World's Scariest Ghosts - or World's Least Convincing Ghosts?

` It's easy to be tricked by what you see. Especially if you feel absolutely sure that you know what you're seeing.
` I admit, I've been tricked this way many times - for example, just last weekend a prankster had me terrified, thinking that our downstairs neighbors were impersonating a police officer and later left me a message to tell my boyfriend that they were now going to 'get' him for calling the cops about that.
` It's a long story.
` I was glad when he came home in one piece so I could tell him that he was in danger - at the same time, the police had finally called us back. Just as they were on their way to arrest our neighbors we got a call from someone we know who said, "Oh, by the way, that was me! Wasn't that funny?"
` We told him how much it wasn't.

` It's things like this that help one realize how easy it is to be fooled - and mortally terrified by being fooled! An immature person on the phone seemed like a seedy thug to me, despite the fact that two of the details in the phone call didn't quite seem right.
` Similarly, though less frighteningly, one of my psychology teachers related the time he heard sounds that convinced him that were rats in the walls - only to find they were coming from a moth trying to escape from his skylight!
` Partial or sketchy information can evoke strong emotions - and it is for this reason that they are sometimes unwarranted. What you can't see your mind automatically makes up, or tries to, depending on what you're thinking of, and you don't necessarily notice how much of it takes place in your head. If you only think of one explanation, that explanation becomes your reality. Sometimes, though, it's the wrong explanation!

` That's why, as I've said, one of the objects of science is to rule out various explanations until you find the one that is most likely. Scientists are generally very serious about finding out the truth, though they may still accidentally pollute their own studies by being biased and then completely fail to realize it. (That's why other scientists are around to challenge them and repeat their experiments, etc.)
` It is actually normal to 'pollute' one's own life with one's own biases and opinions. Usually, this does not cause many problems, but sometimes it can - such as potentially arresting people for something they not only didn't do, but know nothing about.
` If one firmly believes in untrue things about, say, the nature of a group of people (positive or negative), or that certain people have a special privilege to impose whatever they like upon others, it's been known to sometimes create very large problems.
` If everyone looked at themselves the way scientists looked at the universe, more people would, for example, find more out about where their own ideas and attitudes come from, and in the process, better understand how easy it is to trick themselves.

` Though learning how to 'look before you leap to conclusions' would benefit anyone, it is sometimes discouraged and looked down upon here in America. This is reflected (and exacerbated) by the general lack of any serious questioning to extraordinary, questionable claims as presented on television shows (or in reams of books).
` Sometimes, when there is critique, either not much is shown or it is otherwise presented in such a way that it doesn't appear to make a dent in the claims. The evidence shown for them, on the other hand, is generally dubious or ephemeral, but is made to look as firm and substantial as possible.
` This is because the main point of television shows is to gain viewers. If people actually think that something is both dramatic and real, they are more likely to keep watching. In the days before I got rid of my television, I used to watch educational programming, and even then I observed that a lot of it had inaccuracies and flaws - sometimes atrociously so!

` To reiterate; for monetary reasons, proper representation on TV is less important than creating sensationalism or letting sloppiness and misunderstandings take hold. As far as criticizing extraordinary claims, there are only a few shows that actually have done so while many more only pretend to, effectively mocking skepticism by doing a splendidly bad job of imitating it - then taking the whole 'investigation' seriously!
` A lot of people, I am sure, do not know the difference between a real critical investigation and a cheap imitation, so this type of thing would be good enough at leading some of them to laugh at skeptics.
` Really, I think a good dose of learning how to ask questions, the way a scientist would, is just the sort of thing American citizens need more of.

` Since it's nearing Halloween, I thought I would post a critical review of a television show featuring both video and photographic 'evidence' that some people insist are real ghost activity. I will demonstrate how very easy it is to find much more plausible explanations for these 'haunting' images despite the fact that none are offered throughout the entire program.

` I am talking about one entitled 'World's Scariest Ghosts'. Long ago I may have believed these videos to be compelling evidence of real goings-on, but now I see a variety of other things happening, or potentially happening.

