Ghosts and Haunted Houses

[Armitage72]

I prefer this one. (I'm glad it was brought back for a second season.)

 

[dann]

You can't randomly store energy in any old place ...

Never say never!
The Abandoned Ruins of the Old Battery Factory, Bay City. (99wfmk)

 

[dann]

Anyway, all that seems more interesting than "haunting" as explainable phenomena that are (willfully) misinterpreted by the victims.

Welcome to the world of Targeted Individuals!

 

[dann]

BBC's 'Uncanny' podcast.
and the BBC TV series of the same name.

Warning: The token sceptic is ... I'll let you decide.
The resident believer consistently regurgitates this 'houses can record' bollocks.

I am not familiar with any of them:

The story is punctuated by contributions from two experts who attempt to explain the experience; one expert is usually sceptical and will look to a rational psychological or natural explanation, the other will look for parallels with other similar cases. Experts include Caroline Watt, Chris French, Ciaran O’Keefe and Evelyn Hollow.
Uncanny (radio series) (Wikipedia)

Based on their Wikipedia pages, the first two seem to be actual skeptics, so I guess their status as 'token' must be due to how the show is edited.

 

[dann]

Should you find your child levitating over her bed with blood streaming from her eyes, you might note her bedroom is close to a bathroom. Just saying.

Speaking of plumbers, I use a plunger to get the kids down. It works better if they are bald, but many kids object to that solution. It's one of the many reasons why you should get them vaccinated. It's less messy when you can use a magnet.
Better still, get one of those magnetic mattresses to make sure they never start levitating in the first place.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

I am not familiar with any of them:



Based on their Wikipedia pages, the first two seem to be actual skeptics, so I guess their status as 'token' must be due to how the show is edited.

Chris French I'm aware of, he was shown running a very well designed dowsing trial in one Dawkins' documentary series for example. I think Ciaran O'Keefe was the resident sceptic on 'Most Haunted', I was never impressed, but as you say I think that may have been deliberate editing as he (if I'm recalling the right guy) did 'Liar' Derek Acora up like a kipper by planting a fake ghost story for him to hot read at the location that he supposedly had just arrived at with no prior warning.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I wouldn't mind a haunted house movie that worked on the 80-20 rule: 80% explainable phenomena - trees, ducts, settling, etc. - but 20% actually haunted. With the growing tension arising from the fact that you can explain what's going on, but you can't shake the feeling there's something more.

I recently started playing a computer game where all you do is watch various places through a video feed and report 'anomalies', which range from actual specters appearing to objects or furniture having been moved or changed in some way. So it's mostly just a game of memorizing how things are supposed to be, then noting any changes from the extremely subtle (like a light switch where there wasn't one previously) to the extremely obvious (gibbering specter). Weirdly enough, it's the former that feels creepier. Looking at a familiar place where something is different, even if that difference isn't a big deal, is unsettling. I think that when the change is minor it's worse. The mind can accept that a thrown rock might have broken a window then rolled somewhere you can't see it, but not that the wallpaper pattern is very slightly different than it was a few minutes earlier.

 

[theprestige]

I recently started playing a computer game where all you do is watch various places through a video feed and report 'anomalies', which range from actual specters appearing to objects or furniture having been moved or changed in some way. So it's mostly just a game of memorizing how things are supposed to be, then noting any changes from the extremely subtle (like a light switch where there wasn't one previously) to the extremely obvious (gibbering specter). Weirdly enough, it's the former that feels creepier. Looking at a familiar place where something is different, even if that difference isn't a big deal, is unsettling. I think that when the change is minor it's worse. The mind can accept that a thrown rock might have broken a window then rolled somewhere you can't see it, but not that the wallpaper pattern is very slightly different than it was a few minutes earlier.

Reminds me of an idea I had for a "haunted house" attraction. Rather than the usual rooms full of overtly horrific scenes and jump scares, just a series of rooms where things are slightly off. A chair facing a television that plays mostly static, with very brief flickers of something almost intelligible. Doesn't even have to be flickers of something creepy. Just the experience of trying to figure out if the flicker is creepy or not should be enough.

 

[Pixel42]

Short Answer: Nope.

