While humanity has yet to generate any universally-accepted proof of ghosts or hauntings, millions of people around the world report seeing apparitions or experiencing ghostly encounters every year (and sometimes these events cluster around specific areas). Why? Is there any possible explanation for the purported appearance of ghosts?
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From UFOs two, ghosts and government cover ups, histories with unexplained events. You can turn back then or learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt and I'm Ben, but I am null and most importantly you are here, which makes this, ladies and gentlemen, anohing episode of stuff they don't want you to know. And this is our first time being together in the studio and in a little while, isn't it. Since the Turkey Times, it's been a lovely holiday break for all except for Matt. No, it was great, good. Yeah, we all right, guess what we're getting into this Now you're gonna have to wait on your ghost content, y'alls, because we're gonna talk about driving in a car for twelve and a half hours with U by eBay. That's right. It was incredible. Yeah, you feel like you know yourself better. Yeah, I know the whole family. The whole family knows itself and h we are all one. It's good to know. Yeah, it looks good. I feel like I know you better. Excellent. At one point we're driving down the road and uh sons in the back and he is just inconsolable, and we just finished changing him and he got the feed for a while, and we're making a horrible time, supposed to like take eight and a half hours to get down where we're going, and it was already up words of ten. So Diana said, you know what we're doing this. She just leaned over him and fed him mid drive. I thought you were gonna say she chucked him up to one down. No, no, not this time, not yet. It's a little early for that. But yeah, doing some dangerous things on the highway, guys. And am I gonna get in trouble for that? No? We do. Yeah, I don't know the law. Maybe I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I hope law enforcement has something better to do. Yeah, I guess you're right. But it was terrifying at the same time. So, speaking of families and terror, I'm the only one who's gonna share about my turkeys. Turkey times. I went to dinner with my mom. We we ate, but we had a buffet. It was you know, that's my favorite kind. It was good. And then we went and saw the new Bond film, which, as it turns out, was called Specter speaking of fantastic. Yeah. So, as you have probably noticed from several of the incredibly um clever hints that we have dropped in the beginning of the episode, today we're going to return to a topic that is interested a lot of our listeners, a lot of our audience, and we have done a couple of podcasts and videos on in the past, and that is Oh my good, spooky ghosts. Spooky go So, first things first, what is a ghost? What what do we mean when we say that's a ghost. That's when you leave the party and don't say goodbye to anybody. Okay, I'm sorry, guys, That's just how I am, and that's how I'm going to be. Oh oh god, I wish I knew more context about why or which party it happened. Any social occasion, you can't just walk around and say goodbye to forty something people. You will never be able to leave. Uh So, a ghost is the spirit of a dead person, right then it's either not moved on or it's returned from the grave. And then you have terms like spirit and the definitions can vary wildly. Some people describe the spirit as a person's soul well you know. Others believe it's more of an energetic imprint that a person leaves behind, sort of a psychic thumb print that they leave when they pass on. I like that idea, the idea that perhaps if there is a ghost, then it is the energy of someone who was here before. And it's not necessarily a thing that you can point to, like a ghost or a spirit. It's just this imprint that they've made. I love that idea, and I mean, as we'll talk about later. And I've got a particular story in mine. That can be something physical that is left behind and that you then associate meaning connect meaning to after the fact and that you know, I mean, or it could be something a little bit more ephemeral. Let's we'll get into as well, exactly. And one of the great things about this kind of belief, if if you do believe personally in these kind of things, the spirits and goes, it's not in the fringes at all. This is something that's been around for a long time that a lot of you know, uh, really intelligent people have believed in. And we talked about it before, and it's also one of those things that it's extremely helpful, helpful for the human experience to have a belief like this. Yeah. I mean even Winston Churchill reported seeing ghosts, the ghost of Abraham Lincoln while walking into a White House bedroom in the Nude. Apparently, Churchill regarded Lincoln with a very pithy, good evening, Mr President, do you seem to have me at a disadvantage? That's not bad, That's not bad at all. Working on the Churchill, I wonder what Lincoln said back. Probably just gave him the dead eyes. According to this story, the apparition of Abraham Lincoln kind of smirked and thats appeared smiled. I was close. That's how Churchill said it. Um. So Interestingly enough, Winston Churchill spent his entire life convinced that he heard certain voices that changed the course of his fate, and so he blamed a lot of or not blamed. He attributed a lot of the close calls in his childhood and adult life with these voices saying things like, not that side of the carriage moved to the other side. WHA, So who's the who's to say? Um? For those believe in psychic powers, there's the idea that maybe Churchill had some sort of sensitivity his antenna were tuned to a different frequency, or maybe he was being controlled by extraterrestrials, or maybe he was slightly schizophrenic. Yeah, we could take our pick and we'll get to some of those ideas or causes have seen ghosts that Another example would be like Arthur Conan Doyle, famous creator of Sherlock Holmes. He was very much a man of his time, and if you were a man of your time at that time, it meant that you thought mediums were the real deal. That's a shame, because I mean to have created a character like Sherlock Holmes, who was supposed to be able to just see through the b as that anyone was putting out there. I find