` Go ahead and start loading up the video now, if you like, so you can see exactly what I'm talking about.

` The opening announcement, concerning the ghostly cases presented in the show says, '...But none can be authenticated. Are they real? You decide.'
` Though this program supposedly involves 'paranormal investigators' and 'experts', all we really have is emotional eyewitness accounts and footage of things that don't look particularly supernatural. There are zero attempts to verify whether or not anything strange had gone on. That must be why the viewers are supposed to be the ones to decide!

Mysterious Liquid, Noises, and People Generally Freaking Out

` The first segment deals with a woman, 'Jackie' who kept feeling like there was an evil activity in her home, and says that it has to do with a reddish-orange liquid, which is pooled on a shelf in her cabinet - in addition, there is what appears to be dark yellow glue in a line above the top shelf.
` We see no one asking what it is or trying to find where it comes from. It could even be put there by someone, as we don't see it emerging from anywhere.
` This reminds me that there also used to be reddish-orange liquid dripping from my present bathroom's ceiling. These were probably 'stalactites' of nicotine stains left by the previous tenants. Well, at least they'd killed the mildew off.

` The stomping noises in her attic might conceivably be water dripping on metal or the roof changing shape due to temperature - I generally ignore similar sounds. (Though, many times I heard footsteps in the attic above me and they turned out to be from a homeless woman taking shelter during the winter.)
` I am slightly amused by how horrified investigator Jeff Wheatcraft looks when he went into the attic and was allegedly almost strangled by a cord hanging from a nail - he says a ghost was responsible for this. In truth, similar things have happened to me. I don't know how, but my head gets caught in things when I'm probing around with a flashlight and I don't see them until I back away and find that something is wrapped around my neck!
` Presumably, he could also have been staging this 'assault' - or exaggerating something that happened accidentally. He has good reason to because this is for a television show which requires drama. You know, like so-called 'reality' shows?
` Interestingly, this incident is not on tape, though if it had been, it supposedly would have been more compelling that a ghost was actually attacking the man. All we see is a photograph of a fearful-looking Jeff standing precariously on a rafter with his head stuck at an odd angle in a twisted cord.
` Then, towards morning, Jackie goes ballistic because she believes the ghost has attacked her baby. Why? Because she suddenly notices a red mark on the baby's forehead. It could be a bruise that took a while to appear, or - who knows? - it could be some of that dripping, reddish-orange stuff! Sometimes things happen that nobody notices. It's also really emotionally engaging when it's your baby you believe is in trouble.
` So says the narrator, Jackie moved out after that and the house has been quiet since then. Okay. That statement seems to tell us more about Jackie than the house.

` In any case, there is nothing that can be seen or heard that is really unusual - just the way the people are reacting - and we see no attempt to narrow down possibilities of what may be going on. Really, lots of spooky things happen all the time to me, though generally I figure out what's happened eventually.

Objects Moving With No Visible Cause

` The second segment is a bit better than the first because it supposedly shows actual poltergeist activity before our eyes! Now, poltergeist activity quite often turns out to be children (yes, even very young ones) who find that pretending they are being attacked by unseen forces gets them attention. Keep that in mind.
` On the other hand, the next video shows a glass being dragged across a table a few inches, the typewriter next to it being rotated by one corner, a reclining chair being rocked, and then the sound of the door being slammed again and again.
` The video after that, from an entirely different person, shows some invisible force grabbing the leg of a chair and pulling it offscreen, then a piece of sheet rock appears out of the new wall and is similarly pulled up through the air and off the other side of the screen.
` Invisible forces? Sure; fishing line is even more invisible on videotape than it is on film. The simplicity of the movements (i.e. objects moving from one 'attachment point' in a straight line) would suggest that this is what is being used.

A Family Secret?

