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Is Your Office Haunted?
WormholeFiend writes "You know Halloween is around the corner when websites like Forbes.com releases a story wondering about the supernatural. From the article: 'Maybe the spirits have decided that spooky mansions and creepy battlefields are passé. Maybe they want to cash in on the glamour of corporate life. Maybe they just wanted the sushi.'" Anyone out there have any encounters with a spiritual Milton?
The article didn't shed much light on paranormal experience nor did it even lead me to be much more curious. In my opinion it's mostly goofiness.
However, the article did contain a gem, and delivered as a parting word of wisdom:
Nicely put, and 'nuff said.
Don't look to the mainstream for anything of value about any subject.
They're just in it to put cash in their pockets.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
With this crazy looking thing: Jack-o-lantern computer
It has a built in motherboard, case fans, dvd burner, internet, wireless keyboard and mouse, the works. Pretty powerful for just being a pumpkin IMO... They even posted the instructions on how to build your own if you are so inclined Heh..
You wouldn't do it right? Because you know you'd be out $1000.
No, I wouldn't do it because I'd have a bunch of pseudo-scientists clambering over me for my delicious bounty.
No, nobody's doing it because it's stupid.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
It's already been done. So if you are the "brilliant scientist" with evidence, just give the the amazing randi" a call and you can be a "brilliant scientist" with a million dollars.
Wanted: Clever sig, top $ paid, all offers considered.
At my office, some mysterious creature keeps "watering" the floor of the men's restroom. Does that count?
Here at MIT, we regularly see ghostly figures walking around in distress at 4 in the morning. We call them grad students.
Having worked for many years in London, I have been in more than one haunted office. The most recent was an international bank that built their plush new London offices over what turned out to be an important Roman site (discovered when they dug to create the foundations). Lots of strange things happened in the basement server rooms, ops reporting that they had seen figures even though they were there alone during the night, peoples voices and such like.
$1000 is a pittance compared to the fame you'll achieve for even being connected to scientific proof of ghosts. Obviously people would put up $1000, and for more, if only to make much more money off the book deal and talk show appearances. I'm just James Randi would be honestly happy for the JREF to part with their million to be a part of something so momentous and significant to our understanding of the world.
English is easier said than done.
I also know several people who are not religious and they believe in Santa Claus. Of course, all of them are under six years of age, so we might want to forgive their irrational ignorance this one time.
Wanted: Clever sig, top $ paid, all offers considered.
Shameless plug... if you're under the impression that your neighborhood is weird or that your house creaks only on satanic holidays, check out this map of haunted places to double-check that you've chosen the right place to live.
Happy halloween...
Greg
Loopsh of fury.
I'm a little bit surprised that no one has mentioned Amazon.com yet -- but my understanding is that their headquarters is haunted by a number of spectres. For those who are unfamiliar with the building it's a remodeled hospital that was built back in the '30s. The most common 'sighting' sounds a lot like a "who farted" kind of joke. One of the elevators, apparently, will fill with an unbearable stench -- some riders have been known to nearly vomit when they smell it -- while others are unable to smell it at all. Before amazon moved in the building's owners had recieved so many complaints about the smell in this elevator that they hired teams of investigators to find the source of the contamination, tracing back the ventilation shafts, and so on.... No cause has been found and the reports continue.
I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
You know you can turn that "Clippy" guy off right?
I can't imagine a much worse fate then having to hang out at work forever after I die.
..in a train station that was a waypoint for moving the dead in the American Civil War, as well as being the site of a new bride's suicide. At night. Graveyard shift. Still creeps me out.
No, no one's doing it because we'd then have a big debate over whether they evolved or were intelligently designed.
Apparently they can arbitrarily set rules and conditions for the preliminary test which most people refuse for some reason.
Yes. And that reason is that they know they'll be proven to be a fraud. Those paranormal dorks only want to perform on their own terms under their own controlled conditions. Never anything scientific. Hey, if you can levitate, do it. Show the world. Show Randi and get rich.
But nah, the Silvia Brown's and Uri Gellars of the world would much rather indulge in fame and fortune on such enlightened outlets such as the Art Bell show and Montel Williams.
If someone could prove to me under controlled scientific conditions that any of these paranormal claims (ghosts, aliens, levitation, ESP, etc) are absolutely real, I'd cut off my left nut and donate 50% of my salary to charity for the rest of my entire life.