it a little bit troubling that that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was taken in by these mediums who have pretty pretty much been debunked across the board. But I can imagine that being an exciting, a very thrilling, just thing to do after work, after you've been writing for a long time. I'll go down and even if just pretend it's almost like you're in a little mini play. Well, now, we also have to remember too that a lot of people were applying critical thought. They were they were trying to figure it out. They just didn't know all the tricks yet, because all the tricks hadn't been invented yet, you know. Uh so there they were clearly gonna be Um. I don't know what Doyle's ending, um yeah, of of psychic powers was, but I know for a time that he did believe it was possible as to other people of the day, and uh as do people now, which might be a good idea for an episode because a lot of people believe in the afterlife. Belief in the afterlife predates language. Have we talked about mentalists and cold reading? I think not yet. I think you wanted to talk about a cold reader? Was it a gew Shoes? And then John? It's John, I'm getting I know, I know a guy named John. I do I know several John's. In fact, got man. We should honestly get some people in the studio to do like a reading of us. That would be fun for an episode, that would be interesting. Not to get too bog down, I want to say one more thing just about so I know, I was kind of ragging on Starthur Kunnan Doyle about being gullible and being taken in by these mediums, and you brought up the fact that this is something that still happens today today. It happens usually in the form of reality television shows. And I did a little side gig taking behind the curtain of knol here Um as a sound op for a pilot for a reality show that starred a celebrity psychic. And one of her bits was she had these uh people would bring family heirlooms out and she would wave her hands around it and say things about the history of the item, and it's related to the history the person in their family. And she, you know, she made some people freak out. And I know that they weren't plants because one of them was actually the wife of the guy that was running the production company, and she's definitely a skeptic and it freaked her out to no end. So, you know, but I'm on the fence about some some of these things too. I gotta say, do you think it was it was possible to explain that or because when you're talking about psychometry, so I definitely think it was possible to explain. I think there are ways that she could have researched this person, and you know, especially nowadays, with as much information as we put out there on the Internet, it's probably pretty easy for someone that's in a position where they know who's going to be coming to do a little research. Gonna say, I don't want to speak badly about the person who was running the production, whose spouse it was, but I mean, if you want some good TV or good video, then maybe speak a little insider information. But even even the most skeptical people that I that I've met at least have um how have at one point or another had some serious event occur or a dream which seems to predict something. I know you guys have had something like that, and I certainly have UM in my family. Maybe it's a maybe it's some sort of mental illness carried down through the line. But um, the big mystery that ghost or inches uh inextricably related to is, of course the afterlife, the big thing that no one can explain. Right, we know so little about what happen. We know what happens to our bodies, right, we totally get that part. Everybody knows that part, and uh, our fellow podcasters have done some great and gruesome episodes on what happens to you physically when you die. But the real question that everybody asked the embody fights over. Um, far be it for me to blame war on religion. I'm just saying the big thing is is there an afterlife? You know? And and who's in charge of it? And who's gonna be there? Right? Well? What are the rules to get in? That's have did you guys watched the new with Bob and David stuff Heaven's Toad's for real, Heaven's todes for real. It's a good one. Spoilers should watch it pertains to It's sort of kind of turns on its head, these preconceived ideas of who gets to go to heaven? What's leave it at that? Yeah? Yeah, I think it would be difficult to explain over an audio pie thinks so. A two thousand and five Gallops survey finds that, at least in the US, and we may have mentioned this in earlier shows, uh, more than one and three Americans believed straight up believe in haunted houses. Like do not go in there, Janet, I've seen the movie That place is haunted. It will wear your flesh and a different you will emerge from the gate. Well, and that gives the preconceived notion that it's possible for a location al sical space to be haunted by something. Whether it's like the thumb print model that we described the show, where something bad happened there and it left behind some bad energy. Maybe it doesn't have to be bad. It could be a good haunting. But usually you know, I guess what makes it into popular culture is more the the evil spirits than the you know, scary hauntings and people are being tormented and things like that, and it's more interesting stuff from this poll too. So people believe that maybe there's a non haunted place, but given certain circumstances, the ghost of someone can return. Your your grandmother or your grandfather that visited you once when you were three, may come back and say, the buildings on fire, you know what I mean, Yeah, look out for you, almost like it would Guardian Angel of Swords, but it's someone directly from your past. Of the people in the poll believe, like Arthur Conan Doyle did, that it is possible to communicate with the spirits of the dead well and specifically that they could do it right, that's what yes, Yeah, that they have had some sort of contacts more than I thought it would be. It's more than I thought it would the two. But these numbers pale in comparison to uh to the next statistic. Yes, Ben, forty two of the Americans that were pulled believe that quote people on this earth are sometimes possessed by the devil, And we've talked about exorcisms before. That is it's interesting because it leads you down a specific belief system, right, a system of belief to