The Doppelganger of Emilie Sagée

A doppelganger is said to be the double or a ghostly apparition of a living person.  Sometimes a doppelganger may be seen in one location when it is known the person was actually in another location.  Other times, the doppelganger may be seen with the person, as was known to have happened in the case of a 19th century teacher named Emilie Sagée.

It is said that one day, while teaching a class, Sagée's double appeared right next to her and mimicked her every move as she wrote on the chalkboard in full view of 13 students.  Although others could see the double, Sagee never noticed the double nor did she notice that own movements slowed when the double appeared.

Sagée's double also appeared away from her though.  In another instance, the entire student body of 42 girls assembled in the school hall for their sewing and embroidery lessons.  The double appeared in Sagée's chair while Sagée could be seen outside in the garden.  Two of the girls attempted to touch the phantom Sagée but felt an odd resistance to her.  One of the girls stepped between the chair and table and passed right through the phantom, which remained motionless and then disappeared.

It was said that Sagée's double would appear when she was worried or immersed in her work.  It was said the double could also appear in a place Sagée was thinking about, like in the case above where she was in the garden; she looked inside at her chair and thought to herself that without supervision, the students may waste time and gossip.

So what was Emilie Sagée's double?  A piece of her spirit leaving her body and traveling on it's own?  Or just some kind of projection she gave off without even knowing it?  The bigger question may be did it really happen at all?  The sources I looked at said the tale was written by Robert Dale Owen who heard the story from Julie von Güldenstubbe, a student at the school Emilie Sagée taught at.  Although it was said that her double was witnessed by multiple witnesses on more than one occasion, the sources don't indicate the story was actually corroborated by multiple witnesses.  It would be nice if others had come forward with the same story.  Without multiple witness corroboration, you have to wonder if the story was true at all.

Source 1
Source 2

Selling a haunted house...disclosure required?

I was reading a post written by Jason Offutt on his blog From the Shadows, and he mentioned that when selling haunted property in Indiana, there are laws that require real estate agents to disclose the haunting.  I was a little shocked by that...but I'm not too surprised.  I'm not surprised that a haunting is considered a stigma when selling a house, but I am surprised that the state would require that a haunting be disclosed.  Who gets to decide whether or not a property is haunted?

I did a little more looking around, and an article I found in the Wall Street Journal says that in 44 states and Washington, DC, a haunting falls under a category of 'psychological stigmas' (although that doesn't necessarily mean that realtors are automatically required to disclose a haunting since it is considered a non-material factor, but they shouldn't lie about it if someone asks) . Another article I found mentioned a court case from New York named Stambovsky v. Ackley, where a home buyer (Stambovsky) sued to rescind the sales contract for the house he bought after he found out it was haunted.  The haunting had not been disclosed to Stambovsky, and he won the case!

I wasn't able to find a list of states that require that a haunting be disclosed, but I got the impression that the laws vary state to state (and may not always be totally clear), and that it's not necessarily required that real estate agents disclose whether or not a house is haunted up front, but they should respond truthfully if a potential buyer asks.

Interesting nonetheless.  In the Stambovsky v. Ackley case, there were publications (including Readers Digest) that reported the house as being haunted.  But what if there were no published accounts of the house being haunted?  What else could a court go by in making a decision?  Who would get to decide whether or not a house was haunted?  Stambovsky had the benefit of buying a house that had been previously reported as being haunted, but what if there was a case where there were no prior reports for a haunting?  My guess is, if there were not prior reports of a property being haunted, it would be difficult to win a court case to rescind a sales contract.

Destination Truth didn't ask enough questions in Petra

In last night's (4/14/10) episode of Destination Truth, the team went to the ruins of Petra in Jordan to search for djinns (a type of spirit, which is the word that our word "genie" is derived from).  At one point, Josh was doing an EVP session and asked out loud if anyone was there with them, and almost immediately afterward, the team heard what sounded like a voice saying "yes."  This wasn't something they heard on the recording after the fact, they actually heard the "yes" out loud.

For some reason, they seemed to be content with just getting that "yes."  You'd think that if someone asked if anyone was around and someone -- whether it's a person, djinn, or something else -- responds, they'd ask for more details.  Instead of settling for a single answer to a question, they should have also asked other questions such as who it was, why it was hanging around Petra, can it grant wishes, etc.  For all they knew at the time, it might have just been a lost tourist wandering near them!

