TECHNOLOGY, FRIEND OR FOE?

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An unfortunate thing has happened regarding the paranormal as technology has progressed.In these wonderful times we live in of rapidly expanding technology,  it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect some kind of empirical proof of ghosts or of  an afterlife to have  emerged by now. We now have instruments that can measure so many aspects of our environment in ways that were either impossible or unavailable to the layman just a few years ago.’Ghost hunters’ all have meters that measure temperatures ,sense radio frequency disturbances or magnetic fields which they believe can indicate the presence of a ghost. Most people, ghost hunter or not,  now have at least one camera about their  person everyday and billions of photographs and videos are taken each day.

Not only that ,we have a situation where most of the developed world is under constant surveillance  with street cameras. There have been reports of ‘ghosts’ appearing on street cameras but these have obviously been just bugs or an old plastic bag blowing in the wind, in my opinion that is.

I have seen the many photographs and videos that claim to show a ghost but always disappoint and usually show nothing more than somebody’s breath or some cigar smoke. The most annoying ones are those that show the dreaded ‘orbs’ ! Orbs have been proven beyond any doubt to be nothing more than dust,water droplets,insects  or digital artefacts. I am personally satisfied with that scientific explanation. I would be happy to be proven wrong though . I am always happy to change my mind if presented with FACTS.

Now, the problem is that with all this technology available to the layman and so easy to use that a child can do it ,anything can be faked ! We can never trust photographic or video evidence. I’m not saying that all such evidence is fake or that every person presenting it is a liar, just that it is possible.For me, that makes any such evidence worthless. I know that some people will find that hard to swallow but I for one would much rather face the truth . I suppose the only way a photograph is acceptable as proof is if you have taken it yourself of course and only then under certain circumstances.

It may sound to some that I will not accept anything as proof of ghosts and that my mind is closed.in fact ,it is the opposite . My mind is open to the possibility of al kinds of weird and wonderful things.it’s just that I want PROOF.I want FACTS. I do not want to be one of those people that believe the drivel served up by some of the paranormal themed programmes on T.V. these days. Those programmes where a few guys run around a reportedly haunted location with the latest popular technology , meters that were never meant to be used to detect anything except stray radio frequencies by an engineer ! Or radios that scan around and around the dial picking up snatches of conversation from many stations. So called ‘ghost boxes’ . The user of the ghost box will spend long periods asking questions of a radio then listen for words that seem to be a reply to their question, disregarding the often huge amounts of words that do not fit with what they want to hear.A bit like a ‘psychic’ reading.

It is a shame that serious scientists just do not wish to investigate the paranormal because as long as that is the case we will never make progress. I’m sure that many of the things that  we see as paranormal today will one day be fully explained using the laws of physics. Equally, I’m sure that many things will remain a mystery.

In the wrong hands technology can be useless . I can’t see the point of running around a haunted location with some meters that were never meant to be used in such ways and then claiming that those meters have revealed the presence of a ghost. On the other hand it can be useful and interesting to record changes in temperature etc and see how it matches up to other events in a location. It doesn’t prove anything though. Perhaps it might in the future. I hope so.

Mystery Priest Comes Forward

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An update on the story about the woman in Missouri that was trapped and dying in her car.She was slipping away and asked for somebody to pray out loud for her. A priest stepped forward ,at that time,seemingly from nowhere .He just seemed to appear.I won’t re-cap the whole story as I have written about here previously.Anyway, his presence seemed to be something of a mystery.Until now.

Father Patrick Dowling has revealed that he was the ‘mystery priest’ He just happened to be passing and so volunteered his services.

At least two people at the scene said that the priest had said something to the effect that the firefighters equipment would now work better and that the trapped lady would be saved. Father Dowling however stresses that he said no such thing ” I did not say anything like the machinery would begin to work or they would succeed in getting her out of the car.”

So, that part of this little mystery remains. Did TWO people mis-hear those words attributed to the priest? That seems unlikely to me . Perhaps somebody else said it.

What is certain though is that a calmness came over the trapped lady and she was freed after better equipment turned up.

I have to say this..it was a FATHER DOWLING MYSTERY !Image

Psychic Sally?

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I see that Psychic Sally won substantial damages from a newspaper that alleged she was using an ear piece to receive messages that she claimed were of a psychic nature.