believe that the devil exists first of all, or Satan, and then that that entity, when it is real, can enter or at least a demon, can enter a human body. So our demons ghosts, is the devil a ghost man. There's a lot of minutia there that's being rhetorical, But I guess what I'm saying is I wonder, is there anything in the Bible about ghosts? Uh? Yeah, there are mentions of ghosts. One of the first, because it's such an old belief, one of the first mentions of ghosts, which we had talked about before, is in the Epic of Gilgamesh, which, um, that's just a strange name for me, uh to say. So anyway, it always makes me think of Gargamel Gargamel. Yeah, and why isn't anybody naming their kid gilgameshter gargamell uh and Matt. That was that was your shot? Missed opportunity missed it this time. Yeah, But seriously, I mean, like, as far as you know, you you're talking about the idea of ghosts dating back to this really really early text. Obviously, the Bible is a very important old text that we you know, many people rely on daily. Um, and I just wonder what the stats being what they are with so many people believing in ghosts and believing the ability to communicate with ghosts. I wonder what the religious connection is there, And I would just be interested in finding out more about that. Yeah, it's interesting because, um, I'd like to hear from some people who are perhaps a little more familiar with that, because you know, most of the use of the phrase ghosts in the Christian Bible is probably going to be related to the Holy Ghost Act, right. I guess what I'm kind of fumbling around to say is that I I kind of feel like, uh, folks that are devout in their religion in terms of especially Christianity, would be less likely to believe in ghosts, simply because the idea of spirits lingering after death sort of goes against the basic principles of of Christianity in terms of like, if you did good, you go to heaven. If you did bad, you go to hell. There's really no niddle ground, there's no sticking around as far as what I've read got well, it could also that's interesting bringing up because then there could still be a belief in non human spirits such as possessive demons or angels, right exactly, and in um. In Islamic addition, you know, we've talked about this before. It's a fascinating thing to me. There is a third sort of sentient race, right that the Jinn, and they're brought from a smokeless screen fire and very different. Throw the Aladdin stuff out. The Disney film Aladdin is great, so the stories in a thousand one Nights great, but the actual jin are much, um much closer to something like an angel or a demon. Um. So that that that's a belief in something that is otherworldly yet not quite in the afterlife. Um. But that's also an interesting point raised too, like if we go back to Christianity, Yeah, wouldn't people be much less likely to believe in that I would. I'm gonna go ahead and just really quickly disagree, just because I think if you are, if you have that belief system that there is something that is so outside of the normal everyday experience, right, so the belief that that just through faith, I believe that there's this whole other plane called Heaven that exists. I believe there's this other plane called Hell that exists, perhaps and all these other things like h especially if you believe in some of the parables, if you believe that they are absolutely true to the word, then perhaps you could believe that there's this thing that you've never seen before called a ghost. But I absolutely believe that it's there. And maybe you know, something gets caught up in the in the process and gets left behind, you know, like the spirit didn't make it to Heaven, hasn't passed on. It's just interesting. There's just like you said, there's just so many sex there's so many different belief systems that there are just as many ideas for this stuff as there are you know, stars in this But the poll shows that there's no statistically significant differences that if you look at age, gender, race, region of the country education. Uh, Christians are if anything, a little more likely to hold generally paranormal beliefs rather than non Christians. But also guys, when we say paranormal beliefs, this pole didn't just ask about ghosts necessarily, and it didn't just ask about um identifying as by religion. This Uh, this asked about you know, the belief in the idea of extrasensory perception esp. Do you believe that you can read binds? Alan Turing did? By the way? Um? But whether regardless of religion, the point is that there seems to be a pretty even slice across demographics. Um. The believing in an afterlife in and of itself is a paranormal belief on its face, in that it can it hasn't been proven right in a way that everybody accepts. So what we're going to talk about, We're gonna talk about a little bit of of hauntings right here are the facts, and then uh, we're gonna talk about Oh, let's see, you know, we can talk a little bit about famous ghost investigations and ghost winters. Uh, And we can tell a little bit of maybe a little bit of behind the curtain stuff too. So types of hauntings described hauntings. You can find all sorts of lists for these things. But then again, with no hard proof of what creates the phenomenon that we call ghosts. Uh, it's tough to say that this is our anything other than someone's opinion. But we have we have stuff like knowls, um nols, psychic thumb prints, residual thing right, yeah, I mean, and the way I was talking about the top of the show, Um, how some of these things that get left behind. You can think of it in a couple of ways. You could think of it as this energy or this spirit of this thing that was left behind, in terms of a life force or some sort of like imprint the a person has made that's left behind, you know, outlives them. Um. I have a little short story. I actually think I've told this before and this on the podcast. But it was just a moment where I experienced what I thought was that thing, and at that moment I didn't I thought it could be nothing, but what I thought it was, which was proof positive that there is an afterlife. That I was witnessing the presence of some sort of spirit, and it was a girl I was dating at the time, a dear friend of hers had passed away in a car accident. And I met this girl, my my girlfriend at the time, in her car and it was kind of a cold day, cold