I love Destination Truth, Josh's sarcasm as well as the adventures the team goes on seeking the truth about the unknown give it a real-life Indiana Jones feel that makes for a very entertaining show.  But I think they might have dropped the ball at Petra.  They should have asked more questions!

If plants were self-aware, would they believe in us?

I was thinking about the limitations plants have compared to us.  Plants are alive and interact with the world in their own way; flowers open their petals towards sunlight and (some) trees lose their leaves in the fall.

Plants do not have eyes though, so they cannot 'see' like we do.  As such, they do not even have a concept of what 'sight' is.  And, unlike a person who was born blind, plants cannot understand spoken language either, so we can't just tell them what 'sight' is.

We walk amongst the plants, yet they cannot 'see' us walking amongst them.  A plant may have some sense of our existence amongst them when we touch them and talk to them (hey, some people say talking to plants makes them grow healthier), but, presumably, they have no idea what we look like or what our intentions are.

So, after thinking about that, I wondered whether or not there could be another sense that we are not even aware of?  A plant would have no concept of sight and no idea there is even a such thing as sight, so what if there is some other type of sense that we have no concept of either?  What all may be going on around us that we are not even aware of?  What if ghosts, earth spirits, extra-terrestrials, demons, angels or any combination of the aforementioned were able to walk among us without us 'seeing' them simply because we do not have the sense needed to 'see' them?  Some people who have a 'sixth sense' are sometimes able to sense the presence of such entities and sometimes even communicate with them on some level.  But what if the sixth sense could be stronger?  And what if there is a seventh sense we do not even have a concept of?

There are some people, who if you tell them there are spirits walking amongst us, they won't believe you.  Makes you wonder that if plants could talk to each other and one plant tried to tell some other plants that some sort of intelligent beings walk amongst them, would the other plants believe it?

Paranormal Inspections?

I read an article today about a team of paranormal investigators in Oregon who now make themselves available to perform paranormal inspections of properties before a potential buyer purchases a property.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

Before buying a home, inspections usually mean checking the foundation, roof and pipes. But, sometimes there is another area of concern, things that are a bit more intangible. When there are questions regarding...the unknown... future homebuyers will be especially glad to know that there is someone to turn to.

Investigators with OPHIR (Occult & Paranormal House of Investigational Research) in Salem, Oregon, want to make it easier for homebuyers to make sure all the creaks and bumps are, shall we say, Of This World.

The team's founder says that they do not charge for the paranormal investigation itself, but they do charge a fee to investigate the history of the property.

The article also says this:

This specialized inspection service isn't just for buyers, though. Sellers, beware! You too may have some explaining to do, should you not follow your inclination to see that your property is void of unwanted guests. "You don't want buyers coming back and saying you never warned them about the house's past," Powell said.

"Protect yourself and make a wise future investment," Powell says. "There is a good chance that homes with a reputation or negative history may be harder to sell down the road, so you could get stuck with one."

Read the whole article here.  H/T

I don't see any problem with investigating the history of a property if a buyer is genuinely interested in learning about the property's history.  If it's a very old house, the history may be very interesting, especially to someone interested in history.  But should such an investigation be a necessity? That last sentence quoted in the excerpt above sounds an awful lot like an advertisement for a service where the advertiser overemphasizes the importance of the service with the intention of making a profit.  In other words, the team claims they can help 'protect' your 'investment' if you buy their service.

I've heard of people moving into a home and then wanting to move out after realizing that it is haunted, but is it really that big of a problem?  How many houses are rented or sold everyday where this isn't a problem?  I wonder what the ratio is for houses sold where a haunting doesn't turn into an issue and houses sold where a haunting is an issue.  I don't know what the ratio is, but something tells me that the number of houses sold where a haunting isn't an issue far exceeds the number of houses sold where a haunting is an issue.

The team's founder also advertised their services to sellers, saying,  "You don't want buyers coming back and saying you never warned them about the house's past."

Could this really become an issue?  It might be a little uncomfortable for a seller to admit to a buyer that a house is haunted, but could something like this turn into a lawsuit?  Has anyone ever tried to sue someone for selling them a haunted house and not disclosing that the house was haunted?  I don't know if such a lawsuit has ever occurred, but if it has, I'd be curious to know the result of such a lawsuit.

I don't know much about this team of investigators, and they may be a well-intentioned team of paranormal investigators who sincerely have a passion for their field.  If they perform an investigation of a property's history, then I suppose they have a right to charge a fee for doing so.  But something about the idea of doing 'paranormal inspections' and a couple of the founder's statements regarding the service they perform sounded almost like a scam from the 19th and early 20th century spiritualist movement to me.

