Ghosts

Poltergeists, hauntings, ectoplasm, and apparitions all have one thing in common: It’s probably aliens. Spirits have been around for as long as people have lived and died on this earth. The tales of ghostly apparitions haunt every corner of our world, at every campfire, old hotel, and wayward asylum. People of all kinds have delved into the deepest reaches of our abandoned buildings searching for the tell tale evidence of the after life.

A lot of people come out of those spaces with photographs and videos of bouncing orbs, ghastly shadows, moving furniture, and even conversations with the long dead. We, as human beings, have always seemed to have this fascination with proving that some of our dearly departed our trapped on this plane but I have to ask myself: “Are we actually right?” I don’t believe so. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you all about it.

My theory deals with a few things: a second dimension, confirmation bias, and an assemblage of charlatans preying on the vulnerable.

Let’s start off with what a haunting actually is to society. Usually, a spirit makes an appearance in a location. You move into a new home, for example. The first few nights are bliss. You unpack your belongings and start settling in to your new dwelling. Then it starts, lights flicker and shadows move out of the corner of your eye. Smells of flowers or rotting meat invade your nostrils. Dreams turn to nightmares while you slumber. Your anxiety levels rise. You start to suspect something is amiss, but brush it off, blaming it on something as simple as the house settling or the infamous “new house, new sounds”.

The ghost, unhappy with it’s progress in your life, kicks it up a notch. Radios blare, televisions turn on and off on their own. Your precious family photos fly off the wall. Kitchen cupboards flap open and closed in an unfelt breeze. Voices whisper to you as you fall asleep. Maybe you’ve even glanced at a spooky figure at the bottom of the basement that you were sure didn’t look that creepy when you bought the house. Now your anxiety is replaced with fear. Fear that your crazy, fear that you are now roommates with a man from the 1800s who constantly leaves your fridge open and doesn’t wash a single dish. You decide to tell someone. A priest, a friend, a family member, the hermit that lives in the woods that your sure is probably a witch?

Ask someone if they believe in aliens and they will usually respond with something along the lines of: “Its silly to think we are the only living things in our universe, I just don’t think they are here.” Ask someone if they believe in ghosts, and nine times out of ten they will probably immediately jump in to telling you about that one time they saw a little girl in the woods or the lady in white at that hotel they stayed at over the summer. We as people have been completely conditioned to believe that the spirits of those who passed are roaming the earth until they can be put to rest. Even in religious groups, you will find believer after believer, even though in the Catholic religion ghosts cannot exist in such a way.

It’s normal in almost every circle to believe in ghosts, yet the sciences studying them repeatedly come back with bupkiss. By now you might be shaking your head and thinking about about all the paranormal researchers, psychics, and mediums that seek out, hunt down, and communicate with the dead. That will bring me to my first point: an assemblage of charlatans preying on the vulnerable.

I know, the description is a little harsh but that is exactly what they do. When was the last time you saw a ghost hunter clamoring through a haunted prison and not find evidence of the paranormal? When was the last time you saw a crew spend the night in a cemetery and say on their wrap up: “Welp, I dunno what to tell you folks. I guess there just aren’t any ghosts here.” Never. That’s when. There is a very easy and simple answer as to why that is, it’s entertainment. It doesn’t matter how scientific or professional your favorite band of ghost hunters operate, they are still a brand, a product. If they can’t produce ghosts, people won’t watch their show because people are watching to see ghosts. If they can’t get people to watch their show, they lose that show and the next group will move up the hierarchy to take their place in the top spots of paranormal investigative television.

I’m not saying that everything they have ever caught on tape is suspect but I am saying that a lot of it is edited for entertainment value. It’s the same with psychics and mediums as well. While I am fully on board with people have special abilities, no one knows that much about “the other side”. It’s even more so when no one can even prove it actually exists. Psychics, unfortunately, are not talking to your dearly departed grandmother with a message from beyond. Most of the time, mediums use a special technique called cold reading. Anyone with access to the internet can learn how to become Shawn Spencer in an afternoon.