` Here we have Ed and Lorraine Warren, who are well-known to have been entertainers and phony ghost hunters - that's right, they weren't even real ghost hunters! According to people who have investigated the Warrens, they were a kooky old couple that consistently distorted actual stories of hauntings and were very secretive about their very dubious 'evidence' of ghosts - some of which was actually exposed as being obviously hoaxed and/or misrepresented (the best-known case probably being The Amityville Horror).

` But, I digress - I'm supposed to be focusing on alleged effects by ghosts in this account: First, we hear some table-tapping in response to Ed's questions in a kind of 'séance'. It can easily be faked by any one of the people sitting around the table.
` I could mention here that the entire spiritualism movement (mediums, séances, etc.) was started in 1848 by the young Fox sisters, who found clever ways to trick people into thinking that their questions were being answered by ghostly rapping sounds.
` Later on, they came up with new tricks, such as producing lights, ghostly hands and 'spirit-writing'. By the time Margaret Fox began a tour of public demonstrations of how she could seem to produce rapping sounds from any part of a theater, spiritualism in general had far too long been out of her control to stop.
` So, who knows? Someone could be tapping the table with their foot or cracking their toe joint against it. The camera does not even peer under the table!

` Next, we see footage of the table itself, with Ed apparently alone and to the left of the video camera. One of the chairs moves toward the left of the camera where Ed must be, pulled by one leg. Was it fishing wire? (It's hard to say, as the legs of the chairs are difficult to see.)
` Then, the chair moves again while at precisely the same time the camera is also bumped - my guess is that this was Ed bumping the camera while pulling the chair himself. Then, "in the name of Jesus Christ", the entire table along with the chairs slides towards Ed. (Fishing wire is indeed strong enough to do that with.)

` Again at the table, we next find the little girl doing homework, and her elbows are firmly braced against the tabletop while her feet are wrapped around the front legs of the chair. It is very easy to lean the chair back on two legs from this position, which is what she appears to be doing. Try it and see!
` But what is said about this in the video? 'Oh, her feet aren't touching the floor, which means she can't be doing this herself; therefore, a ghost must be responsible.' That's a huge leap of logic, especially since the truth is really the opposite; you can't tip a chair like that without your ankles or feet 'grabbing' it like she is, because this motion is a sort of abdominal crunch rather than a pushing-down with the arms.
` All one has to do is lean against a table, hug a chair with one's legs, and lift up one's feet. The chair is easily picked up. If one tries doing the same thing with one's feet on the floor, the only thing that lifts up is one's feet.
` Similarly, when the table is 'pushed out' from under her, she simply appears to be pushing the table - which similarly can only be done if one's feet are hanging onto one's chair for leverage: If someone puts their feet on the floor and pushes, they are simply pushed away from the table. Try it yourself!
` It's simple body mechanics, really - I suspect that the only people who are fooled into thinking this video must be supernatural have probably never tried doing it themselves (or at least realized it if they were doing it).

Waking Up, Unable To Move

` Here are some eyewitnesses describing seeing people, feeling presences, etc. which I find to be perfectly plausible; I have had such experiences myself since the age of two. Most recently, I woke up one morning to find that I was on my side, looking over at the floor. I couldn't move. I thought, 'oh, this again'. Then, I heard someone walking towards me and I could feel the mattress sink as they stepped onto it.
` It was a man, who started saying some nasty stuff he was going to do. I said "No." he said "Yes."
` I couldn't see him, though, and I started to think for a moment that he was real and began to be frightened. I finally managed to move enough to roll over and found that I was alone - but that didn't stop me from having to calm myself down afterwards.
` I've had many similar experiences and have seen and heard many things, from a roommate I'd had at the time wrestling with the cat near the bed, to completely floating off through the wall and into an alien spaceship.
` It's called sleep paralysis - it can be a usual occurrence for some people, and can happen to seemingly anyone under certain conditions, especially if they are under a lot of stress. It's a period of time when some of your brain acts as if it's awake - so you might think you're wide awake - while other parts aren't yet.
` As a result, it can really appear to you as if something is watching you, as if your chest is being crushed (you can't gasp for air), as if you are being restrained, as if you are being raped, as if you are being lifted into the room, as if you are being rotated, as if small creatures of some sort are kidnapping you, and you may hear or see a variety of different things - often terrifying, even to people who study sleep paralysis.
` These can be very emotional experiences, and records of them go back thousands of years.