evening rather, and so her windows were fogged up, and I got in the car with her to go get dinner, and she was and was kind of sobbing, and she pointed to the inside of the windshield and then she blew on it. And this girl who had passed away recently, her signature was inside of this windshield, just clear as day. And at that exact moment, I was just like, I freaked out. I just started, you know, crying, and it is just this very cathartic moment. And then separated from it, I very quickly realized, well, you know, these girls were good friends. They were, you know, in their late teens, early twenties kind of stuff girls do they you know, write their name on the inside of a windshield and you have like oils on your fingers that will cause that residual fingerprint to stick around. So I just think it's kind of an interesting parallel because it is both of those things. You know. It is not only a sort of a memory, sort of a left behind a bit of someone's essence or energy. But it was very literally a fingerprint. Yeah, that's your that's that's Ereie man. Yeah, I remembered when, Um, you've mentioned that before and it stayed, it stayed with you. And I think a lot of people in their audience have had some sort of inexplicable experience, right, and can you can find um, you can find anecdotes, especially surrounding loved ones or family members. Um, you know, the people who say they have a that a feeling of sudden dark epiphany that someone had passed and they just knew, right, And it's something that people have, people have attempted to study and in many but there's no you know, there's no accepted psychic alarm system. Right, So there's that residual type of haunting, the kind that's kind of a JEF in a place that just repeats and repeats and repeats and repeats. So when you ever, whenever you go to the hotel, you're gonna see this essentially this same thing occur. This ghostly apperation appears to fall out the window, this guy in a bear costume and the shining I remember that. Oh that's right. Yeah, we're a family show though, But that's a perfect example, exactly the right example. Someone continually reenacting the moment leading up to their death, for instance, or the ghostly hitchhiker's always going the same place but never get in there, going my way. Uh. Then then there's the intelligent type of haunting, which is, you know, a someone who was on a mission. You've seen this in Hollywood films a lot. This is what the story of. There's this haunting that's occurring, and until the mission is accomplished, like you find out why they died, or you get revenged for the person that killed them, like the Lovely Bones for example. That's sort of what that story is about, about the spirit of a young lady who has killed before her time by a very dangerous criminal you know, who lives in the neighborhood and goes unnoticed and her spirit returns so that he can get his come up and so that he can't do it to anybody else. That is a trope, you know, and a lot of these things to me are more fictional tropes than scientific things. But that you know, that's just me being the skeptic here, I guess, right. So there's the idea of this love or the Crow the crew would be a th channel thing. And the reason we're relying so so much so on um fictional things is because, aside from one very dodgy legal case UM centuries ago which actually happened, uh, the law and ghosts don't really interact, you know, not as much as it would be fun for it to happen. I would totally watch though, like Law and Order Ghost condition. Yeah, I would love to. I would love that's a million dollars. I want to see one of those no nonsense Hollywood Judge shows, you know, with the ghost Judge ghost the Judge is a ghost. I thought it would be ghost coming into like this is fertile ground here, yeah, yeah, here be serpents were on the edge of the map. Man, this is terra incognita. Uh. Those are great ideas and following them away and there's you know, people say, well, there's the idea that they're be a demonic haunting, right, and then there's the idea that there could be a When I say demonic, I mean any kind of non human thing. And then there's the idea that um, certain locations can be haunted, which we have found is kind of true. I know it sounds like we're burying the lead. We'll explain why later. And let's not forget about poulter Geist, sort of the Gremlins of the ghost world. And this is where, okay, just refresh my memory because I think I have an understanding of the Poulter guist because of the movies where there are things occurring two objects in a house, like objects are being moved a lot. Well, I think it has a largely to do with sort of a telekinetic ability. Um yeah, physical disturbance, physical disturbances and mean in poulter Geist, the movie, there's the little girl who is largely seen as kind of being not maybe not the cause, but definite catalysts, a conduit or some sort of catalyst for these energies. But yeah, I think it can just like be like you know, chairs stacking, you know, or like you know, household appliances turning on and off, or just uh uh knockings in the night. Uh. The word Poulter guys to think in English means something like noisy spirit or loud ghost, polka ghost, rumble ghost, yes, polka ghosts. But but that's interesting because Poulter dieist had often at least in folklore, been thought to be haunting a specific person, you know, like a often an adolescent girl. Honestly, like, um, I think that's how the report goes, That's how the film Poulter Geis goes. And UM, correct me if I'm wrong. But maybe the bell witch, which leads us to another interesting point that people have believes for centuries that certain locations or places can be haunted. And that's kind of true. Oh yeah, and not just not just places and a single object like a trinket or I don't know, maybe somebody's a jacket. Interesting, And we'll get right back to that after a quick word from our sponsor. Stumbling towards the bus stop after a late night Halloween party, Paul Cooper finds a pair of shoes. He's not sure where the bus stop is. When he finds these shoots, He's just sort of walking to where he thinks the stop should be. He's going from memory, perhaps from a vague optimistic belief that he can discover the bus stop with nothing but the distant light of downtown skyscrapers to guide him, the same way his ancestors crossed oceans following the