Ghost Corridor. Photo: Otello Amaducci

Seen A Ghost? Who You Gonna Call?

So, you’ve seen a ghost—you’re sure of it. And you’re dying to talk about it, but you’re afraid people will just laugh. Worse, they might think you’re off your rocker. How can you get someone to just listen?

Fortunately, as with so many things, the internet holds the answer. The popular website Your Ghost Stories really wants to hear about your real-life interactions with spooks. Right at the top of their home page you’ll find the following friendly invitation:

“Your Ghost Stories is a place where you can find all kinds of resources regarding real ghosts and true hauntings cases, but more importantly, it is a site for publishing, sharing and reading real ghosts experiences from real people like you. It has come to our attention that many people have had this kind of unexplained experiences, and it makes for wonderful readings, maybe at times disturbing, but most often, leaving you wondering what is happening on the other side of material life and our physical senses.” [continue reading…]

Ghosts Of A Feather . . .

Ghosts, Classified By Kind. Which One’s In Your Attic?

How many kinds or types of ghost are there? Until recently, we would have said one “regular” disembodied type, and a handful of “walking dead” variations. But then we read Roger Clarke’s book, Ghosts—A Natural History: 500 Years Of Searching For Proof—and learned how wrong we were.

Clarke is British, and it turns out that during the mid- to late 20th Century a small group of British ghost hunters threw the same level of passion into classifying ghosts that lepidopterists from Britain once invested in capturing and classifying the world’s butterflies. Except, there are a lot fewer species of ghosts: eight to be exact. Or is it nine? Or twelve?

In a chapter titled “A Taxonomy of Ghosts,” Clarke relies heavily on the work of ghost hunter and ghost-story collector Peter Underwood to describe each of eight types of apparition. He begins with the most primitive kind, which Underwood called an “Elemental.” Elementals are ghosts that move little if at all; instead they glare at passers-by from a single location—often from within an old burial ground. Underwood described them as “race-memory manifestations” in that they usually are dim reflections from the distant mythological past of the community in which they occur. According to Clarke, American ghost hunters might consider elementals to be demons rather than ghosts, as it is not clear whether they ever were human. [continue reading…]

Anonymous Chalk Drawing Of Creepypasta Character Slenderman. Photo:MDL70

Creepy Pastas—AKA Contemporary Urban Ghost Lore

Ghost stories have taken a number of different forms over the centuries. Here in early 21st Century America, the newest incarnation is the “creepypasta,” a scary tale that circulates on the internet. Creepypastas usually originate among amateur storytellers who are fascinated by the supernatural; often these writers have been influenced by popular horror movies and online games. Creepypasta characters and other story elements frequently are shared and recycled among people who create them.

As with any creative undertaking practiced by large numbers of enthusiasts rather than by professionals, quality among creepypastas varies widely. Some are well written; many are not. Some are entertaining, while a sizable percentage suffer from predictability. [continue reading…]