But the fact is, nobody ever wants controlled expiriments, because they can't cheat. I mean . . . DUH. And what's hilarious is the same people who are rational enough to call out creationists and other nuts have no problem indulging in little green men, caspers and David Blaine.
Hey, don't get me wrong, I agree with you, I'm just saying that the Randi foundation cannot be held as an unbiased group by any stretch of the imagination. In fact they have a powerful vested interest in never handing out their million. Mind you, some of the applicants do provide a good deal of comic relief... heres one beauty from the site, he was also talking about "lightning a tree".
You owe me a million dollars: 2 million.
1: for the itching you got when I first demonstrated possessors exits.
2: for the demonstration with two independent witnesses who verifyed it, and hopefully will work with your demonstration checker.
Calling the police and reporting you for fraud is a step I could take. The contract I signed did not have three wittnesses, so you dont believe I signed it, so it is invalid.
John N. Maguire III and the gosts
send for our free religion
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Christ, at least be honest. The test protocol is agreed to by BOTH the participant and the James Randi Foundation. What this says is that applicants won't agree to a proper test protocol. If you say that ghosts exist why wouldn't you agree to ruling out EVERY possible alternative explanation. The rules aren't "arbitrary", they are designed to eliminate any chance that the "paranormal" is misrepresenting his claims and are agreed to by the paranormal. A true paranormal would welcome the strictest of tests because it would prove beyond doubt that, at the very least, his skills are genuine. If you could prove that you could talk to the dead you would be rich beyond your dreams as you would have the entire world as your client.
The fact that nobody has ever been tested is testament to the fact that "Paranormals" are a bunch of frauds. At best they're entertaining, at worst they're criminals.
As this excerpt from the FAQ points out. Finger pointing is pointless. Either you have the skill or you don't and since you have to agree to the test protocol you can't claim that it was some set of "arbitrary" rules.
Since 1964 parnormals have had the opportunity to put up or shut up, yet in over fourty years, none have.
Taken from http://www.randi.org/
1.1. What's the history of the Challenge?
The Challenge started in 1964 when James Randi put up $1,000 of his own money to the first person who could provide objective proof of the paranormal [1]. Since then, the prize money has grown to the current $1,000,000, and the rules regarding the Challenge have gotten more and more official and legal. It is vital that you understand this fact before you apply. The contract signifies your willingness to adhere to the Challenge rules. If you do not feel that you can abide by the rules, you should not apply, because NO rules will be circumvented on your behalf. So don't even ask.
1.2. Why is there a Challenge in the first place?
During a live radio panel discussion, James Randi was challenged by a parapsychologist to "put [his] money where [his] mouth is", and Randi responded by offering to pay $1,000 to anyone who demonstrated a paranormal power under satisfactory observational conditions. [2]
1.3. How many applicants have there been for the Challenge?
Between 1964 and 1982, Randi declared that over 650 people had applied [3]. Between 1997 and February 15, 2005, there had been a total of 360 official, notarized applications.
1.4. How many people have passed the preliminary test?
None. Most applicants never agree to a proper test protocol, so most are never tested.
1.5. How many people have passed the formal test?
No one has ever taken the formal test, as one must first pass the preliminary test.
2.1. What do you mean by "mutually agreed upon"?
"Mutually agreed upon" means that neither side can force the other side into doing or saying something that they don't want to, and that if no agreement can be reached, the application process is terminated, with no blame or fault attributed to either side.
It's easy to point fingers after a Challenge claim comes to an impasse and say that the other side was being unreasonable. This phrase is used to insure that finger-pointing has no merit.
Wanted: Clever sig, top $ paid, all offers considered.
Our office is in a old train station / depot..
I have been working the night shift on and off for the past four years here and most of the time it just seems like a empty building.. But every once in a while you can look out the window of the computer room in to the hallway and see a shadow pass and no one here out there or even in the building..
I have walked down the hallway and had cold chills run up my back. The wost spot is when your in the bathroom and you can here doors out in the hallway open in shut and no one is here except for me and the other operator that has to stay in the computer room. (manned 24/7)
The worst account I can remember is from a exworker named Sheneika, she left the computer room and went to the bathroom,, about 3 minuets later she came running in to the computer room cussing the other worker for banging the hell out the the bathroom door.. Ted said he didnt do it ad didnt leave the room.