Green Fog

The "Paranormal Pastor" Robin Swope tells a story here about a lady named Mary who saw a ghost-like figure in the form of a green mist.  Mary described the green mist as writhing and twisting around in the air as if it were trying to take on a more solid form.

The green mist in the story reminded me of green fogs I've heard about from other stories. Green fogs have allegedly appeared in the Bermuda Triangle before.  The green fogs may have something to do with some of the mysterious disappearances reported in the Bermuda Triangle.

The story of the Philadelphia Experiment also describes a green fog. The Philadelphia Experiment was an alleged military experiment that supposedly attempted to make a warship invisible.  Here is a description from Wikipedia:

In most accounts of the experiment, the destroyer escort USS Eldridge, was fitted with the required equipment at the Philadelphia Naval Yard. Testing began in the summer of 1943, and it was supposedly successful to a limited degree. One test, on July 22, 1943, resulted in the Eldridge being rendered almost completely invisible, with some witnesses reporting a "greenish fog" appearing in its place.

Some versions of the story also claim that the USS Eldridge teleported to Norfolk, Virginia or traveled back in time for about 10 seconds.

Wikipedia also points out in its article on the subject that the Philadephia Experiment is widely regarded as a hoax. Some parts of the story do sound a bit-far fetched, but it's possible that the story may at least be partially true.  The military probably did want to make an invisibility cloak of some sort and may have attempted to do so, but whether or not they were successful, I don't know. Attempting to make an invisibility cloak would not be the strangest experiment carried out by a government around that period of time (the Nazis and Soviets were known for strange experiments too). The more far-fetched parts of the story may have been exaggerations or disinformation.

But what of the green fog mentioned in the story? Oddly enough, the green fog may be what lends some degree of credibility to the story. Bruce Gernon described seeing an "electronic fog" during an experience he had in the Bermuda Triangle. He did not report the fog he saw as being green, but he has reported seeing "green flashes" around the Florida Keys (the fog and flashes may not be directly related though).

In an interview with Bruce Gernon and Rob MacGregor that I found here, MacGregor mentions a researcher named John Hutchinson who created the Hutchinson Effect, in which objects of various materials levitate under the influence of intense electromagnetic activity.  While Hutchinson was conducting experiments, a green fog appeared.  So electronic fog and green fog may be similar types of phenomena.  If so, could there be some kind of connection between the electronic fog Gernon described and the green fog that appeared during the Philadelphia Experiment?

So what are these green fogs?  In the Hutchinson Effect and the Philadelphia Experiment, the fog seems to have been the result of electromagnetic activity induced by man-made technologies.  But what about the reports of green fogs in the Bermuda Triangle or the green mist mentioned in Pastor Swope's article?  Green mists/fogs aren't really all that common in ghost stories, but Pastor Swope's story is certainly not the only one to mention a green mist/fog (see a couple more here and here).  So is green fog also a naturally (or supernaturally) occurring phenomena?

I'm not sure what these green fogs are.  I'm not sure what causes them to be green (or appear to be green) either.  Taking the man-made examples into consideration, the green fog seems to be more of an effect than a cause.  My guess is the phenomena can occur naturally (or supernaturally), but the phenomena can also be duplicated by man with the right electronic technologies.

But regardless of what causes it, if you ever see a green fog, don't be surprised if something weird happens.

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P.S.  I left a comment on a blog posting written by Rob MacGregor mentioning that I had cited something he said in this post.  In his response to my comment, he mentioned another story about green fog that he included  in the book he wrote with Bruce Gernon named The Fog.  According to that story, a fisherman and his partner were pursued by a bank of green fog while fishing off the coast of Florida at 2 AM. As the green fog neared them, they ran for it and called it a night.

So there is another example of green fog around the Bermuda Triangle.

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P.S.S.  I also want to clarify that the reason I think the green fog may lend some credibility to the story about the Philadelphia Experiment is because it happened before these other stories were written.  So these other examples of green fog/mist and the Hutchinson Effect that Rob mentioned may lend some credibility to the story about the Philadelphia Experiment because green fog was also said to have been witnessed during the experiment.  If the Philadelphia Experiment was completely fictional, what are the odds that the story tellers of the time would have mentioned green fog?  I can't dismiss the possibility that the Philadelphia Experiment is a hoax, but it seems unlikely (though not impossible) that the story tellers of the time would have been familiar with green fog in this context.

