1:34pm UK, Saturday December 20, 2003

This ghostly image was caught on CCTV at historic Hampton Court Palace, a home of King Henry VIII, and long reported to be haunted.

The 16th Century palace in south-west London is well known for alleged supernatural activity, but nothing suspicious has been caught on film before.

Ghost caught on camera

However, in October this year, this curious image was caught on the palace's CCTV footage.

On several occasions security guards were alerted to an open fire door in an exhibition area of the palace.

After securing the door each time, they returned to their office to view the CCTV footage to see who had opened them.

On the first occasion the footage showed the doors flying wide open, but no evidence of why they had.

On the second, the guards were stunned when a ghostly figure in period dress suddenly appeared on the screen and closed the doors.

The same thing happened on a third day, but again no figure appeared.

Stranger still was that a visitor had noted in the palace's visitor book that she thought she had seen a ghost in that area.