The Technological Possibilities of Ghosts

Have you ever wondered if ghosts are just imagery, in the same sense that you see film cells when the projector starts skipping or is slowed down, or the way the monitor flickers when it's going out?

This is not an original thought; I'd actually been thinking about something similar (because I was having monitor issues) when I saw a meme in a ghost-hunting group positing much the same question, and I returned to the idea of veridical imagery -- the concept that some things are somehow "recorded" in time, and set to playback on certain anniversaries, whenever triggered by events, emotions, memories, or something else in this reality (or at random).

It may suggest multiple realities or dimensions but, if true, we could be reflections of veridical imagery ourselves -- even as we're alive!  Perhaps something that happened in our past lives was emotional or spiritual enough in nature to have made it off the cutting-room floor and is playing in perpetuity even as we discuss it?

This could explain all manner of things, from Green Children to The Lost City of Alaska, and could be electromagnetic in nature (but it certainly doesn't have to be).  There have been, and will continue to be, things that simply escape our knowledge and ability to comprehend.  This could be one of those things -- but, with the advancement of technology clipping along at such a pace, knowing more about these things might be just around the corner.

© The Weirding, 2014-2015

North Carolina 'Ghost Train' Investigator Killed by Train

Flitting Ghosts

According to legend, every year on August 27^th, anyone near the Bostian Bridge by Statesville, North Carolina, will hear the screaming wheels and passengers of a phantom train that crashed nearly 120 years ago, killing nearly 30.  Eyewitnesses say the visage of a uniformed man with a gold fob sometimes presages the event.

And so it was that, on the 119^th anniversary of the vicious, 1891 disaster, several, self-styled ghost hunters from around the country gathered to witness the "ghost train."  Unfortunately, as they were investigating the bridge, a real train was headed their way.

Of the dozen investigators, 10 of them made it safely off the bridge; one plummeted to the water below and was injured, and the other was struck by the train and killed.  29-year-old Christopher Kaiser pushed the other investigator, whose condition remains unknown, to safety before he was hit by the train.  The train was traveling at the proper speed, and the engineer blew the horn and tried to brake, but there was little he could do.

Over the years, reports of railroad crossing arms dropping without cause have occasionally surfaced, but only one person claims to have experienced the phantasmagorical event.  This was in 1991, on the 50^th anniversary of the wreck.

© C Harris Lynn, 2010

Victorian Ghost Responsible for Wrecks?

Is the ghost of a Victorian girl haunting Oldnall Road in the West Highlands?

Numerous traffic accidents have occurred along the dark road and many of the motorists claim they swerved to avoid a girl of around 3-years of age in Victorian dress. Investigators remain baffled.

While they suggest there may be some kind of logical explanation, they have yet to find it. Now, paranormal researchers are investigating local history to find some connection to the apparition, real or imagined.

Locals say the accidents have largely been minor, but there have been a few serious wrecks. Altogether, the sheer number of accidents, along with reported sightings of the girl, lead many to believe there may be a connection.

© C Harris Lynn, 2008

Ghastly Classifications.

There is no real ongoing series for accounts of ghosts, hauntings, phantasms, and spectres in all their many forms. Ghosts run the gamut of simple apparitions to full-bodied phantasms, to poltergeists, to the unseen haunting.

Many ghastly manifestations seem centered around a specific structure, room, area, person(s), or time of day. There are two major divisions of spiritual manifestations: those that are attached to a specific place or area and those that are connected with an individual or collective, such as a family. Amongst these, there are generally three types of phantasms:

1. The unseen spirit who makes its presence known by manipulating real, corporeal objects. These are often called "spirits" or "ghosts," and they are usually innocuous. They often appear in one form or another, sometimes as solid beings and sometimes as phantasmal, transparent visions. Rarely, they interact with viewers, typically children. They often show up on film and cause little or no harm. They may, but rarely, speak in voices.
   
2. The second type is the Poltergeist, based on the Germanic word, noisy ghost, which frequently moves items around - often violently - slams doors, and even physically touch and sometimes attack people. They may speak in voices, whispers, or even yells or screams. Sometimes, they have been known to hurl items, break them, or worse. In extreme cases, they rearrange entire rooms, stacking furniture and other items in impossible and bizarre formations.
   
3. The third most common type (thankfully very rare) is the Daemonic entity. Daemonic entities are by far the most dangerous and have been known to appear in full-form that is sometimes impossible to differentiate between the solid and phantasmagoric. They are infamous for truly terrible activities, such as nightly shrieks, violent attacks on living beings - such as slaps, punches, scratches, even producing solid materials from absolutely nowhere. Daemonic entities are also said to be able to possess living human beings and grant them inhuman strength, change their personal facial features, possession, grant them precognition and prescience, as well as an uncanny knowledge of others' secrets and past events, produce materialistic items from thin air. Daemonic forces can affect anyone of any age and sometimes plague entire families. They are one of the few spirits known to follow families once they move. Daemonic forces also relish in showing off their abilities and partaking in particularly horrific, disgusting, and dangerous "pranks."