stars. The last stretch between ponds and iris is unlit. Careful of the puddles flooding the curb, Paul shies away from the street. The drizzle grows metastasizes. Haul runs beneath the bridge spanning North Avenue, hoping to wait out the storm. He's huddled against the concrete, hiding from the rain, cursing softly at the car's sprain puddles onto the sidewalk as they speed west. He leans against the concrete, wishing for smoke or an uber, and he sees the shoes. They're dark leather, something Italian. They're not new, but they seem artfully warm, expensive, substantial. His shoes broken down paints matter, Jordan's feel leaky and cheap. As he stares at the dress shoes placed neatly against the concrete wall, heels back toes, facing the street, all momentarily imagined some well dressed revolutionary of by gone days, standing against the wall, fearlessly hiding a last cigarette as he bids his executioners to steady themselves, to remember there are men to shoot. The water seeping into his Jordan's brings Paul back to reality. He regards the dress, shoes and wonders should I. He's just drunk enough to try them on, putting one foot in gingerly, then the next they fit perfectly. The rain slows back to a drizzle, and Paul stumbles into the night, is broken. Jordan's discarded and forgotten as a passing car throws water across their souls. Paul's beginning to worry he won't find the stop. He's admitting he can't remember the exact location of the bus stop. He's beginning to think he should have called an uber before his phone died. When a car pulls slowly beside him and honks the horn. The window rolls down, revealing a woman Paul doesn't know. She wears a long red scarf, one of those kinds. Paul's mom calls an infinity. Hey, she says, get Paul thing, she's pretty. Here's this? No way am I taking a ride with this weirdo? And these thoughts come to him all at once, tripping over one another, like strangers interrupting, like runners in a crowded room. And he's just drunk enough to hop in the car. I'm just headed to the bus stop. The woman doesn't respond, just drives towards the city in silence. She parks along then unfamiliar side street and alley, almost in the heart of downtown. Where's the bus stop? The woman doesn't answer. She hops out of the car and Paul follows her. Are we near a train station? The woman looks back over her shoulder. She's heading toward peach tree, and Paul walks after her into a bar. Woud Paul thinks out of that it should be. The place is like one long hallway with a pool table at the end. Most of the crowd is in one sort of costume or another. Hey, says a man at the bar, chewing on a toothpick. You should watch our buddy Cooper A gonna be happy to see you. Who the hell is Coop? Says Paul. The man just turns back to the bar, staring at a rerun of football on the staticky television. Paul's looking around for the woman who took me here, he thinks, conducted me. When another woman walks up to him, she hands in an old fashioned You're a sight for sore eyes, Dave. She's tall, with long hair and dark eyes. She looks him up and down. Breath night. Do you know each other? She raises an eyebrow, laughs, you always say that. The tall woman leans close to Paul's face. Listen, what do you say we are? You're cheating, bastard. What are you doing in here? Paul turns just in time to raise his hands in defense. The screaming man swings why, shattering the old fashioned to the floor. Paul stumbles back, a dizzy, heart racing, yells the tall woman. Paul's eyes race for something to grab, a pool stick, a bottle, a chair. No one in the bar moves to intervene. It is as if he does not exist. Paul grabs the chair, feeling like a lion tamer. He yells at the bar, then to the man, who must be Coop. Look cute, I don't know you. You gotta calm down. The man Coop draws a gun. Paul throws the chair, knocking Cooped to the floor. He glances at the door and sees the woman in the red scarf leaving. He chases her. As they round a corner, he hears the bar door slam, the sound of heavy boots in pursuit. Hey yells Paul, who the hell are you help me? The lady in the scarf turns as she opens the car door. I can't, it's too late. A gunshot brings impossibly loud behind Paul, and his vision explodes to red to white to black. Early the next morning, the medical examiner turns on an audio recorder as he prepares to conduct the autopsy. Okay, let's see what we got here. Unidentified mail, late twenties, messy gunshot wound to the head from the rear, execution style. What are those lately? Another day in Paradise, I guess. The examiner pauses before continuing. He takes off one of the corpse's shoes, then the other. He holds them up to the light. Ralph furrowed watching the shine of the dark. Hand made leather. Huh, he says you again, Giodorno's fine leather, stay one step ahead. Gidorno's fine leather is not responsible for any of the following possible side effect sussession, demonic possession, grand theft, auto a facial convulsion, spring fever, compunction, consumption, left handedness, hold your guys, activity, unexplained bounce of telekinesis, phantom limb athletes foot LaDonna goes to the chiker's Jupicapa. The phantom of the opera, irit Lame his rob ectoplasmic excretions, Giodorno's Fine Leather, brought to you by Illumination Global Unlimited. Wow, guys, that was not That was not great courses, you know that was that was a pretty um you know, I really feel like old Illumination Global Unlimited has been you know, pumping a little more um, a little more Illuminati bucks into those ads. Well, did it feel like an ad to you? Guys? I felt like that was a story and then it was an advertorial. I'm I don't know, I'm a little scared. Well, I don't be scared. Don't be scared. Okay, let's talk more about ghosts. Don't be scared yet. Yeah, okay, let's talk about Let's talk about something. Don't be scared yet, we say, as we're saying, let's also talk about something frightening. Let's talk about famous ghost investigations and hunters. There are, of course, the warr Ins ed and Lorraine there that their investigations, and some people in our crowd are going to get way overly emotional and fury us about us referring to them as investigations. Kind of their were not ours. It's fine, whatever you wish to call them in your own time. Uh, we're calling them investigations because they call them cases or investigations, and they have been the