You can't randomly store energy in any old place, and the specific energy required to store a recording in an active matrix would have to be detectable, and would require an unending power source. Recordings degrade over time, cassette tapes, VHS, film stock/negatives, CDs, harddrives, thumbdrives are passive information storage that a require upkeep, and eventually transfer to new mediums.

We explored this idea in the 1990s, throwing out explanations like the crystals in granite, limestone, lead paint, EM fields created by nails, and all kinds of crazy things. We found nothing. The key thing is if it's a "recording" then it should play itself with some consistency. This became known as Residual Haunting, but the problem is a residual haunting would be the easiest haunting to prove, and record. This has never happened.

And if paranormal activity could project light it would be recorded on film, and detectable with cheap sensing devices, and security devices. This never happens under controlled conditions. And I've lost count of reports of a single member of a group seeing something that none of the others saw at the same time. Compare this with going to the zoo, where everyone sees the elephants in the same place at the same time. If a place is actively haunted then recording activity should happen, but it never does.



There are a number of factors that lay the groundwork for a place being labeled as haunted:

1. Cultural Beliefs.
2. Historical Factors (Tower of London, for example. Haunted before science was a thing).
3. Social Factors (urban legends).
4. Architecture
5. Climate

There are many countries whose cultures blindly accept ghosts as real. Other countries have evolved intellectually but keep their ghost stories alive (looking at you, England). You have to understand that ghost stories tend to evolve over time as they are retold. If you can backtrack a story back to its source you will usually find a non-paranormal explanation. Quite often the story is completely made up.

The key to understanding why and or how people see, or hear a ghost can be found with the most common ghost-type experience: A ghost of a still-living person. There are countless reports of someone seeing a family member around the home at a time when they are not there. Reports of seeing a coworker or hearing their voice only to discover they have the day off. The root cause of these experience is an involuntary misperception to neurological stimulus. Usually a familiar sound one closely associates with a specific person. Usually the story involves someone at home, absorbed with a project, who hears the unique sound of a certain family member walking around the house, or doing an activity which makes a specific noise. Often this person will glance down the hallway, or at an open door to see this phantom family member walk past. Later, when this person calls to this family member they discover they're alone, and later learn that family member was not in the house at the time.
This happens a lot, but most of the time the person who experiences the mystery family member correctly brushes it off as one of those things, and forgets about it. Most of these encounters are over in a matter of seconds, but a few are quite involved. Thing is, this is sort of a Pavlovian response. Your sister wears shoes which make a unique clicking sound as they pass over the uncarpeted places of the house. That clicking sound is automatically associated with your sister, and upon hearing that clicking sound you assume she's in the house with you. What really happens is something else made the clicking sound, but it was nearly identical to the noise made by your sister's shoes. Since you are at home, and the sound seems to come from inside the house, your files it under "Sister is Home", and not "Random Clicking Noise".

I bought a new truck later year after driving my last one for 27 years. The rearview and side mirrors still take getting used to, and I frequently wait for a speeding car to pass me only to have it vanish. My brain misidentified a shape as an approaching vehicle, and my instincts take over to remain safe.

People think they saw something, or swear they saw something. And often they did, but it was a trick of the eyes married with a sound, or smell that filled in a false mental picture. Almost like a mini-dream. Doesn't explain them all, but it explains most of that last 1% of the "unexplained".

Excellent response as always. Just a shame the poster you're responding to is unlikely to read it as they last visited the forum in 2012.

 

[PitPat]

It's pretty easy. Just get your college friends to go on a road trip to check out a purported haunted house. Have fun, drink a lot, smoke some weed, then all the sudden things get weird.

Electricity went out, probably a breaker in the basement. Yeah, probably there.

ETA: I just found this weird book just sitting there. Should I open and read it out loud?

 

[Andy_Ross]

Every spooky podcast

 

[theprestige]

Excellent response as always. Just a shame the poster you're responding to is unlikely to read it as they last visited the forum in 2012.

2012 is kind of a big year, for woo.

 

[TragicMonkey]

It's pretty easy. Just get your college friends to go on a road trip to check out a purported haunted house. Have fun, drink a lot, smoke some weed, then all the sudden things get weird.