So they start checking the sercurity cameras. ( I work in a lottery office)
So they look at the cameras and watch Sheneika walk down to the bathroom and about 3 minuets later she comes tearing out of the bathroom running full steam back in to the computer room.. Ted never heard any noise but she said it was like some one kicking in the door.
This place will give you the creeps.
This Sig for rent.
(Bob is a analyst at a security operations center for an ISP. He sent me this email and I decided I'd pass it on to you guys for review. Is this even possible? I'm not sure, but it sure did freak Bob out. He can't bring himself to go back to the SOC anymore, and he's looking for telecommuting jobs on Monster. --Alice)
Alice,
I know you're gonna think I'm crazy but you're the only one I can think who would possibly listen to what I'm about to say without immediately dismissing it. Please, read my whole account of what happened to me tonight before writing me off.
I went into work last night for the graveyard shift. Yeah, graveyard shift on Halloween, haha. We'd just ramped up to 24/7 ops the previous week so this was going to be my first night alone in the SOC. I was pretty excited at first, since I wouldn't have any of these other knuckleheads in my hair while I was doing some hard core analysis, you know? I logged into my station, started some queries for deltas in the previous 24, and went to get some coffee, since it was going to be a long night.
Little did I know...
After returning to the SOC with my joe, Carol gave me the briefing on the days events (in a nutshell, nothing - apparently all the s'kiddies were gearing up for Trick or Treating and not harassing us). She did mention something that didn't show up in any of the reports though - a general "weirdness" to the traffic in the DMZ. She couldn't really qualify it, but she said she though something kind of odd was going on. Okay Carol, I'll keep my eyes open (as I roll them back into my head). She punched out and I was all alone.
Or was I?
I threw some tunes on WinAmp and started to rock out while pouring over the output of my earlier queries. My attempts at scripting up some rudimentary anomaly detection in our aggregation console appeared to be woefully inadequate or simply functioning properly with a dearth of anomalies when I saw it.
A new host in the DMZ.
A host which had apparently come up at midnight local, October 31st. Who the hell stands up a box in the DMZ at *midnight* on a Saturday night? It had to be the mouth-breathers in development relying on the assumption that no one would be monitoring the network over the weekend. Heh, nice try chumps, but you've just tweaked the wrong BOFH. To cover my bases, I looked up the latest network diagrams for the DMZ. Just as I thought, nothing authorized or even submitted regarding a new box in the DMZ. Finally, after months of slaving away over reports I was going to get to demand someone take a box down. I could feel the power coursing through my fingertips as I began to compose the flame to end all flames.
"Dear clownboats,"
I hesitated. What would they come back with? I needed more ammunition to stave off a possible counteroffensive. I decide to scan the box, to see how much risk these "developers" were actually exposing my DMZ to. A quick nmap returned results the likes of which I had not seen since my days at that dot bomb in Sunnyvale.
"Remote operating system guess: Linux 2.0.35-37"
W
T
F
Two-oh? Was this some sort of prank? These guys are dullards to be sure, but no one is this stupid. It's gotta be some sort of security through ob-fu or something. I had to know. Telnetting quickly confirmed my worst fears.
Trying 10.31.10.31...
Connected to 10.31.10.31.
Escape character is '^]'.
Red Hat Linux release 5.2 (Apollo)
Kernel 2.0.36 on an i486
login:
I stared, dumfounded, at the prompt's ever-blinking cursor. I tried to wrap my head around what I was seeing. Red Hat FIVE DOT FSKING TWO? Even if this was a honeypot, this was ridiculous. What were they trying to do, find out which kiddie has the oldest sploits?
I did what any sane security professional would do in my situation.
I typed "root".
The box retorted with "Password:"
I reiterated, "root".
[root@zion root]#
A chill crept out of my keyboard and up my spine as I realized that
If you can't accept the Randi foundation as fair and unbiased in testing the paranormal, what alternatives do you think are better?
.... proving that 99.9% of the claims of having ESP, paranormal "powers" and so forth are fraudulent. If they were only able to find one real psychic after all these years, that wouldn't really change much for them, other than Randi having to admit that he finally found 1 isolated instance of someone having a power he never before believed really existed. That would probably make them look MORE legitimate, as it would heighten everyone's interest in finding out who is a scam and who isn't.
