them to mark their progress.
all of them look male in some way, but in a few of them it's more boyish, like dressing up a baby-faced kid in girls clothes.
most apparent in LO, RR and KN is the awkwardness between looks of faces and the grooming of hair, as if they were taught what was to do with it and didn't do it by example as young girls would.
maybe some girls were put into the mix as a control? and they were labeled with their group number, like how they were raised, or something simmilar?
didn't thing like that happen a lot in the 60s?
the idea that yes, writing on someone's head is indeed a demeaning act, and no one here is really smiling, and they look frightened creeps me out in the worst way, like someone's SECRET gender experiment records?
It's possible they are late-game physiognomical references. I could imagine a scenario where a specific sociographic could selectively studied against other groups.
Let's take, for example, the hiring of a typing pool. Now at the time these pictures were taken, the typing pool candidates would be women of a certain age group within a certain geographic area or township. The person who ultimately does the hiring may just let someone else do the interviews but would like to see the women -- in which case they should certainly feel free to smile. The straight-on lighting and relaxed passport-photo pose could be indicative of wanting to study proportions though, which leads me to the psuedosceince of physiogmony. That is: the belief that you can determine a person's character by their physical features. If you were documenting deatures for reference certainly you'd want to keep smiling to a minimum, keep makeup off so as to not create the impression of false shadows, etc. The ladies certainly don't look upset to be there. Many of them have quiet smiles.
Keep in mind that while physiogmony and phrenology were largely discounted by science a bit after the turn of the 20th century, it is possible that the hirer could have learned it in school as a science (hell, people still teach that the primary colours are red, yellow and blue!). While the photos were taken in the 60s, then, the person who was doing the hiring could very well be using methods learned 30 years previously. And believe it or not, there's STILL kooks who believe physiognomy has merit...
At any rate, that's my guess.
If I were betting, I'd say the girl's pendant (BS, #7) is an anthropomorphic form of some type, maybe a ballerina or ice skater. It looks like it's flairing out into a skirt at the edge of the image.
My theory - the pictures were taken for identification in the long term. The letters were for identification in the short term. I'm guessing it's somehow school related, maybe taking a series of exams where the proctors want to confirm your identity as you enter but after that just need to make sure that Betty isn't taking the history test twice while Sally does the math test twice. This doesn't explain that last one, though.
My wife wonders if they weren't the bad examples for a photography class. But the problems seem to be the same problems over and over.
You know after reading all these comments - someone else needs to say it.
These are normal looking young women in the 1960's. Remember: back then young upright godfearing girls didn't wear makeup. OnlY whores and movie stars wore makeup. Our modern sense of beauty is so screwed anymore. These are what real people look/ed like. Ther hair is in unnatractive styled for our modern eye, the faded color and bad light aren't doing anyone any favors either.
if could be as simple explaination for them arkings, but nothing says this is marker either, you can do that with charcoal pencil and it would wash off with a soapy finger. Charcoal pencils are art class 101.
I think one detail that many folks are missing is that these are not photographs - they're slides. Their intended purpose was for projecting on a screen perhaps for a crowd.
Also, the lack of profile shots and measuring (via rulers, etc.) tells me that the photographer wasn't so concerned about the size and location of facial features. Indeed, the use of an incorrect lens means that this probably wasn't any sort of scientific investigation at all.
Maybe it's a pervert's private stash? The guy could have had some job that put him around girls (school teacher, gym coach, etc.) and he happened to have a kink for the androgynous looks. Writing on their foreheads was a way to get close to them without causing alarm and the writing itself could be explained away in the same manner as the photos themselves (school project, amateur research, etc.)
is there an eye loking at you...the fourth photo down...to her right
its probably not a cult because of the cross on the girls neck, and none of them are wearing earrings. they all look healthy and decently happy. just something i thought.
I don't think any of these young ladies look terribly masculine. They do appear to perhaps be attendees at perhaps an all girls school or church school. The one in the middle appears too old to be one of the students. But, yes, hairstyles rarely looked like today. No curling irons, only puffy pink curlers that you slept on. Make-up at that time was forbidden at the age range of these girls...interesting comparison to the black-lined lips, eyes, etc., that I sometimes see today.
Hmm, My guess, and someone might have posted this already, is that the initials are a way of identifying the participants in a study without having to have an extra bit of paper for each person. You could have the person and the name all together nice and neat in just one phot. Still doesn't explain what on earth it's for though....
It is preposterous to call these girls "normal." Although a couple of the subjects might fall into the range we accept to be "normal," the features of most of these young girls is very distinctive. The nose structure especially, as well as eye placement is very abnormal. I disagree that the effect is merely a lack of makeup, as even today girls this age do not all wear makeup, (and on average DO NOT have the facial structure of these girls) and the hair styles pictured here are not what sets these girls apart.
I think that markings like these, on the forehead, would make sense if they were to undergo some kind of surgery (cosmetic/neuro?) where photographs would be taken during operation.
I am sure there is some specialist out there who could look at these photos and in an instant give a diagnosis for what genetic disorder/whatever is going on here.
MAY WE PLEASE SEE SOME MORE PICTURES???
UPDATE: There are more photos posted June, 13, 2006.
Interesting puzzle. Here's my two cents. . .
I think these pictures were probably either taken by an orthodontist or some type of dental school. Facial structure and it's growth as children age into adults is a huge factor in the practice of orthodontics. I believe a certain diagnosis and treatment by an orthodontist, depending on the condition, takes into account facial shape, structure, and future growth. The people in the pics might either be orthodontic patients or just part of some type of study.
The fact that they are slides could mean that they can be projected onto a screen/wall with a measurment grid overlay to help a doctor study the patient's facial measurements. Also to note, the fact that the girls all seem to have similar characteristics in their nose/face relation also leads me to beleive that they were part of some type of study or treatment research.
As for why they are all girls, who knows? Maybe there are pictures of males out there somewhere.
The markings on their heads could be some sort of medial terminology-like UL= upper lip or LL= lower lip.
Just my thought. Any orthodontists in the house?
personally i think it may have something to do with the eugenics movement. i know that it dwindled in the 50s, but it was still practiced some places until the 70s.
swapatorium said...
UPDATE: There are more photos posted June, 13, 2006.
10:12 AM
Uh.... Where?
Picking up on comment from mr goodbar - "they are slides" - not photographs - and meant for public viewing. Anyone remember the movie "Animal House" where slides of pledges were projected up for election to the frat? The writers of Animal House were all Harvard grads from 1960s. They must have got the idea from somehere.
Could these slides be young ladies pledging for a sorority? Although some appear too young, the subjects could be freshman college age. Maybe a prep school? It would not be hard to get pledges to allow their initials to be written on their foreheads.
Looking at the similarity in writing style "B", "J" and "K" in multiple shots leads me to believe the same person wrote the initials on the foreheads.
This also explains the 7-years-later slide of "JS" - looks like a photo of a nice up-standing graduate sorority sister - without initials.
Someone noted the pendent worn by "BS" is a sort of friendship gift. Exactly the kind of thing freshman sorority pledges might exchange.
Sorority girls wouldn't be the best photographers - which explains the use of the wide-angle lens and inconsistent framing.
Uh, where...just type in www.swapatorium.com and it will take you to the current post or you can get there via the archives.
The letters are initials. The numbers are coded dates. The game is to brand yourself with a future husbands initials and the concentrate until you win him.
I think whoever said slides to project for viewing by a crowd hit it. In this instance the crowd is probably medical students. This is some kind of case study.
Obviously, they are from the collection of a plastic surgeon who specializes in removing tatoos from foreheads.......
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