Electricity went out, probably a breaker in the basement. Yeah, probably there.

ETA: I just found this weird book just sitting there. Should I open and read it out loud?

"Is that the tome of ultimate evil?!"
"Kind of. It's one of those romance books you can buy at grocery stores. There's a shirtless man embracing a woman on the cover, and the title is The Cowboy And The Heiress."

 

[PitPat]

The Passion of Desire? Or the Necromicon?

Both are good in their own ways, but only one has been banned in middle schools.

I'm partial to the former. Thanks to my gay English teacher who taught me and his guy who actually taught right across the hall from him, both in their 60's. But don't tell, because nobody can figure that out.

 

[Armitage72]

Weirdly enough, it's the former that feels creepier. Looking at a familiar place where something is different, even if that difference isn't a big deal, is unsettling.

I think it was one of the "Get Fuzzy" newspaper comics in which either Bucky the cat or Satchel the dog was telling the ultimate scary story for Halloween. Someone enters a room to discover that all of the furniture has been moved into slightly different positions. (Pets often freaking out in that situation.)

 

[dann]

Extreme Haunted Houses and the Science of Horror (Rebecca Watson on YouTube, Oct 30, 2023 - 8:37)

The video takes its starting point in this hulu documentary:

Russ McKamey is the creator of the world’s “most extreme haunted house” - McKamey Manor. He is also a manipulative abuser, according to three people who realize the horror is never over once you decide to enter the Manor.
Horror Documentaries Movie 2023
Monster Inside: America’s Most Extreme Haunted House (hulu)

During the tour, employees of the Manor may physically assault patrons, waterboard them, force them to eat and drink unknown substances, have them bound and gagged, and engage in other forms of physical and psychological torture. Participants may also be drugged during their experience. Journalist Tara West has reported that in the communities where the tour is staged, residents question how it remains legal, even with waivers.[9]
A volunteer guide testified that the 40-page waiver signed by participants listed such possible risks as having teeth extracted, being tattooed, and having fingernails removed.
Controversies
According to participant Laura Hertz Brotherton, on a visit to the Manor in 2016, she repeatedly used her safeword for several minutes before employees stopped torturing her. She was later treated at a hospital for extensive injuries.
McKamey Manor: Overview (Wikipedia)

 

[Thermal]

Extreme Haunted Houses and the Science of Horror (Rebecca Watson on YouTube, Oct 30, 2023 - 8:37)

The video takes its starting point in this hulu documentary:

Hard to understand this attraction, what with pulling teeth and stuff. Seems more like a Marquis de Sade Manor Tour? Although it would be bonzers if the guests could fight back as they made their way through the attraction, perhaps in teams or groups. The whole "Saw" approach doesn't seem really ghostie or haunted, though.

So they promise $20k if you can make it through, but they never had to deliver. Seems like just the threat of pulling out your teeth and fingernails and bones broken and having the tattoo removed (presumably of a penis on your forehead), all of which are explicitly disclosed in the waiver, would financially make that not worthwhile.

 

[theprestige]

Any time something is that obviously and absurdly egregious, my first thought is that it's probably a hoax of some kind. But this sounds more like some kind of loophole in the extortion laws.

 

[Armitage72]

Hard to understand this attraction, what with pulling teeth and stuff. Seems more like a Marquis de Sade Manor Tour? Although it would be bonzers if the guests could fight back as they made their way through the attraction, perhaps in teams or groups. The whole "Saw" approach doesn't seem really ghostie or haunted, though.

There was a series on SyFy called "Scare Tactics", sort of like "Candid Camera" but the victims are confronted with fake aliens, monsters, ghosts, demons, psycho killers, and other frightening science fiction/horror situations. I kept waiting for someone to start attacking one of the costumed actors.

 

[PookieBear]

I live in a house where 5 people died.

A mentally ill man killed his wife here. He also shot his 3-year-old son and 2 of his wife's friends. One of them may have been his wife's drug dealer. He is currently in prison for life.

Later, a different relative died of a heart attack here.


Is this sordid story embarrassing to repeat? Yes.

Do we get any ghostly messages? Of course not.