` Most noticeable is that you can't move. This starts because when you are dreaming, the part of your brain that allows voluntary movement is shut down. (On the other hand, acting out dreams occurs when that part of your brain is not turned off while you are dreaming; however, sleepwalking is different because it takes place between dreams when you aren't paralyzed.)
` During sleep paralysis, part of you is aware of the room around you while part of you is 'dreaming'. So, you are still unable to move as if you were dreaming, plus you may have strange and unusual sensations around you that are often influenced by the paralysis itself, including vivid hallucinations that you may or not be able to distinguish from reality.
` That doesn't mean you're crazy, of course, just that you're not fully awake, and you're not experiencing reality like you normally would.
` What these people are describing are textbook cases of sleep paralysis - being paralyzed, feeling as if they're being held down, being unable to speak, seeing figures, sensing telepathic communication, etc. Classic examples.
` So I would say that in this segment, we have typical examples of a phenomenon that's well-known, fairly common, and many people who have these experiences are convinced that something has happened in the 'real world' outside their heads.
` In other words, this isn't unusual. How is it evidence for ghosts?

Wildland Music Video 'Figure'

` As for the supposed 'ghost' in the Wildland music video, shot in the former town of Glenn Davis. This one is extremely easy to explain, especially since nobody claims to have seen it in real life.
` The first thing I noticed is that it doesn't move. The second thing I noticed is that is doesn't look like a person. Now, this film is black and white, so all we have is a twisted, dark lump (metal?) that vaguely resembles the body of a human figure standing in and leaning against an opening in what is left of a wall. Because it does not overlap with the top and side of the opening, it would actually appear to be some sort of debris that has fallen from the building and was still propped up against it, just behind the wall.
` Above the first lump is another dark shape that appears to be of the same stuff, coming out from behind the wall just above the first lump - it looks to be part of the same object, curled around.
` It is positioned just so that it looks like it could be a hat. But there is no head - you can easily see a white panel on the building behind and a post, which create a continuous background both above and below the 'hat'. However, they are aligned with the edge of the 'hat' so as to create the illusion of a light-colored 'face' - though it is clearly visible above the 'hat' as well.
` If you don't notice that is is just part of the background, it may look like a disjointed parallel line where the face should be that moves at a different rate as the camera moves - and that is basically what the director of the music video is saying it is, except he also evidently thinks that this movement is evidence of being the face of a ghost!
` Why investigate the deaths of poor miners or priests who had once lived there? The dark part is clearly not something that overlaps with the top or sides of the opening in the wall, and it sinks behind it as the camera moves. Also shifting in perspective, relative to the dark parts, is the lighter part, which is clearly part of the background. It does not look like a face, and is obviously not even part of the same object.
` As the producer of the video said; "There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever that that was a ghost." Personally, I'd rather believe my own eyes.

A Projected Light

` This video is clearly a projected light that is moving across the surface of one side of the hallway wall, flittering over door frames and other objects, shrinking at the far end of the hall, and then growing again as it slides nearer, over the surface of the other long wall and off the edge of the screen.
` The shape is flat, narrow, and near the floor, apparently unvarying except for the fact that it is distorted by the objects it's hitting - it looks like it could be a reflection, or from a car headlight coming in from a crack beneath a curtain.
` But, the man who lives in the house, Edgar, thinks it's actually the ghostly arm of his mother, walking across the hall and into a doorway. (I don't see anything like an arm, nor do I see it entering a doorway at any point.)
` The reason he believes this, though, is because he set up the camera to film whatever's making the footsteps he hears at night. Okay, I used to hear footsteps coming from one part of the house I grew up in - the part of the house my grandpa had once lived in.
` I heard them from the floor above, I heard them from the basement. They generally happened only in the afternoon and at night. I had always assumed that it was the house expanding or contracting in response to the temperature.
` Silly me, it could have been my grandpa's ghost! I should have set up a video camera. But wait - I also heard them when he was still alive, and he was scarcely even able to walk. Wait a second....