Introverted Ghosts?

Electronic voice phenomena (EVP) is commonly used as evidence of ghosts trying to communicate audibly. You can find EVP clips on the internet or listen to them on TV shows like Ghost Hunters. I've listened to various clips of alleged EVPs, and some of them are rather intriguing. Sometimes they seem to say a person's name or respond to a question out loud.

But they aren't very clear. They usually just sound like blips of static to me. Once the ghost hunters suggest what they think the static says, I do think to myself, "Oh yeah, it does kind of sound like that I guess." But is it really saying that? Or is it just the power of suggestion? Are we just trying to hear what were told to hear? I don't know, maybe I'm just not good at interpreting EVPs.

But lets go ahead and assume for a moment that EVPs are communications from the spirit world. Why are they so brief? Why don't the ghosts ever seem to give many details? Why don't they say more? Is it difficult for them to communicate via sound waves? Do they have to muster up a lot of energy just to make a sound that an electronic device will pick up that will sound like a spoken language understandable to the listener?

Someone might argue that the ghost hunters can't hear the ghost say anything at the time, so they aren't able to carry on a conversation with them. But if that were the case, why not just explain to the ghost that they can't hear them now but that they are going to leave a recording device running and ask the ghost to give them a full dissertation on who they are, what the 'other side' is like, and what they do all day and that they will check back on the recording device later for any messages.

What if the ghosts have another reason for not saying that much though? What if they are intentionally vague because they don't think we can fully comprehend their answers? Sometimes ghost hunters sound like they are talking to a scared toddler when they talk to a ghost. Maybe they should consider the possibility that the ghosts know more about being ghosts than they do. Maybe they should consider that the ghosts are not confused and are fully aware of what is going on. Maybe the ghosts think we wouldn't be able to understand what its like on the 'other side' yet. Maybe it's like how a parent waits until a child reaches a certain age before they tell them about the birds and the bees. Maybe the ghosts think we're just to 'young' to understand.

But actually, I think it's probably more likely that the ghosts find it difficult to communicate via electronic recording devices. People have communicated (or at least appeared to communicate) with spirits via Ouija boards for years (Ouija boards are not recommended though!). Psychic mediums have claimed to communicate with spirits in another way. Ghost hunters have apparently carried on conversations with spirits via K2 meters (either that or they've gotten really really lucky with getting the device to light up right after asking questions out loud). So it's not necessarily that ghosts are always short on words, they just don't seem to be to fond of saying a lot on electronic recording devices.

 Of course, I can't dismiss the possibility that the static is just static from a random radio wave passing by. But there's still plenty of other types of evidence to suggest that ghosts do exist. I'd still believe in ghosts even if EVPs were just static.

Crossing Back

Michael Prescott posted another interesting near-death experience (NDE) story on his blog.  The story is about Noelle McNeil, who suffered brain injuries in horse riding accident.  Here is an excerpt he quoted from the newspaper story he found the article in:

McNeil was diagnosed with diffuse axonal injury in which many of the connections of the brain were severed. She said less than 3 percent of such patients make meaningful recoveries ...

[But] while her family and community and community prayed for a bedside miracle, the comatose McNeil was on an otherworldly journey. McNeil said she remembers leaving her body, gliding over brightly lit clouds into a brightly lit place where she encountered her Uncle Joe, her father's brother, who had died several years before.

"I asked Joe if this was heaven," McNeil explains in her book Heaven Exists. "He said yes. I asked if I could go back because I did not want to leave my life yet. I had so much more left I want to do."

Communicating telepathically, she said, Uncle Joe ultimately told her she could return to her body. He promised she would recover but told her it would take a long time.

"I had been to heaven and now I would have a glimpse of what hell is -- waking up to find myself totally debilitated in a hospital, unable to eat, walk or function in any real sense," she wrote.

McNeil returned to her body, but she had a long period of recovery ahead of her.

One aspect of her story that I found interesting was that she asked if she could return to her body.  In many of the NDE accounts I have read, the NDErs were content to stay in the spiritual realm.  Some didn't want to return but were told it was not their time yet (or something to that effect).  McNeil wanted to return to her physical body though.  When I thought about her story some more, I wondered if others may have asked to return to their physical bodies but were denied their request.  Could a situation like that possibly result in an 'intelligent haunting' (the type of haunting where the ghost seems to be aware of what's going on around it)?   Intelligent hauntings are commonly thought to be the ghost of a dead person.  If true, could these ghosts be haunting a location because they were denied a request to return to their physical body?  Could they have chosen to defiantly remain in a location familiar to them instead of crossing over?

