What has been described by The Sun newspaper as 'the ghost of a small child darting across a busy shopping centre' has set social network website YouTube alight.

The shadowy spirit glides in between oblivious shoppers in the eerily clear video, The Sun reported.

A possible floating phantom figure appears in the bottom right of the screen after a male shopper exits a room to the top left, described news.com.au.

According to news.com.au, the 36-second tape was taken in a shopping mall in Chile, South America, and surfaced on the internet on Friday.

Chilean media claim that the phenomenon is the ghost of a small local boy.

See the video at YouTube.