It seems to me this is a group which has given more thought than anyone else to applying science and logic to the whole thing. I don't think they're necessarily less motivated to hand over their prize money than anyone else would be who offered something like that up? I mean, no - nobody probably wants to give away a million bucks that's earning them a tidy sum of interest in a bank account someplace. But the claim that the Randi foundation would just "go away" if they had to give away the prize seems blatantly false. They'd simply be able to continue doing what they've done
The building where I work is located on a site that is known as Gallows Hill. Hangings used to take place there many, many years ago. There have been reports from cleaners stating that whilst cleaning the building at night when the offices are mainly empty; a cleaner has had her feather duster removed form her hand by an unseen force and she has been repeatedly beaten round the face with it. Another report was from a cleaner who whilst cleaning the toilets was confronted by a man with a bloodied face - she ran screaming from the wash room (apparently) and when her colleagues investigated there was nobody there. Neither of the cleaners returned, they both quit. The office is now a complete mess.
I've had a couple of 'spooky' occurances at my previous job. I was often the last one to leave, so it was up to me to turn out all the lights and lock up. There was a spot in the hallway where if I came around the corner at the right speed, I'd see the outline of a human figure for a brief moment. The weird thing was, I could almost recognize the form. Somehow I recognized it as a coworker that had left the company long before that! I hadn't been in touch with him for over a year. Was he coming back to tell me something? Well, at least he was smiling, just as I always remembered him.
... same thing, doing my rounds, turning out the lights. Then I noticed the building across the street. There was a figure in the window that was standing perfectly still. I could barely see it, but I could definitely see its eyes. It freaked me out. This was in downtown Portland. This is an area of town full of 'historic' buildings, including the one I was working in. Was some spectre looming around? Well, it was easy to believe that considering it was night time and nobody else was about. Very creepy.
Another night
Welp, now for the anti-climactic bit. Niether were ghosts. The outline of a figure I saw? Trick of the eye. That corner had some boxes and loose stuff piled up. Looking straight on at the pile, it didn't look anything remotely like my coworker. I think what happened was a trick of my peripheral vision. As most of you know, the outer areas of human eyes are keen on detecting motion more than they are with recognizing images. Can't claim to be an expert on the topic, but I think the human brain is constantly looking to recongize patterns, and when it finds one that seems to be relevent, it fills in the blanks. Hence, I saw my coworker. If anybody's curious, he's alive and well.
I suppose I could go into a little more detail about my theory here. There's a technique called 'EVP'. It's used to record the voices of ghosts. If you ever get bored one night, do a search for EVP and find some samples. It isn't definitive proof of the existance of ghosts, but at the very least it's a fun way to kill an evening. (usually there are stories attached to these sounds...) I visited a site once that had a number of EVP samples. Unfortunately, ghost speech isn't terribly easy to make out. Though it does sound human, it's barely more than garbled garbage. What they did was they presented a sound and said "first you listen to it and then try to work out what it's saying, then click on this link to see suggestions of what people think they've heard." The reason they do this is to prevent you from being 'suggested' into believing what you're hearing. After listening to a bit, I worked out why. The sound file downloaded and looped over and over again. I couldn't make it out. Then I read the first suggestion. Suddenly, I was hearing it! Neat! Then I read the second suggestion. And.. wait.. now I'm hearing that one. They were two very different sentences. As a matter of fact, I thought I could hear a different inflection in the words used by the 'ghost' that time around! It was the same sound looping over and over again, but now it was sounding different. Okay, I took the scenic route to this point, but I think what I was hearing was not the sound directly, but my perception of the sound. My brain thought it heard a particular sentence, so that's exactly what made it into my conscience mind. I think the sight of my coworker was a similar phenomenon.
And the figure across the street? Somebody with an odd sense of humor. It's a cardboard cutout. For whatever reason, they put it up against the window on the 3rd story of the building. The light was dim enough that it was very tough to make out, but the next day I was able to see it quite clearly. I mentioned seeing his eyes. It felt like they were following me almost. Again, trick of the eye.
I don't know what I think about ghosts. I can't say I firmly believe they exist, I can't say they don'
"Derp de derp."
No, the purpose of the organization is to debunk pseudoscience.
So the whole million dollars thing is just a side show... I see...