I'm not claiming to know the answers to those questions, but I figured if someone could ask to return to her physical body and have her request granted, then theoretically, I figure that it may also be possible that similar requests could be denied in some instances.

Just a thought...

I've never experienced an "astral projection" (at least not that I can recall) and don't know a whole lot about it, but I do consider it to be a possibility and more than just someone having a vivid dream.

I saw an astral projection FAQ page, and I don't know if the author of the page is credible or not, but one of the questions and its answer on the page piqued my curiosity.  Here it is:

You had said that there is an image of every physical object in the astral. Can you touch or change a particular object in the astral? Say, if it is a piece of paper, can you write? If you can, will it be in the altered condition when you return to the physical world? 

 The astral counterpart is exactly that. For example, once in the astral, I picked up a lipstick and drew something on the bathroom mirror, but it was not there in the physical. I have heard of cases where electric objects can be affected by the astral. All things can be changed in the astral but whether they will be changed in the physical depends on how close vibrationally you are to the physical. I have read that things exist in the astral because of our thoughts, and how long that remains in the astral depends on how much it is thought about. For example, mass religion may construct a "heaven" which becomes almost a permanent place in the astral because of so many millions of continual thoughts; whereas the lipstick I drew on the mirror will not be there after a few hours. That is why you can sometimes see furniture in your room that is not your own. It is probably the previous owner's furniture, which has its own imprint that has remained, and will take months to years to fade.

Again, I can't vouch for how credible that answer might be, but let's just take it into consideration for a moment.

Now, before we go any further, think back to the ancient Egyptians and their burial practices (the kings in particular).  When we think of the Egyptians, we often think of what a magnificent civilization they were.  We marvel at their accomplishments and their amazing architectural skills that still remain a mystery today.  The ancient Egyptians seemingly appeared out of no where in the historical record as an already advanced civilization.  There's little evidence of their progression from primitive to advanced.

But when we think of their burial practices and how they included all sorts of treasures and objects that they thought their dead kings would need in the afterlife, we often think of them from a perspective of 'oh those silly old ancient peoples and their hokey rituals'.

Now, with the above question and answer in mind, could it be that the ancient Egyptians thought their kings would be able to use the 'image' of the physical objects they placed in their tombs?  If so, then going by what the author of that FAQ page said, it would explain how the dead king would be able to use the objects, while the objects appeared to remain physically intact and in place.

If so, then I guess maybe the old burial rituals the Egyptians used might not be as silly as we thought they were.  Of course, presumably the dead king's spirit wouldn't be limited to just hanging around his tomb, so the ritual of putting the objects in his tomb would have still been kind of pointless.  However, I thought it was an interesting thought to consider that maybe the dead kings spirits  might have actually been using the objects in their tomb!

Paranormal Hotspot: Mount Shasta

Photo by Bill Gracey.

On a whim, you decide you want to take a vacation and go on a multi-faceted paranormal investigation.  You want to investigate bigfoot, ghosts, aliens, UFOs, lost civilizations, mysterious ancient legends, and some sort of new agey beliefs too. But you just don't have the time and resources to visit the Pacific Northwest, the Myrtles Plantation, Roswell, Rendlesham Forest, Akrotiri, Teotihuacan, and Stonehenge.  So what are you to do?  Go to Mount Shasta of course!

The area around Mt. Shasta, CA has been inhabited for thousands of years.  The peak the city is named after has long been viewed as a sacred place to Native American tribes in the area.  It was thought that the mountain was the center of creation, and the Great Spirit created it by pushing ice and snow through a hole from heaven and then using the mountain to step onto the earth.  It was also thought that the Great Spirit, known as Skell, dwelled on the mountain after creation.  It even has a story of a great flood attached to it.

New Age groups have regarded the mountain as a sacred location as well.  It's been claimed that beneath the mountain is a very ancient city called Telos, which is allegedly where people from the ancient lost continent of Lemuria (a.k.a. Mu) settled after Lemuria was destroyed.  Allegedly, they continue to live beneath the mountain in a utopian like civilization.  Sometimes it's claimed they are physical people, sometimes it's claimed they dwell on a different plane of existence, perhaps as 4th or 5th dimensional entities (4th dimensional denoting a higher awareness of spirituality/consciousness, 5th dimensional meaning a non-physical intelligent entity).  The story of Telos actually comes from a fictional novel called A Dweller on Two Planets that was written in 1800s by Frederick Spencer Oliver.  It was thought that the author must have 'channeled' the story because he was only 17 and the depth of the topics covered seem to be beyond what a 17 year old of the time would have been capable of writing.  Decades later in the 1930s, the secret society known as the Rosicrucians would popularize the belief that advanced Lemurians lived beneath Mount Shasta.