The Greencastle Mansion

` Onto the photos of the abandoned mansion during a spooky lightning storm. First, there's a strong smell like sulphur and roses. I'm not sure what smells like sulphur and roses, though there's no reason a smell would be supernatural. Perhaps it's from something that's been rotting in there for a while?
` Then the photographer said he heard a heartbeat in his head, but it wasn't his. How can he be sure? I've heard my own heartbeat and not realized it was mine because I was paying too close attention to things that were frightening me. In fact, once I was so scared I didn't know my own hand was my own hand - I thought some weird, scaly thing was touching me until I looked down!

` As for the pictures of the 'ghosts' seen in the upstairs windows - they are obviously light reflecting off the 'melted'-looking old glass. Know how I can tell? Look closely - they are seen behind the outer façade of the building, but in front of the windowsill and frame on the interior of the room!
` The three photos of the 'pink lady' show exactly the same thing - a pattern in the wavy glass with a crack in it - though with slight variations which could be caused by shifting position slightly between photos. Whatever the light is from (the flash?) it's definitely on the glass.
` So, the 'photographic expert' saying that they're very interesting because they're really on the film has nothing to do with their authenticity. The 'computer graphics expert' is then shown distorting the images with a 'bas relief' filter (he pronounces is 'bass' relief), which I've observed exaggerates the depth of any image so that it makes small photos of real people look like skeletons, rotting zombies, or completely unrecognizable shapes. For that reason, I don't like using it.
` But our expert here is now baffled that the 'face' in the photo now looks like a skull. Yes, and so would a good number of other face-like images. I fail to be surprised.
` Somehow, it's then important to find out who once lived in the house. Fair enough. Apparently, there was a woman named Irene O'Hare. The name was also found scratched on the bedroom wall - there also appears to be more writing below that. Is a name clumsily written on a wall evidence of a dead person because they lived there?
` I have a friend whose bedroom closet was lined with writing and signed with the name of a girl who'd had lived in the house before him. Does that mean she had died, or rather would it suggest that nobody washed her closet wall before the family had moved?

` There's also the matter of the 'gold ghost'. It is similar to the 'pink lady' - it's a blobby shape and can be seen in front of the interior window frame, so once again it must be on the surface of the glass. This time, however, it's gold rather than pink.
` The clouds seen in the camera could be the cameraman's breath drifting through the flashlight beam - I have inadvertantly videotaped my breath sneakily doing the same thing, even when the weather is warm (but moist, like in a thunderstorm). It looks just like that; my face is on the left side of the camera because I, like most people, am holding it with my right hand, so it's coming from left to right, even with the same rhythm.
` On a related note, someone I know sent me a picture he took while working as 'the chainsaw guy' in a haunted corn maze last year... on which he was shocked to see a 'smiling' ghost! He quickly realized it had been his breath.

Strange Shapes in Photos

` After more bits of descriptions of random ghostly encounters, we move onto photos of a little girl named Carrissa.
` I have seen these exact same shapes - ribbons of various widths that have perfectly evenly-spaced ribs running through them. I don't remember what the people at the camera shop said they were, but I know that a lot of different ones I had were common defects and they see it all the time.
` As I was quite the aspiring photographer, it really bothered me when I took a really nice picture and a huge part of it had this thing that looked like mist or lightning or textured-looking ribbons all over it - sometimes they would extend across the film from one photo and into the next. Some, the camera shop people said, were due to light leaks in my camera, and some are due to this annoying thing that tends to be right at the end of rolls of film.
` When I got a new camera, I stopped getting some of those defects. Now, why it is that apparently nobody took those pictures to a camera shop or photo developing expert to ask what they might be, I can't say. Maybe they don't care what it is?
` Then, the narrator tells us that her story is "strangely similar to the film The Sixth Sense." Well, the girl hasn't said that she sees 'dead people', nor does she describe seeing strange things - only that something is scaring her - so what is the parallel again?
` Perhaps the next segment seems like a better match, but from the looks of it, not really.