If you claim something is true, prove it
Eh I'm not claiming anything is true, or untrue either. In fact I don't really care if there are paranormal powers in the world, I have neither the time nor the patience to deal with that question. All I'm saying is the Randi foundation cannot be pointed to as solid evidence that such powers and-or abilities don't exist, since discovery of such powers and abilities would cost them a cool million. The first time.
I'm relatively certain btw, that there isn't any such thing as a legitmate paranormal.
Based on what criteria? What scientific evidence? Absence of proof is not proof of absence. Two centuries ago, would you have been relatively certain that radio waves didn't exist?
I dunno, I seem to have hit a nerve here, I won't repeat myself any further. I have yet to hear any transcripts from within the foundation to support or deny my hypothesis, but until I do, I still maintain that they have a strong incentive never to pay, and this remains an important factor to consider.
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
A woman I know used to do a lot of security jobs. When she was working for the City of Portland there were lots of rumors that the courthouse was haunted. The upper floors were spooky at night, and nobody particularly liked working the late shift there. One night one of their security guards was making his rounds when he saw someone in a sort of hooded robe standing at the far end of a hallway, apparently messing with a door as if trying to unlock it. The guard said something to challenge the person, when the figure suddenly rushed down the hall at him as if flying. He braced himself to get tackled, but whatever it was either went by him or through him, and when he turned to give chase there was nobody there. No sounds of fleeing footsteps, no doors opening and closing, nothing.
The other thing is that this guy was a real veteran security guard who had worked there for many years, very level-headed and dependable. But that night he left the building and went home without even clocking out, then called in to say that he was quitting and never going back. He wouldn't even report to the building during the daytime to turn in his keys and other stuff. His supervisor had to go to his house and pick them up.
"Two centuries ago, would you have been relatively certain that radio waves didn't exist?"
That's a naive analogy. Radio waves do exist, and they existed then. If you posessed a transmitter and receiver you could demonstrate that fact. The lack of understanding has NOTHING to do with the cause and effect. Paranormals make claims that they can affect the physical world with their powers. If for example ESP existed, then it would be demonstrable regardless of our understanding of it. We would not have to wait 200 years to discover the mechanism just to see that it exists.
Wanted: Clever sig, top $ paid, all offers considered.
Many of the buildings at Hickam AFB in Honolulu still have the spalling from the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. The PACAF NOSC is (was) in one of these buildings. I was told while I was there that in the room the NOSC occupied 6 men lost their lives during the attack. Allegedly there were sightings after hours of these men.
Even if it isn't spooky it's certainly both sobering and historic.
-- Cerebus
My former office was an old Victorian house on a bluff overlooking the waterfront. It was originally built by the mayor of my town, and for twenty years it was the best restaurant in town. The woman who owned my company bought the building, and she had me oversee the extensive renovations to make it into an office. Great work if you can get it. I loved this building. I even got to pick out my own office (naturally, I got a water view - not bad for being the IT geek).
But everyone in town "knew" the house was haunted. I talked to several people who used to work there when it was a restaurant, and one of my friends actually lived in the upstairs part for several months. He told me that one night, he heard a loud crash from the kitchen area downstairs. He started to go down the stairs to investigate, and heard a series of identical smashing noises. When he got to the kitchen, a box of fluorescent bulbs had been opened and smashed all over the place. He said he sometimes heard strange noises and often felt uncomfortable there.
A former waitress told me that several times, she would set down a tray of dishes in one place, turn around, and then when she turned back it would be moved. The former owners told me all kinds of similar ghost stories. Every Halloween the local paper mentions the building as being the most haunted place in town.
One day, a van full of soldiers on leave from a nearby base pulled up. Apparently, they'd seen my office on some TV show about haunted houses, and had come to check it out. I gave 'em the full tour. One woman, as soon as she set foot upstairs, turned around and went outside to wait in the van. Freaked her out, I guess.
Now, geek that I am, I was always the last person to leave the building at night. And very often, I stayed until the wee hours, all alone in the building. And not a damn thing ever happened. No weird sounds, no smashing bulbs, absolutely nothing.
Although I had to admit... I didn't mind going into the scary old basement when I was alone at night, but going upstairs at night used to freak me out something fierce. Dunno why, it was beautiful and well-lit, but damn, it was just creepy. Daytime wasn't so bad, but at night - forget it.