The type of spiritual phenomena we are focusing on now is of the first category. Ghosts always have a visual aspect, whether they seem solid or transparent, they come in two basic forms: the veridical apparition and the cognizant one. The former are often tied to a specific place or location, time, and event, and almost always follow a similar pattern, as though it is simply replaying an event(s) it has experienced before - like a replay of a recorded event. They almost never interact directly with the living.

For example, a ghost clad in Periodic clothing that appears about the same time every year is a Veridical Imagery; it may seem to be aware of you, but it does not speak and often seems to be frightened and compelled to continue some situation which rarely makes sense to onlookers. A phantasm dressed in Periodic costume who may or may not take on an air of "floating" may look at/through you, but will continue on its predestined trail, undeterred by your presence. They usually dissipate or dematerialize right through walls and/or other solid impedances unopposed. In other cases, many phantasms might appear in the midst of some sort of activity, such as a party, battle, horseride, or even train ride, only to dissipate or disappear entirely.

Veridical Imagery refers to phantasmagorical "replays" of events which supposedly cannot be changed and must be revisited and replayed by the damned souls trapped in reliving their deaths, tragic failures, or whatever, for time Immemorial. Other veridical imageries consist only of phantasmal noises, music and/or voices with no discernible source. Sometimes, this theory is advanced as a Veridical Afterimage, which assumes that some form of energy - as yet unknown - remains after death and is sometimes visible to, and/or interacts with, the living.

Many phantasmagorical images which do not appear to the naked eye show up later on film. Likewise, EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) are almost never heard while being recorded and can only be catalogued by replaying the tapes and attempting to decipher the communications.

None of these phenomena can currently be explained by modern accepted Science and are thus quickly dismissed, along with serious researchers, cataloguers, and hunters like ourselves.

In further entries, we'll turn our attentions to some very interesting and "classic" cases of these things and attempt to catalogue them according these criteria.

Terms

As noted in the former version of this blog, we will be taking on specific terms in order to label and organize the stories we bring you. The idea is to develop a very specific and fairly rigid system of tagging that allows readers to use the blog as much for actual research as just fun to read.

We take the paranormal and related concepts very seriously. Sure, some of it is obvious fakery, others are far more clever and complex hoaxes, but a good portion of what is often termed The Unknown is, in fact, inexplicable.

However, UFO reports do not - so far as we know now - have anything to do with accounts of ghosts, for example. Even if we find out later on down the road that the two are somehow related, almost no one experiences them in the same context. While both encounters may cause the viewer fear, he's obviously going to come away from the UFO encounter with a completely different experience than he would a ghostly one and most people who have these encounters experience a lot of the same circumstances and happenings. We'd tag one UFO and the other Supernatural, instead of tagging them both Unknown, for example.

Obviously, there is going to be some crossover from time to time. Psychic phenomena best illustrates this: purists make a separation between telekinesis and psychokinesis. The former being the ability to commune with spirits and have them move objects for you; psychokinesis is the ability to move objects through the sheer force of one's will or mental energy. Of course, all of this is theoretical, so we have no real way of knowing how such things are done unless the person doing it informs us ("I talk to a male voice and it moves things for me"), so the system will take shape over the course of time spent here, and all suggestions are welcome.

It also has to do with popular usage, known terms, and so on. There is an obscure paranormal phrase I like to use to describe recurring hauntings, veridical imagery or afterimage. I did not create it, but I like the way it sounds, and I think it's power lies in its specificity. Recurring "event" hauntings are well-documented and specialists overwhelmingly tend to agree that they are probably caused by the strength of the emotions that were experienced at the time the event happened - that these emotions somehow "burned" their way into the atmosphere in that area and they surface at a specific time and replay like a recorded image. In general, specialists do not necessarily think that the images involved are actual "spirits" in the way we popularly perceive them - intelligent, animate spirits who can make choices and interact with the living - instead, they are simply recorded images of spirits. That's why I like the phrase; it's specificity communicates this exact concept. But since it is so obscure, I'm not sure if using it would be prudent.

The thing about these event hauntings is that Eastern spirituality suggests that those who take their own lives are doomed to repeat the event eternally. Kind of makes you wonder if those spirits are just hollow, imagistic impressions in the atmosphere, or The Damned, themselves...

At any event, we'll discuss more about tags and how to use them, as well as which tags we're employing and how, as we go along.