A Little Boy's Story

` Photos of this boy, Justin, reveal very similar-looking shapes as ones seen in Carrissa. I'd say this may be due to a common kind of photo defect. He says, though, that he sees ghosts of people.
` So, maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. Children do seem to see things that are not there - like gnomes. Does that mean gnomes are real? Or maybe they are just pretending that they do.
` As he is telling his story, his wide-eyed nervous smile suggests to me that he might be lying and is so excited because he can't believe he's getting away with it. Especially the very animated way he's saying "closer, and closer, and closer, and closer...."
` The many-times-over-exposed fake, James Van Praagh, is precisely the wrong person to introduce into this situation, because his job is exploiting people for money - even if it's giving them his (as it turns out) completely wrong guesses as to what's happened to their missing child, etc.
` With Van Praagh 'investigating' on this scene, Justin looks like he is thinking 'Wow, I can't believe he is pretending, too!' If Justin is just making stuff up (and since it's been well-established that Van Praagh does the same thing) he is of course going to agree that the police sketches are what he sees.

Orbs

` The 'orbs' in the basement in the first house look to be moths flying in and out of the infrared spotlight - the camera guy is the one telling the woman that they're even there! I'm not sure what the 'V' shaped object could be, though it could be part of a cobweb slowly falling to the ground.
` Anomalous electromagnetic and temperature readings? How do they know where the orbs are if only the cameraman can see them? Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I don't see them doing any kind of control tests, nor can I tell what they're measuring, so how could I tell if they aren't the normal EM and temperature readings expected in this basement, or basements in general? (Basements are where hot and cold water, electricity, as well as heating and cooling generally spring from, so lots of fluctuations are possible.)

` And then the other people with the other house with the other orbs - those look more like out-of-focus specks of dust in a spotlight. I see them all the time in cameras.
` The furniture was moved? Maybe someone was in there! Or maybe they were mistaken, as people sometimes come home to be alarmed that their furniture wasn't where they'd thought they'd left it.
` Similar things are still vivid in my memory, like the time I toppled a four-foot tall houseplant, or the time someone accidentally knocked a hole through a wall where everyone walked, etc. Neither of my parents noticed these types of things, sometimes for months until just 'one day', one of them would walk in the door and stop being blind to it. (So, even if it wasn't my fault, as the family scapegoat I was severely punished for my parents' inability to see things when they first had happened.)

` I can tell that the 'backyard' orbs are definitely not in the backyard. To begin with, I fist noticed that they do not go farther away or closer to the camera - they move on a 2D plane. The announcer says that they go around the trees - I'm presuming, behind the trees - but I can't see what he's talking about.
` The smoking gun? Watch the one on the left. If you're not paying attention, it appears to move off the left edge of the sliding glass doorway... but on second glance, it ends right where the glass ends, not the edge of the doorway, which blocks the view of the yard!
` Anyone can see, plain as day, that it actually goes in front of the brick on the house - much like the 'pink' and 'gold' ghosts went in front of the inside window frames!

` That's right, these are just projections onto the sliding glass doors! So, then the narrator mentions that Steve, the guy who's doing the filming, does not think that these 'orbs' can be due to "any known camera tricks". How about the one where you turn off the lights in your living room and hold small lights, which reflect off the glass? I bet he knows that one!
` Up next, we have the giant, freaky, globby orb. It looks a lot like an oval mirror that may not be perfectly smooth, or a shiny platter or similar object that's reflecting a small light source. Just before moving into an area where it's light enough to tell whether or not someone was carrying it, it suddenly moves downwards and offscreen. (Yes, the 'trails' of light are normal on videos taken in dark places.)

