For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
User avatar
By eltonioni
#1859873
Ok, first off, there aren't any ghosts, so with that out of the way...

Years ago, maybe around the millennium, there was a ghostwriter (quite literally) that was a member of a smallish forum not unlike this one, occupying and small local corner of the early world wide web.

Memory fades, but ISTR that the ghost - I can't remember the name but let's call her Mary - inhabited an old and possibly abandoned industrial building next to a canal, where they had died, somewhere very ordinary in the Midlands if I recall correctly. Probably just one other unnoticed death by industrial accident from the thousands of that year. It could have been Worksop, Bedford, Alfreton, Wolverhampton, or anywhere else that was insignificant and didn't attract much attention.

Decade after decade, Mary had only itself for company, watching life carry on around her as generations, industry, technology and fashions came and went, but without anyone being able to see or hear her in return.

I think her posts might have depended on somebody who worked on a computer in one of the nearby buildings she would wander around to fill the boredom of her endless days. Remember that the internet was still very new for lots of people. It was the days of noisy dial-up modems or ISDN if you were lucky. It was a perfect meeting of the afterlife with the future. But with the arrival of the internet, she watched the modern-day workers using the internet and discovered how to post while her living neighbour was online.

Now she had the chance to talk again. Somehow Mary had found a way to communicate by posting on the bulletin board with stories of her life and their death, revealing the mundane day-to-day happenings of a century of invisible canalside living. As well as the ordinary, Mary wove the personal stories together and wrote about her hopes and fears, with many of her worries linked to losing the ability to reach out through the forum - her newfound but one and only lifeline.

It was utterly convincing, to me a least. Here was an ordinary person with the same emotions and rationale as us, but with very different life experiences. Born, lived and died at a time none of the readers had experienced and in a situation that nobody could truly understand. Interacting just enough with the other forumites to maintain interest, but remaining distant enough to be otherworldly.

Despite the occasional search, I've never found it again. It must have disappeared into the ether one year when annual renewal came around but it was beautifully crafted and lasted for months. I don't recall anyone trying hard to break the spell and quite a few forumites thought it actually was a ghost!

It would be wonderful to discover that forum and its ghost again, does anyone else remember it?

If not, have you got a good story to remember for upcoming dark evenings by the BBQ?
User avatar
By Rob P
#1859907
You have reminded me that last year I totally forgot my Christmas Eve ritual of sitting in the darkened living room, tree lights twinkling, bottle of single malt to hand, listening to The Shepherd as midnight passes.

Somehow not the same at a barbecue.

Rob P
OCB, Flyingfemme liked this
User avatar
By JAFO
#1890174
eltonioni wrote:Here was an ordinary person with the same emotions and rationale as us, but with very different life experiences. Born, lived and died at a time none of the readers had experienced and in a situation that nobody could truly understand. Interacting just enough with the other forumites to maintain interest, but remaining distant enough to be otherworldly.


Are you sure it's not @johnm? :wink:

Merry Christmas one and all, especially @johnm
Flyin'Dutch', johnm liked this
By Loco parentis
#1891415
I'm interested in opinions on this subject. Given the vast amount of circumstantial evidence from the past and the present and thus available for examination, it seems rational where rationality is often denied to examine the quite staggering torrent of visual sightings, physical contact and other manifestations that most would think totally bizarre - among other emotions.

In past times and perhaps for all I know even currently, when forensic science can play no part - for whatever reason, those before a criminal court have been convicted by supporting layers of circumstantial evidence the more so, if judicial execution is not an optional penalty. I'm sure that many of us have had a brush with some aspect of spirituality. We may not have recognised it as such at the time but, reflection filled in the gaps.

For me personally, the sheer volume of circumstantial accounts tells me that there is some kind of activity that migrates between two worlds, one of them being our rational world, the other being heaven knows what !
User avatar
By Miscellaneous
#1891421
Loco parentis wrote:For me personally, the sheer volume of circumstantial accounts tells me that there is some kind of activity that migrates between two worlds...

There is no cumulative effect of such 'circumstantial evidence'. It doesn't work that way. No number of unexplainable incidents adds up to anything other than a bunch of independent unexplained incidents.

Given there are so many claimed occurrences without ever any empirical evidence is in fact circumstantial evidence that there can be no empirical evidence for the supernatural. :wink:

I am fascinated at the propensity of humans to conclude supernatural explanations, ignoring many natural ones.

I believe it is a consequence of the extent of our discomfort, resulting in a refusal (for many) to simply say; 'I don't know'. :D
lobstaboy liked this
By Loco parentis
#1891423
Yes, exactly so ! A bunch of independent inexplicable incidents. I agree with that. I did not refer to a 'cumulative' effect. I have no way of knowing whether a totality of events conveys greater credibility. As for empiricism, if an activity can be proven by trial and experiment then I would hardly be likely to end my last sentence with a reference to 'heaven knows what'.

My critical faculty is satisfied. World wide description of events that defy description point to activities that defy rational explanation. I have no hesitation in writing that 'I don't know' but, I'm awake to possibilities that will remain just such.
User avatar
By Miscellaneous
#1891427
Loco parentis wrote:World wide description of events that defy description point to activities that defy rational explanation.

No they don't. They merely point to being unexplained. How can you conclude that absence of rational explanation indicates an irrational explanation? :? Why would you conclude the explanation is irrational, rather than rational, but not yet identified, or understood.

To do so is actually concluding irrational explanation without any reason. And that's irrational, surely?

Loco parentis wrote:I have no hesitation in writing that 'I don't know' but, I'm awake to possibilities that will remain just such.

I think we may have our wires crossed. I didn't explain very well. When I say a reluctance to say I don't know I wasn't referring to you not knowing whether the supernatural exists, or not. What I mean is that rather than accepting we simply don't have an explanation (at present), many jump, as above and without any reason (never mind evidence), to the conclusion that the explanation must be supernatural. :thumright:

Lack of natural explanation is not in any way evidence for a supernatural explanation. :D
lobstaboy liked this
By riverrock
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1891435
When the experience of millions of people points towards supernatural, the rational response is to recognise there is such a thing as supernatural.
User avatar
By Miscellaneous
#1891438
Sorry, @riverrock , that is nonsense. There is no correlation between the number of people saying something and that something being fact. That's not to say huge numbers don't believe truths, of course they do. But the mere stating or believing something in the absence of evidence in itself does not make that something true, irrespective of how many believe it.

At what membership threshold of the Flat Earth Society do we all start to believe the earth is flat? :wink:
mick w, lobstaboy liked this
User avatar
By eltonioni
#1891440
Millions believed in unicorns. Many thousands had even seen a unicorn horn for themselves.


What more proof could anyone need?