Pepper and Denisyuk – Side by Side

The Pepper’s Ghost optical illusion, used in amusement parks, theatres, movies, museums, and other venues, is produced by reflecting light off a semi-transparent surface and is often wrongly described as being holographic. A research group from Seoul, South Korea is now redressing that mistake by using Denisyuk holography, alongside a Pepper’s ghost, to create an even more bewildering optical illusion.

Pepper’s ghost is a Victorian optical technique popularised for theatrical purposes by John Henry Pepper in 1862 ¹. In the illusion, a real object or a recorded image is reflected off a semi-transparent screen at (typically) a 45° angle. Viewers see a reflected virtual image that has depth, appears to come out of nowhere, and can be blended with real elements that sit either in front of or behind the screen.