basis for several films. You might remember some, in my opinion, better than others. The Conjuring, The Haunted, Amityville Horror, Haunting in Connecticut, Annabelle Haunting three, the Haunting, A hunting in Connecticut to Haunting in Newark? Wait what Hartford? The Hartford Haunt and they the stuff that they remains a controversial legacy. There are people who are completely completely convinced that the Warrens had a particular skill with exorcising demons, right, but then there are other people who believe at the warrants were essentially con artists. Yeah, it's it's tough. It's it's a tough thing to prove, but it's also a um, it's a tough thing to even have a conversation about if you really believe in any of this stuff. So I apologize to anyone who really believes. We're not trying to just say that you're wrong. We just want to find the avenue to the truth, right, That's where that's what we're doing. Well, it's sort of like proving or disproving someone's religion. You know, I mean to believe pretty much impossible. You know, Yeah, they're not gonna and and the frame of reference for having that conversation means everything. You know, if they're trying to like convert somebody to believing in ghost spiritual disturbances, believing that you are a successful ghost hunter, if that person isn't already on the same page as you, it's gonna be pretty difficult. And they're also you know that there's more than one type of ghost hunter. We should be completely completely clear about that. There are people who believe that they are encountering something through an inexplicable natural ability, like a medium, the power of a medium, right, And there are people who believe that the power of a religion allows uh, the um the cleansing or the exorcism of someone a priest, Yeah, like a priest, some unhelp helpful spirit. And then you will also hear people say that you should smudge a house or burnett with sage to purify it. Right. But then there are people who rely more on the technical side, and they say, let us see these drops in temperature or see if there's anything odd on these cameras, right, uh. And then there are people who go in entirely uh to say this is this is wrong, this bs you are either willfully ignorant or you are purposefully swindling um yourself when people report it. Um. And then there are people who are more in the I guess in the middle. And that brings us to the here's where it gets crazy part of the show, because they're they're various theories explaining ghost sightings that are not necessarily You know, my dead grandfather came back because he knows I stole his Playboys true story. No, well the playboy part, dude, He's just for the articles though, right, yeah, No, shel Silverstein is published in there. It's pretty good. He has a poem about meeting the devil. Actually I know that one. Yeah, it's pretty good. Yea, what was it called? Sorry, I just said that. I haven't thought about that. I'll have to look back and tell you. But so, well, we'll get back to that poem, we'll bring it up. Um. But so some of these, let's get past some of the easy ones, and people have heard before, like there's a hallucination due to perhaps a physiological injury or mental instability. Um no, Matt and I alluded to that a little bit earlier. We're listening possible causes. You could have things like the struct their structural damage of some sort, or just some unexplicable uh noises that are occurring, maybe from from pipes, let's say, or from the air conditioner making noises don't be associated matha, she don't need the wind maybe, or the raccoons in the attic twice but apples falling from the tree. Get rid of raccoons in the attic and then put on and sorry twice simply a bag of hands dropping one by one on to the floor. It was an acorn. Yes it was a different time, but that's absolutely true. It's very easy to misidentify things. Can I before we get into the real need of this, can I just tell you, guys one of my least favorite horror movie tropes. Please thank you, because if you said no, we would have just kept going. But I despise it. And there's a haunted house situation, and there's that one person who not only doesn't believe that the house is haunted but has to be a prick about it. That always bothers me because I feel like it's such a metaphor for all these other unacknowledged problems that people have or standard you know, like you're you're in a relationship and you've got uh, your partner's best friend like hates you, and you know it and it's obvious. You're like, hey, your best friend hates me and we shouldn't hang out with them. And then they're like, oh no, no, no, no, no, you don't. You just don't get Daphne or whatever. No offense to anybody whose name is Daphne. I just pulled that out of the ether. Yeah, So that's that's just the ramp, because you've probably had this happen at some point in your life where you feel like you are telling somebody something terrible is happening, something very bad is happening, and they're going, man, you it's a it's a comment on denial, I think, and you all go through different versions of that throughout our lives. Uh well, I mean usually in those films, the person who believes the most is the person that's rewarded you. So do you think I think it's gonna work out with me and Daphne or hope. So, man, I think she's a nice girl, says you. Well anyway, Okay, so I don't. I'm sorry that we picked this stranger's name. Oh man, if your name is Daphne, right, and I'll write back and apologize. But we have one other explanation, and this is by no means the only explanation. But we have one thing that proves how a locale an area house, if you will, can be haunted. And it's crazy. Yes, it's certainly unexpected, I would say, And should we just hop right into it? I think we should. So what if the ghosts that you're seeing, or you thought you saw, or you thought you heard, what if it was just a low frequency vibration causing your mind and your eyes to play tricks on your brain? See, that's a great question. I gotta say, though I don't like the use of just because I still think this is amazing and I don't think this is like a debunking thing. Okay, yes, you're right. I do not mean to downplay the coolness that the vibrations, that the effect is, the effect itself is very cool. Well, I just I also don't Okay, I'm already used up my one soupbox for the show. But I am gonna say