McPike Mansion

` So here, we have images of what appears to be large droplets of mist, or particles of something, which are swirling around a small basement room. The people say that these were dry and felt electrically-charged. If they were, that might explain why they were rushing around the room so fast.
` It might also explain the described sightings of balls of light - naturally or artificially-occurring electricity can cause some very odd spectacles, including ball lightning and St. Elmo's fire.
` No attempt is shown to even ask someone who studies things like air currents, humidity, electrically-charged dust, etc. to take a stab at cracking what it could be. Though I myself don't know what it is, I would rather ask an expert in meteorology before jumping to the conclusion that it's simply unexplainable.

So...

` Overall, what this show presents are people's emotions and absolutely no images that can't be explained by some down-to-earth phenomenon - especially when the illusion is very apparent, or when there is none at all. Even so, I would expect that there are those who are taken in by some, if not all, of these very poor presentations of evidence for ghosts.
` 'But none can be authenticated.' That might be because they look authentically unimpressive.
` 'Are they real?' Maybe to some of the people on the show.
` 'You decide.' I've decided that anyone who thinks these video representations are of real ghosts probably has not tried to imagine other ways in which they could be created.
` I think that programs like this - not to mention ones of the Unsolved Mysteries sort - are an insult to human intelligence. They really do expect some people to believe it, just like that.

` Not surprisingly, the way in which I came to find it was when I frequented the Skeptic forum - it was chosen basically for it's 'insult' value. Basically, everyone there laughed at it.
` I'm sorry, but frightened people and effects that could be duplicated by almost anyone are not my idea of convincing images of ghosts. If I saw a video of something like a water glass that started floating through the air, turning all about, and changing directions, that would at least get my brain puzzling. (Many strands of fishing wire? Computer graphics?)
` In one of the other threads, the Skeptics all got together and recounted stories of when they were really fooled into thinking they had seen something they had not. I recall one participant relating the time it appeared as if a gnome wearing a pointed hat and a tiny dog were crossing the street, silhouetted in the sunlight.
` Upon further examination, in the shade, the 'gnome' with the little 'dog' turned out to be a skunk with its tail in the air; the contour of the tail just happened to look gnomish!
` Similarly, another forum responder told of the time, after her mother had died, she saw what looked like her mother's head of hair on her pillow! Then, it appeared to 'get up' and was out of view beyond the doorway. If she hadn't have stayed around to check out the situation, she might have thought something strange was going on - luckily, she stuck around to see the dog coming out of the room, and for the first time, she noticed that the dog's fur looked a lot like her mom's hair!
` Most creepy of all was the guy who told of attending his grandfather's funeral as a child - which, as is the case with children, he thought of as somewhat amusing, which made him feel guilty and nervous. After being very serious at the casket to assuage his fears, he turned around to see... his grandfather coming up the aisle! He thought his own grandfather's ghost was irritated that he wasn't showing more respect, and panicked.
` Seconds later, his parents were there to tell him that it was actually his grandpa's estranged twin brother that nobody ever told him about. He didn't talk to his parents for a few weeks after that.

` Of course, I can't verify that these claims are true any more than I can the claims of the people on World's Scariest Ghosts. But, at least the stories don't require an article of faith to believe that they are physically possible. They are at worst hypothetical examples.
` It's easy to be fooled by illusions. Remember - it's not that illusions aren't real, they are simply real things that appear to be something they're not. Even our own senses employ illusions so that our brains put together a coherent picture.
` Asking 'why' is only the first step in any part of science, or of events in everyday life. Narrowing down the most possible explanation - a process which I've written about on this blog, and will do more of in the future - is something that needs to be made familiar to everyone.
` If it were, I don't think that television presentations like these (or even ones only half as credulous) could be used to grab ratings right and left the way they are.

` In my opinion, when such ridiculousness is met with enough ridicule to make people in the television industry think twice about using it for ratings (unless these shows are made to be laughed at instead), then probably a great deal of progress would have had to have been made in familiarizing the public about how to evaluate how well 'evidence' actually matches up to whatever explanation is being presented.
` Credibility, not only of presentations or debates, but also perhaps of our society, would seem to be at stake.