One night, someone forgot to close a back door properly, and the alarm went off late at night. I showed up to deal with the cops. Since a door was open, they insisted on checking out the building. The cop knew the reputation of the building and was a little spooked himself. When we got upstairs he really got nervous - he told me that he just didn't like it up there. He couldn't believe that I'd work in such a spooky place late at night by myself. I'm like, you're a COP. Which of our jobs is more dangerous?
I like to think that we did such a good job restoring the house that the ghosts took off. Or maybe I scared the ghosts off. Who knows. I'm still a little disappointed, though, that nothing ever happened while I was there. I figured if there were strange things going on all the time, I'd set up a bunch of webcams and such... but nope.
Oh yeah, later, I found out that one of the previous owners had passed away in one of the upstairs bedrooms. On the other hand, the first owner died when he fell down the basement steps, and the basement, aside from just being a spooky old basement and crawling with spiders as big as your hand, wasn't nearly as ooky as the upstairs. So go figure.
"Jim, who was one of the systems administrators able to fix copier problems, thought he could get it unjammed. So he opened the side panel of the machine to work on it, but apparently forgot to turn the power off. The paper feed mechanism somehow caught onto his tie, and started pulling him in."
Of course I'm wondering why Maria was the only one dismissed....
Creepy, huh?
I must admit, I see a lot of horror movies and read lots of horror books, so I got pretty distrubed when this started happening. It sometimes scares me even now.
But, the cause is sadly mundane: disk drives spinning down! Disks drive usually spin very fast ant the frequency of vibrations they produce are above human hearing levels. As they spin down, they pass quickly through the hearing range producing a sound like somebody is whistling on their breaths end... a "fading" whistle of sorts. Many operating systems today can be setup to spin down disks after periods of inactivity, so there - if you're close enough to the case, you hear a single solitary, "sad-sounding" whistle. I believe the "puff of air" in this case is just imagination, as we "know" that all whistles are produced by puffing air :)
(btw. this is not guesswork - I checked: at least one of my disks produces a sort-of-whistling sound when it spins down and the case is open so the sound is more audiable)
-- Sig down
"Sigh. Could a person 200 years ago, given the knowledge and skills they had at the time, have demonstrated quantum theory? No. Can we demonstrate esp powers with what we have now? No. Might we in future? Maybe. Getting it? "
Sigh yourself. You seem to think you're making some deep points. But you fail to see the simplest of points. No knowledge or skill is necessary to demonstrate something that one claims has obvious effect.
People CLAIM they have a power, for example, that ridiculous women that talks to animals that she demonstrates daily on TV to millions, if not billions, of idiots around the world. This woman implicitly claims that animals have human like thoughts, are aware of familial relationships, perhaps even the basics of math, science, etc, and are able to share this with humans who have her "power". This claim is not outside the limitation of science to test. This is not a limitation of our ability to measure. This woman claims that she talks to animals and that they talk back and despite the fact that you can't hear them, she can.
Now, let's suppose she's telling the truth and the communication happens via some mechanism that we don't yet understand and won't for thousands of years.
You CAN say that science can say nothing about that mechanism today. You cannot test that mechanism without some understanding of what it is.
BUT, and it's a BIG DAMN BUT, you can test her ability. Tell five cats that they have a new name. Tell each cat in isolation that his name is X. Make sure that the cat hears the name X many many times, say five thousand times or more. X must be different from the cats name given by the owners.
Now, we send the cats, one at a time, into a room with her. However, no cat owners can be present. Can she successfully tell us what the original name of the cat is, and what each cat was told its new name is?
I've seen the show, in between fits of laughter I caught enough of her responses to suggest to me that she believes she could do such a thing.
But, let's say she doesn't like that PROTOCOL. She is free to design one of her own so long as it fully demonstrates that her power is indeed talking to animals and NOT reading clues from her customers.
No science equipment is needed to test such a "power". People claim today that they have such powers and that they affect the world with their powers. That ability can be tested without understanding any mechanism that may or may not exist.
Just as if you had a radio 5000 yeas ago, you could test the existence of a magical medium that allowed you to talk over great distances.
Perhaps you should consider the moderation to mean somthing different than you seem to think. You seem to think that you are offering some kind of insight into the matter yet others disagree. It is possible, that the reason isn't because others don't get it, but rather because you don't.
Wanted: Clever sig, top $ paid, all offers considered.
Forbes has the offices one floor below us. Sheesh, I guess that's what I get for stopping by on a Sunday.