I don't think that the existence of low frequency vibrations or infrasound necessarily means that that is the only thing at play. Sure, it's one explanation for a possibility, or or what if what if the vibrations somehow hit a resonant frequency in your brain that allows you to receive different or what if ghosts cause vibrations? Yeah, I don't know how it's let's roll it back just a couple of notches here. So, so there's this paper by a man named Vic Tandy who's a university lecturer at Coventry University, and the title of the paper is the Ghost in the Machine And I'll just give you a little preview of it by reading the abstract. I think this is a really nice job of kind of summing up with this is about which I guess is the abstract is supposed to do. So it's well done, sir uh. In this paper we outline and as yet undocumented natural cause for some cases of ostensible haunting. Using the first author's own experience as an example, we show how a nineteen hurts standing air wave may, under certain conditions create sensory phenomena suggestive of a ghost. The mechanics and physiology of this quote ghost in the machine in quote effect is outlined. Spontaneous case researchers are encouraged to rule out this stentional natural explanation for paranormal experience in future cases of the haunting or poulter Geistick type, which I think is very thoughtful thing to put there the abstract. It's like he's saying, hey, we did the study that explained this thing, So doing you a solid ghost hunters rule this out when you're looking for actual paranormal phenomenon because this ain't that well. Yeah, because in the introduction of that paper, it lists all the different things that a quote unquote ghost hunter or someone who's trying to study these things should, uh, first thing eliminated all of this, eliminate every one of these. Here's a new one. Here's what it's like. That's what this paper is. I just think it's cool because this this this fellow is coming at this from a very you know, research, scientific oriented place, collaborative as well. But he's giving a nod. He's not like being a jerk about you know, he's totally like saying, hey, I'm not saying that what you guys do is is bunk. You know, in fact, use this research that we have done to help further your efforts. And I thought, I don't know, usually people that are coming from a very um academic place tend to be a little more snooty about things like that. So I just thought that was interesting. It can it can happen. The the science behind it is so compelling because it it uses also some research from NASA. Okay, so, uh, let's who all right, as the mad Hatter said to somebody at the tea party, will start at the beginning, go through the middle and stop and and the three of us are pretty familiar with this story, so we'll just pass the ball around. Uh. And you might have heard this as well, audience members, especially if you two are intrigued by the investigation of the ghosts. This guy, Victandy, it wasn't always a university lecturer. As a matter of fact, at one point in his life he was working in a laboratory making a medical manufacturer, right. And this laboratory, I just like seeing it that way, had a reputation. It was haunted, Oh yeah, super haunted. In fact, people were seeing things, feeling things, hearing things with no explanation. So let's talk a little bit about the room. The rooms about ten ft wide by thirty deep long, and their doors at one end getting a picture like a garage, and then at the other end there's uh some win there's some windows and there's like a cleaning bay on the other side of those windows. Vic Tandy not exactly a superstitious guy, you know what I mean. Friday is just another day before Saturday to him, and he notices, uh, this, this is pretty interesting. He's also an I don't know if he's amateur, so uh, Vic, if you're listening, don't get mad at us. But he has an interest in fencing, and he doesn't know what's going on with his these reports this ghost. He knows that he's had some uncomfortable feelings before where he's got that uh what's that song? Always feel like he's watching me? Yeah, yeah, he has that moment and m and frequently for skeptical person. So he um, he's trying to explain what's going on. It's like, could this really be a ghost man? That's crazy? And he's got some coworkers that are a little more sold on the idea that are bringing this damn and saying, hey, this is legit. I've had these experiences and you know, he can connect with them in a sense, which is making him, you know, think about this, what could be the cause? What's the rational explanation? You know? For example, I think there was a story where there was like a hose or something that was moving around. They've got like a cleaning hose, and he attributed to changes in in pressure, you know, because this place is it's an industrial type set up, so they've got some high pressure sure water and air systems in there. You know, there's different things that can happen. Changes in pressure in the in the pipes, you know, can cause creaking sounds, you know, expanding and contracting of metal, things like that. That's that, that's where his mind is going. Absolutely. And so he is using some lab equipment to ready one of his fencing foils and the sorts, right, and that's when he sees the foil itself just vibrating no discernible cause, well, that doesn't make any sense, right, Why would there be some kind of air disruption causing the spoiler move, especially when that you can't just readily sense yourself exactly. You can't hear anything. I mean, what what's the answer? Ghosts like cats? Do they just like the smack things? You know? Yes, something a little bit different though right now. So with this point, Vic Tandy is on the hunt for what the heck is causing this vibration in his laboratory. Well, and he finds that there is a you might have to help me out with this. Spin it's a fan that's causing this, or an event a new Yeah, there's there's a there's a fan fan duct, I believe, and this duct is emitting a very low frequency sound and then submitting it in what's called a standing wave. So this is really cool. This is when well you can you explain a standing wave? Yeah? Well, I mean this in this case the wave. You know, sound is measured in wave forms. If you've ever done any audio editing or recording, you see um audio represented in a series of peaks