Native American legends and New Age beliefs aside, there are many reports of strange phenomena occurring at Mount Shasta.

-Bigfoot has been sighted there. Link
-Ghosts have been sighted there. Link
-UFOs have been sighted there. Link Link 2 Link 3 (Update 11/16/12: Original Link 2 no longer worked so I replaced it with a new link I found and added a third link)

In addition to claims that Mount Shasta is an entrance to the hollow earth, it's also been claimed that there is an underground military base there.  Even Batsquatch has been sighted there!  Interestingly, Batsquatch is a creature allegedly sighted around Mount St. Helens, a stratovolcano.  Mt. Shasta is a stratovolcano also.

There's a lot stories regarding paranormal phenomena on Mt. Shasta, however it's hard to find a lot of good, credible research regarding those stories.  Some of the stories are probably fictional or fabricated, some of them may be misidentifications, others may be exaggerated.  However, despite some of the stories being questionable, I think there is enough evidence to suggest that Mt. Shasta is indeed a mysterious place.  Whether it's ghosts, legends, UFOs, or cryptozoology, a paranormal researcher can probably find something of interest to study at Mt. Shasta.  It seems to be quite the 'paranormal hotspot'.

The Residuals

One of the most curious aspects of ghost hunting to me are the so called 'residual hauntings', also known as 'recordings'.  The reason these are so intriguing to me is because they seem to make the least amount of sense.  In an intelligent haunting, the haunting seems to be caused by some sort of non-physical entity, whether it be a ghost, demon, or something else.  Although these situations can be mysterious, if you already believe or know these beings exist, then the mystery becomes more a question of why they are there, instead of  if they are there.

But a residual haunting doesn't appear to be intelligent.  It appears to just be a recording of a past event.  So if it isn't a ghost or intelligent non-physical entity, then what causes it and why?  And what causes one event to be recorded but not another?

What got me thinking about it is a friend of mine who has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) since returning from Iraq.  He admitted recently that he still hears 'radio chatter'.  This is different from 'hearing voices' in the traditional sense in that the voice (or voices) don't appear to be intelligent, or 'living'.  He described it as being 'residual'.  In other words, he just hears 'recordings' of radio chatter.

The effects of PTSD don't appear until after returning from war because the adrenaline rush is no longer there.    I don't know exactly what causes it or where it is 'recorded', but there does seem to be a residual effect on the mind.

So I wonder if the earth experiences something similar?  Are residual hauntings the result of the earth experiencing a strong emotional event in a particular location?  Can the earth remember this event after the emotion - the adrenaline rush - is gone?

And if it is a recording, then what is the event recorded on?  A popular theory suggests certain types of rocks (such as limestone) can record events.  Another possibility is atmospheric conditions.  But how would events be recorded on rocks?  We can record information on magnetic surfaces with computers, but these are specifically designed for recording information.  The computer serves as a conduit.  But what is the conduit for residual hauntings?  If we assume for a moment that certain types of rock can record events, then what is the conduit that makes it happen?  Are phonograph records, casette tapes, CDs. DVDs, hard drives, and flash drives a naturally occurring phenomenon that we have overlooked?  Or are we going in the wrong direction altogether with the rock hypothesis?

If events can be recorded on certain types of rocks, then another question we could ask is can those events be erased?  If we quarry the area, would the residual haunting go away?  What if a shopping mall is built in an area where a ghost train had been seen before?  Would building the shopping mall erase the 'recording' of the ghost train?

What if these 'recordings' aren't recordings at all?  What if they are glimpses of past events as they occur?  What if there is some sort of 'wormhole' that is attached to a specific location at a specific point of time that occasionally opens and allows people to view a past event as it occurs?

But if we can see recordings of past events, could people in the future potentially see recordings of people living now?  Or if the wormhole theory is more accurate, could people from the future be watching an event occurring right now without the people involved even being aware that they are being watched from the future?

There are many questions regarding this subject.  The questions could have multiple theoretical answers, but I think it would be difficult to prove any of those answers.  But it is an intriguing mystery.