I love D.J. grothe’s comment that she could have won lots more money if only she had agreed to take James Randi’s Million Dollar Challenge !

I do not believe that Sally is psychic or that any other person is .That is just my opinion.I may of course be wrong and am very willing to be proven so.I believe that so called psychics simply use cold and hot reading techniques along with research of their victim , I mean client .

It is amazing how people that go for a psychic reading quickly forget the endless ‘misses’ the ‘psychic’ makes during the reading and yet remember the odd ‘hit’ that pertains to their life.It is human nature I suppose. Personally , if death is the end and we are plunged into eternal sleep , I want to know the truth. likewise if there is another realm , I want to know. Life is so wonderful ! All we can do is keep asking questions

It Happened To Me

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What I am about to relate will sound like a badly scripted B movie but I swear on my children’s lives that it happened.I remember it very clearly.

I was Eight years old.I had woken in the night desperate for the loo.As most people do I lay there for some time trying to ignore the throbbing feeling in my bladder.It was too cold to get out of bed. Eventually I had to get up of course and padded along to the bathroom.The house was silent save a gentle snoring from my brother’s room.I was now wide awake.

I pushed open the bathroom door and there stood a man. A man that had a silvery glow about him . I was not afraid or shocked for some reason.I have often pondered over why I was not afraid  over the years.I looked up at the man and our eyes locked.He smiled gently and  spoke to me. ” Don’t be afraid” I shook my head . “Do you know who I am “? I said “No” “Touch me ” he said. I reached up and touch the mans stomach. It was icy cold and yet I felt nothing solid. The man smiled and said “Follow me” and he led me along to the landing window. He turned and said “Don’t worry son ,I won’t come again” With that he floated out of the window and vanished in mid air !

Yes, it sounds insane and I know it will give the skeptics a real laugh but I was awake and it happened . I have never forgotten it. I told my parents the next day and my mother was crying and shaking for hours.In fact for days afterwards she would break out crying and was afraid to go upstairs alone. I remember it so clearly. I discussed it with my parents many times in later years and my dad thought that the man had been his father.

Coincidence?

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ANOTHER OF MY INTERESTS IS COINCIDENCES. I AM FASCINATED BY THE WAY SOME EVENTS,OFTEN VERY MUNDANE,SEEM TO BE BEING CONTROLLED BY SOME UNKNOWN OUTSIDE FORCE.MOST SCIENTISTS RECKON THAT COINCIDENCES ARE EXACTLY THAT.THEY SAY THAT THERE ARE SO MANY RANDOM EVENTS OCCURRING EACH DAY THAT SOONER OR LATER SOME OF THOSE EVENTS WILL APPEAR TO BE CONNECTED.I AM NOT SO SURE THOUGH.THERE ARE SOME EVENTS WHICH ARE SO INTRICATELY ENTWINED DOWN TO THE TINIEST DETAIL THAT YOU ARE LEFT WITH A SHIVER DOWN YOUR SPINE ! THE FOLLOWING STORY WAS REPORTED IN THE EVENING GAZETTE NEWSPAPER. MAKES YOU WONDER …

For years before he was brutally murdered Carl Edon tried to convince his family that he was reincarnated. Today his astonished parents believe they have been given extraordinary photographic evidence.(SEE PHOTOS)
Young Middlesbrough dad Carl had spoken since he was just three years old of vivid flashbacks to a former life as a Nazi airman killed when his plane was shot down in 1942.
Now startling new photos, unearthed after dogged detective work by a local historian, reveal a chilling resemblance between Carl and a German airman, Heinrich Richter, buried in a Thornaby cemetery.
Richter, a turret gunner, perished when his Dornier bomber crashed onto a South Bank railway during a raid exactly 60 years ago today… January 15, 1942.
The wreckage of the Dornier, damaged by anti-aircraft fire before hitting a barrage balloon, was discovered in 1997 buried off Tilbury Road – only a few hundred yards from the spot where Carl was stabbed to death two years earlier.
When the bomber was dug up with Richter’s remains inside, Carl’s parents, Jim and Val, shuddered as they recalled their son’s eerie tales of reincarnation.
But only now – as the Gazette reveals for the first time what the airman looked like – are the Coulby Newham couple looking at their son’s claims in a new light.”It’s got to be him,” said a stunned Val, when shown a photo of the German in full uniform shortly before the crash over Teesside.
“The resemblance across the eyes and the nose is uncanny.
“Maybe this is the final piece of the jigsaw,” she said.
The striking picture was obtained after Guisborough historian and author Bill Norman tracked down Richter’s relatives in Germany for a new book.
An uncanny likeness between the two young men and the fact that they share the same scene of death more than 50 years apart are just two of the strange coincidences which have spooked Carl’s parents.
During the excavation of the German bomber it was discovered that Richter’s leg, still inside a flying boot, had been severed in the wreckage, explained Val.
“Carl used to say he lost his right leg in the crash,” she said. “And he had a birth mark at the top of that leg.”
On the day her rail worker son was murdered – by Gary Vinter, later jailed for life – he had been to Skinningrove to collect train carriages.
“The day the Dornier crashed it had bombed Skinningrove first and flew on to Middlesbrough following the railway line,” said Val.