We have a regular instance of paranormal activty. Often in the morning, I'll start a pot of coffee and come back to get a cup later. Sometimes, when I come back, all the coffee is gone leaving just an empty pot and a faint chill in the air. The scary part is that I ask around: nobody took the last cup! Spooky indeed.
Jesus just shut the fuck up and admit you're wrong.
There's a dude out there who will sign a contract and give anyone on the planet $1 million in hard cash if they only demonstrate anything paranormal in a truly correct scientific way. Nobody, not one single person among the innumerable charlatans on this planet, has stepped forward and made a decent effort to obtain the prize. That speaks volumes. Sometimes, abscence of proof really is proof of abscence. At the very least, it is proof that even if there are "paranormal" effects out there that nobody understands, none of the current crop of practicioners are anything but frauds.
I can't believe I'm even having this conversation on this site. Where did rationality go?
11*43+456^2
This strange light was only know about by a few hunters in the area until around my high-school years. Then a small group of my friends and I found out and would visit the place a few times each year. The word spread and it became a bit of an attraction and even became part of an initiation ceremony for a fraternity at a nearby college. Several of our parents even saw it. This was all in the 90's. Since then the area has been logged and the road has been blocked off.
I personally saw the light several times. And I know about 2-dozen more that have seen it...kids, youths, adults, professionals, a youth pastor, etc. I am a mechanical engineer so I have studied physics and thermodynamics and have a pretty good grasp on the physical phenomena that might have caused this. I have also studies various "swamp light" phenomena. But I cannot find a plausible explanation for what I saw. I'm not saying that the light was supernatural but I am saying that it is very difficult to explain. For example, I have seen:
Seeing the light was one of the coolest experiences of my life. I hate that the area was destroyed by logging. Even on nights when we didn't see the light we could still scare the crap out of each other just because of the surroundings.
Simple people talk of people, better people talk of events, great people talk of ideas.
This didn't happen in my day job office, but a "place of work" of another kind. My wife was chair of a local charity, which is a toy library - it lends toys instead of books. They had wangled a total refurb of their premises from a local firm, who do a project for charity each year. This year, it was our turn, and all we had to do was to clear out all the toys and old shelves to give these guys space to build and paint.
The library has three interconnecting rooms in a shared-use building, all charities. The old shelves were metal, and I went down one night to dismantle them. Just before I left, my wife told me that the place used to be a funeral parlour. Sure enough, one room had metal-lined walls, and there were two enormous metal-lined doors lying in a back corridor.
It was November, the raid was dripping all around, and the heating system was making very strange noises. Very spooky. The shelves were held together by square bolts, so I had to use an adjustable spanner. I soon got into the groove, and had an efficient system for dismantling the shelves. I'd work with the shelves upside down, and the metal shelves would form a tray that I'd keep my tools in.
So, it's night, spooky noises, dull lighting, no music, and my thoughts turn to the fact this used to be a funeral parlour. Then, I get a big suprise: the spanner, which was set to the correct size for the square nuts, was fully open - about 25 mm instead of 10.
Lots of silly thoughts went through my mind, especially curious ghosts examining my tools. I checked where my car keys were, mentally planned my exit route, and, a little spooked, I carried on working.
All was fine for about five minutes, until the spanner didn't fit again - and this time, it was fully closed! I was so, so close to legging it, but I told myself that there was no such thing as ghosts, that any tortured spirits would haunt their homes and not the funeral parlour they lay for a few days. So, I stuck it out, although I was very "observant" from then on.
An accident as I packed up provided an explanation. I stepped over a toolbox, and landed on the adjustable spanner. It slid forward and the little adjusting wheel moved - closing the spanner jaws. When I'd been working on the shelves, sometimes my spanner would slide along the shelf, and it must have closed on one occassion, and opened on the other one.
I'm so glad that I didn't run out of there in fear, especially after the spanner moved for the second time. I kept telling myself that there is always a logical explanation for all events, and it turned out that there was!
Note to ACs: I won't mod you up, even if you are being funny or insightful. So take a chance! It's not real life!
When you say "There's no such thing as the supernatural," on what basis do you make that statment?
How can you prove that they don't exist?
Are you saying that non-material things are non-material, or that the non-material does not exist?
What about duty, honor, love? Do they exist? Are they natural?
Slashdot is a poor place to make an absolute negative assertion.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?