and valleys. So it sort of looks like almost like waves on the ocean. Honestly, there's peaks and there's troughs um. But different items vibrate at different frequencies. And so what was happening with the four I was that this vent or. This fan was emitting a wave that was the precise or very close to the precise frequency resident frequency of the actual blade. So it's sort of like if you had a piano string or a guitar string, for example, and you had another object or item that was creating a vibration that was at the same frequency as that string, it would cause the string to vibrate in tandem with the other source. So that was basically what was happening. And that's what's so strange about that is that this is not a sound humans can consciously here. Yeah, so low on the scale there scale of hurts, but our our bodies can see. Our bodies seemingly respond to it. By the way, I have found of been doing some experimentation for the video for this week, and you I think it's twenty around twenty one or twenty two hurts. You can hear it with the Sindhiser's um at least if it's what I have found. You can kind of make it out. You can't hear it necessarily, but you feel that something is happening with your headphones. It freaks me out. So what I'm gonna do if you haven't already watched the video. There's gonna be a twenty hurts just tone going throughout the entire episode, and I tested on some sub worffers. I don't think it's gonna hurt anybody, but it should if there's any truth to this, give you an eerie feeling while you're watching it. You know, when the MythBusters did an episode on this, uh, this frequency, they found that they had um they had people saying that they had a sense of aneyase, you know, like a whole body feeling. So that's what that's what we find because not only is this eighteen twenty hurts um range that the fan was in resonant to that fencing foil, NASA found that this is around the same resonant frequency of the human eye, which could explain then how you might see smudges in your vision shadow people. Yeah, you turn left really quickly and all of a sudden, Oh, who's that there was someone standing there? Maybe there was, Maybe there was, but maybe there wasn't. The thing that it's interesting about this is Tandy figures out there is a standing wave and that's why it's concentrated more right in one place than another, and he gets uh, he gets one of the four minute construction workers to replace the fan and then boom, exorcism complete. This is the nicest lab I've ever been in. I want to stay here all the time. So what we learned from that is that there are places in the world that may naturally be haunted, but not necessarily by sentient identities, instead by sounds. And it really cool and still creates the same feeling all being haunted. So it's almost like another It's almost in some ways it's similar to a Turing test, you know, the haunted touring test. Has it fooled you into thinking it's a ghost, then how can we distinguish it from a natural ghost? I don't know? And that so in the Tandy case, they did trace it to a particular fan, and they investigated and once they turned the fan off, the standing way disappeared and this feeling of unease dissipated. The second question that they had still that was left unresolved, was why did this make people feel a certain way? Make people feel uneasy? And they quote another bit of research that they discovered and trying to answer this um and they cite it as a book by tempest Ni. I'm not sure what that means, but you can look it up in the study Ghost in the Machine or the paper Ghost in the Machine is available online DF for free for free so quote noise Consultants were asked to examine one of a group of bays and a factory where workers reported feeling uneasy. That bay had an oppressive feel not present in the adjacent areas. Although the noise level appeared the same. Management, workers and consultants were all aware of the unusual atmosphere, and on investigation it was found that low frequency sound was present at a slightly higher level than in other bays. However, the actual frequency of the offending noise was not obvious. The cause of the noise was a fan in the air conditioning system. Workers in the University Radio Chemistry building experienced the same oppressive feeling, together with dizziness when the fan in a fume cupboard was switched on. Conventional soundproofing had reduced the audible sound to the point where there was hardly any difference in the noise when the fan was on as off. The situation affected some people so much they refused to work in the lab. It was concluded the low frequency component of the sound was responsible, and that's a pretty good way for us to end it today. I think we would like to hear some of your ghost stories listeners and how you can kinnot explain them, because I have a few, to be honest, in my personal life that I still meant a loss to explain. I don't know what happened. Well, I am jealous if yet to have anything of the sort, and I'm actively looking for it. So ghosts, I called to you, I called to you. What what do I what? How do you do it? I summoned me. I think I think it's like if you turn off the lights and say bloody Mary three times in the mirror, you'll get dude. I tried that so many times in elementary school and still never got a drink. Gefty candy, man, get some candy. Tried that, tried it all man. I do want to apologize so that that quote that I read, I just looked in the site and the sources in the paper and it's a someone named w. Tempest and now he's Havny six. The book is called Infrasound and Low Frequency Vibration, Academic Press, London. That makes me think too about the brown note and the the alleged brown Note and the the non lethal name. By the way, DJ brown Note, you changed it, okay for the kids, all right. So this brings us to these other ideas, the effects that low frequency sounds can have on the human mind. We don't have too much time to get into it today, but if you're interested, let us know, because we can tell you that Vic Tandy and a few other, um, further academic researchers are not the only ones poking into these effects on the human mind, not by far, not by a long shot. Uh So let us know. If you would like to hear more about that. You can follow us on Facebook and Twitter, where we are conspiracy stuff. 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