Psychics tagging along with a merry group of paranormal researchers are only slightly different than sidewalk mediums and tarot card readers. They get the privilege of knowledge before going out on a call. Yes, I’m aware that they say they have no prior knowledge about the situation but they are lying. They have always been lying, even way back before Google search. Looking up newspaper articles and house information costed very little money and a day trip to the vital statistics office and a library. All the sudden you now have a ghost named Fred who died in your bathroom 90 years ago, and guess what, he’s angry. With access to social media accounts, free internet searches, and digitization of public records, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel at this point.

Now, if we take away mediums for the remainder of the article, picture for a moment that they never existed. You are still left with a bunch of people throughout history that have had strange happenings at their home, even with out a woman and a crystal telling them ole Fred is at it again. That brings us to my next part in my theory: confirmation bias.

Simply defined, confirmation bias is the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories. Which means if you and a group of your friends go into that abandoned house at the end of your street that you’re convinced is haunted, chances are you’ll find ghosts. Every creak, slam, voice on the wind will convince you that you’ve experienced a ghostly visitation. Every orb you capture on film, every shadow, every conversation will further ingrain your belief that ghosts exist even if what they are actually proving is something else entirely.

What proof you are actually gathering could be something as mundane as dust on a lens, a wayward draft, or even a trick of the light. However, there is also a chance that you are capturing evidence of something extraordinary but because you are actively looking for ghosts, it is dismissed for what it really is. Aliens. It’s aliens, obviously. Which brings me to the grand finale of my theory: a second dimension. (sort of)

The Super String theory is the theory that our universe is comprised of different dimensions used to perceive reality. Humans, at least for the moment, live in four dimensions. Those are length, height, depth, and time. So, out of all ten of the theorized dimensions, humans have only been able to breach four. Four out of ten. If we were a Yelp review, no one would visit our restaurant. That leaves six other dimension that we aren’t even able to perceive, yet.

It could be entirely possible that on some distant planet extraterrestrials have found a way to perceive more, if not all, of the dimensions. That would give them possibilities like time travel, interstellar travel, travel to alternate worlds and universes, etc. The possibilities are literally endless. There could be an entire community of aliens around us but we can’t see them because we are stuck in the fourth dimension. So, how are extraterrestrials ghosts? You might still be asking. The answer to that is the Saran Wrap Theory (copyright pending, so hands off yeah?)

The Saran Wrap theory is the easiest most simple way I use to explain how there could be a whole world right under our noses and how stuff gets through to be perceived in our dimension.

Picture a room in your mind. The room is empty except for a large sheet of black saran wrap dividing it right down the middle. You have no idea what’s on the other side since you can’t see it, but you decide to live there anyways. So, you unpack your belongings. You just know a really nice accent table would look just nifty on that creepy black wall. You set all your little knick knacks up in a pleasing way on the table. Maybe you try and hang some family photos on the saran wrap wall, just to jazz the place up a bit (don’t worry, this is real strong plastic wrap).

All settled in, you lay in your bed and get ready to sleep. What’s that? Someone talking? Oh, and I think I heard a slam? Of course you did, it’s plastic wrap. It’s not completely sound proof. Some of that stuff is going to leak through. Some nights go by and your table starts getting rocked by the wall a bit. Your photos are even waving along with the plastic.

More nights go by and your neighbor on the other side of the saran wrap is getting a little out of hand. The pounding, pushing on that plastic wall, has caused your photos to drop into your table and break your brick-a-brack. Oh no! You shout at the top of your lungs for them to knock it off. Maybe they hear you, maybe they don’t, or maybe they don’t care. They can see you because they have the ability to perceive all the dimensions but you can’t see past that dang plastic. You have no idea if anything you’re doing to try to get your “ghost” to stop ruining your mementos is doing any good.

Just like the neighbors in the dimensions you live in, he could be a total jerk. If you ask them to turn the music down, maybe they politely listen and you get no further fuss from them. Maybe, you need to bring in help dealing with your noisy neighbor because they turned it back up just minutes later, so you call the police (someone to do a cleansing). And just maybe, he is a total a-hole and begins stomping around, and mowing the lawn at 6 am on a Saturday just to get under yours skin.