“Do you believe in ghosts?” It’s a fun icebreaker question, and it’s one that I get asked a lot. I’m not surprised that people wonder; I’m an unapologetic - some might say rabid - fan of paranormal investigative shows. I’ve watched every episode of Ghost Adventures, Ghost Hunters, and Buzzfeed Unsolved, as well as some terrible, straight-to-Netflix shows I can’t remember the name of. You know the type: interviews with wack-a-doos that look like they were filmed in the 1980s and spooky re-enactments with real low production values. I can’t get enough of that stuff. The screech of a spirit box, the shrill of an EMF meter - those are my jam. So yeah, it sure seems like I should be somebody who believes in ghosts. So people are surprised at my answer: No, I do not believe in ghosts. Mostly. I mean, sure, when I enter old houses with moth-eaten, flowery curtains and creaking wooden floorboards, I feel that chill up my spine just like everybody else. And yeah, when I drive past an old cemetery at dusk - moss-covered, crumbling headstones looming in the shadows at the roadside - I hold my breath, and I wait about 30 seconds after I’ve passed it before checking my rearview mirror lest I discover I’ve become an unwitting Uber driver for restless spirits. And okay, I love reading tarot cards, and I have a beautiful amethyst pendulum and a burgeoning crystal collection stored lovingly in an intricately carved wooden box. If you twist my arm, I suppose I’ll admit that, if my friends didn’t have an annoyingly persistent instinct for self-preservation, it would be pretty neat to have a slumber party and bust out the ol’ Ouija board (but I'm suspicious enough not to try that shit on my own; that’s, like, the first rule of Ouija boards.)
Maybe the reason I'm so obsessed with the occult and the supernatural - with scary movies and scary houses and scary stories told by firelight - is because I think the world would be just a little more interesting if those things were real. My hindbrain may be easily spooked by shadows and noises in the dark, but my logic brain just can't get past the hurdles. While I enjoy a good spooky ambience, I believe in facts. In the power of structured observation and the scientific method. So far, nobody has been able to definitively prove the existence of ghosts. An occasional ghost hunter might pick up a garbled noise on their digital recorder. It’s usually static that they interpret to be a voice, an aural Rorschach test, but come on, ghost hunter, that was clearly a fart and you know it. It seems like paranormal investigators are constantly creating new gizmos and gadgets to communicate with the undead, but there is no independent research to verify their accuracy (i.e., the spirit box - it’s just a fancy radio, and they’re not fooling anybody). Even after decades of dedicated investigation, there is still no tangible proof of the existence of the supernatural. In hours and hours of episodes of quality primetime television, no ghost hunter has been able to catch that white whale on camera - a full-bodied apparition. Just farts and a screeching radio: that's all they’ve got. It seems pretty cut and dry. And yet... If ghosts and their cohort aren’t real, then why do some places feel so strange? Why do certain stretches of road, that you've driven down hundreds if not thousands of times, feel alien in the moonlight? If no specter is creeping behind you, why are all the fine hairs on the back of your neck standing up, your whole body tingling with the sensation of being watched, even when you’re all alone in your bed at night? Is it just leftover evolutionary programming? An outdated somatic response - a vestigial sense - picking up on danger that no longer exists? Or is it something more? If I’m going to be accurate, I guess I should revise my response to, “I don’t know.” I get excited when my tarot readings seem to line up with what's going on in my life. My spidey sense tingles when it seems like I've gotten an "intelligent" twirl in my pendulum in response to a direct question. My room feels lighter after I burn incense and say a short prayer. But there's always that other voice in my head, resolute: Sarah, c'mon, you know this is all bullshit. In the end, who really knows. It's a wild, huge world, full of unknowable and unthinkable things. Maybe some of those things can’t be accounted for by science, and that, on its own, is a thought more terrifying to me than any ghost story. Or maybe there's something to be said for the power of belief. Maybe just believing in ghosts means that, at least to some extent, they're real. There don’t have to be apparitions floating in your hallways for you to feel haunted, and if you feel haunted, those ghosts are real to you.
3 Comments
Charles Younts
7/30/2019 01:36:12 am
Just found your blog, Sarah! Your writing is perfect for reading on my phone when I should be sleeping. I'm excited for more posts. Glad you're surviving the hot summer and oppressive sunshine/humidity combo!
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Ryan Ridder
9/8/2019 10:29:55 pm
When I was out on herpetology field work last year we were all having a conversation one night along these lines (are ghosts real?) and ever since then I've had it in the back of my mind to write a blog post on the topic. I was never sure if anyone would read it (most people are bored by the answer "no") but maybe I should write it anyway.
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AuthorSarah Fettke is an aspiring horror author from Kansas City, Missouri. This is a place to collect her explorations of the queer, peculiar, and strange. Archives
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