he was amazed at the details surrounding the two deaths.
“We research a lot of reincarnation cases, but not many as remarkable as this one sounds,” said David Christie-Murray, member of the Society for Psychical Research, founded in 1882 and now based in London.
“It seems to me to be a fascinating case, and one I’m sure the SPR would certainly be interested in investigating if the family wanted to.”
Carl’s experiences are already detailed in a book called The Children That Time Forgot by Peter and Mary Harrison, and on a US TV show. They’ve also been well documented in British and German newspapers, including the Gazette when Carl was just nine years old.
But his parents said he suffered taunts at school as a result of his ‘past life’ claims.
“When that started happening Carl didn’t like talking about it any more,” said his mum.
“But he always believed it.”
His dad told the Gazette he was cynical at first. “I was sick of Carl going on about it,” he said. “But I probably believe more in reincarnation now.”
The Dornier’s three other crew were buried in Thornaby after the crash in 1942, but Richter was not laid to rest alongside his colleagues until the plane was ‘rediscovered’ 55 years later by water board workers.
Val and Jim joined nearly 300 mourners at a moving funeral service for the fourth German airman.
Standing at Richter’s grave afterwards felt “eerie”, said Jim. “It was like we were re-burying Carl again. Maybe now this will be the end of it.”
Richter, who won the Iron Cross medal twice and had been wounded in action, was 24 when he was shot down and killed. Carl was just 22 when he was murdered, leaving behind heartbroken fiancee Michelle, and their two young daughters Carla and Sophie.

                                               

This story originally appeared in the Evening Gazette in Teesside.

 

Life’s Mysteries

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Most of us like a mystery.It makes life that bit more interesting. Lets face it, life can be dull at times.Those of us with a bit of depth know we shouldn’t feel that way because life is a wondrous gift and we should grasp each day with relish but reality sometimes dictates otherwise.That is why I think I have always enjoyed a mystery.

Don’t get me wrong,I am skeptical and far from being a ‘woo woo’ type as James Randi calls them. I just have a healthy interest in life .If ghosts exist, and I believe they do, then I want to know what they are.Whether it is something entirely normal within our laws of physics that we just don’t understand yet or if it is something spiritual beyond our understanding.Whatever it is ,I want to know.

At the same time , a part of me hopes that we never find out because then the mystery will be gone !

For as long as I can remember I have be utterly fascinated by tales of ghosts.As a teenager my dad would regale me with stories of ghosts that he had seen and weird experiences that  he had had.He seemed to be a magnet for such things.I well remember the winters nights we spent huddled around the fire, the cold wind pressing at the window and whistling around the eaves ,  a glass of dads home brew wine in hand  as he told and retold his stories.I can still feel the thrill that passed through me as he described seeing ghosts and doors that would open themselves ,the handle turned by invisible hands. He had a way of telling the tales that created and electric atmosphere. I would be enthralled and exited and wishing I could see such things and then at bedtime be too scared to go upstairs in the dark alone ! Tucked up in bed ,any bravado long gone, I would listen to the wind outside and to the noises of the house settling to sleep and I would shiver because I knew those tales were true .

Like many people I have had my own strange experiences that I simply have not been able to explain with conventional wisdom. What follows is my quest to find out what ghosts are and reports of weird and wonderful happenings in this wonderful thing we call ‘life’