Keith Andrews (pictured) of Wavertree, Liverpool (England) was one of the first people to notice a strange simulacrum of John Lennon's face on a stone gatepost in Newcastle Road - the road where John Lennon was born in 1940. The gatepost was being stripped of its 40-year-layer of paint when the image of the trademark NHS specs and the face were uncovered.

John Lennon's birthplace is less than 50 yards from the post. Mr. Andrews, 61, was a childhood friend of the murdered Beatle, and often visited John's home at Number 9 Newcastle Road.

Every year, over one million people come by ferry to this most famous landmark. Located in the San Francisco Bay in California, Alcatraz Island served as a lighthouse, a military fortification, a military prison, and a federal prison as well. In the beginning, the Native Americans believed the island to be inhabited by evil spirits. As severe punishment for violations of tribal law, Indians were sometimes isolated for a period of time on the island or even banished for life to live among the evil spirits.

Since the early 1800’s, American Indians prisoners were often jailed at the military prison here on Alcatraz Island. Since then, in 1964 and again in 1969 Indians of all types, took control of Alcatraz Island and liberated it in protest against the U.S. Government. Today, the island is a historic site operated by the National Park Service and it is open to tours.

Although different stories have been heard over many years regarding the hauntings at Alcatraz, none is better than the first hand accounts one experiences when visiting the places in question. Alcatraz is a great place to visit if you are a ghost hunter. There are so many different feelings that emanate from every wall and some areas are so thick with these feelings that it is overwhelming.

One of Alcatraz’s most famous prisoners was Gangster, Al Capone. During his stay here, Capone often complained about being harrassed by the ghost of the men he had killed. He said that the spirits wouldn’t leave him alone and slowly it seemed to be driving him insane. Capone spent four and a half years here in Alcatraz.

Although No executions were ever done here on Alcatraz island; 8 murders, 1 suicide, and 1 unexplained death did occur here when it was a federal prison. These deaths might be the cause of some of the hauntings here on Alcatraz. Many of the guards who work here have reported seeing, hearing, and being touched by the ghost. One of the most haunted places in the old jail is the former cell of prisoner Bird Man Robert Stroud. People have reported being grabbed by an unseen entity while standing in this cell. Others report feeling very scared or worried for no reason at all as soon as they entered the cell.

Since the 1940's, apparitions have been seen at the site of the now burned-out shell of what use to be warden Johnson's house. When the prison was still open, guards told of hearing phantom cannon and gunshots, accompanied by screams that were so real they sent the seasoned guards diving to the ground, believing that prisoners had somehow escaped and obtained weapons. After taking cover, the guards would then cautiously look around to see absolutely nothing. Another often reported experience of the guards was the smell of smoke that often came from a deserted laundry room as if something was on fire. When they went to investigate the black smoke was so thick it drove the guards from the room. However, just minutes later, the room was completely smoke free. These kinds of incidents could never be explained.

The notorious D-Block of the prison is said to have been, and continues to be, the most haunted block in all the prison. While first built the same as the other cellblocks, the Bureau of Prisons appropriated additional money for a more secure D-Block after the 1939 escape attempt, in which Arthur “Doc” Barker was killed.

During a Christmas Party at Warden Johnston's house, several guards told the story of a ghostly man who suddenly appeared before them wearing a gray suit, brimmed cap, and sporting mutton-chop sideburns. As the startled guards stared at the apparition, the room suddenly turned very cold and the fire in the stove was extinguished. Less than a minute later, the spirit vanished.

Often it has been reported that on foggy nights, an old lighthouse will suddenly appear out of no where, accompanied by an eerie whistling sound and a flashing green light which makes its way slowly around the island. Appearing to both guards and visitors alike, the spectacle vanishes just as quickly as it appears.

Alcatraz is a strange, but awesome place to visit. It definately deserves its rank as one of the most haunted places in America.

One Of my visitor emailed me this picture of alcatraz ghost. This is a picture taken at Alcatraz prison island. When this picture was clicked, there was no light or anything coming from the cell (says sender), but as you can see it looks like there is a man standing at the bottom of the bed at the back of the cell. I think this is the best picture of real Alcatraz Ghost. What you guys says?

So many people take it for granted that ghosts are spirits of the dead. Whether this is true or not is unlikely ever to be proved one way or the other. And perhaps that is the beauty of a mystery. We need mysteries to be fully human, and nothing satisfies this factor more than a ghost. But the reality is there ARE psycho-sociological mechanisms that can account for the vast majority. Let’s have a few examples from Britain.

GHOSTLY TALES

Seen on many occasions in St James’s Palace is the ghost of valet to the Duke of Cumberland, Sellis. Usually seen propped up in a bed with a slit throat, this gruesome ghost seems to be a remembrance of Sellis’s death in May 1810. According to his master, Sellis tried to kill him, but, failing, committed suicide. A pertinent ghost rumour of the time had it that the Duke was the murderer, killing Sellis to stop him blackmailing him after he had had an affair with the valet’s daughter.

Past residents of the Cumbrian village of Eden Hall used to speak of a ghostly skeleton that swung from a rotting gallows on stormy nights. The ghost is said to be that of Thomas Nicholson, hanged in August 1767 for robbing and murdering his Godfather. His body was left on the gibbet for two days as a warning to others. Screams are said to echo through Marsden Grotto, a series of caverns between South Shields and Sunderland. Once used by smugglers to hide their booty, one smuggling gang was betrayed by a man known as John the Jibber. A friend of the smugglers heard of the betrayal and warned the gang before they were arrested. Later, they got John the Jibber, took him to the cavern, put him in a barrel, hoisted him to the roof and left him to starve.

SOCIAL FUNCTION

Most of these stories we can dismiss in terms of producing real ghosts. But within most ghost stories we can see an important social function. For in the main, the classic ‘true’ ghost story usually held an important moral message, warning of the dangers of such things as murder or infidelity. Thus, by allying the moral aspect to the supernatural, the morality is enforced by scaring a superstitious population into thinking twice about being immoral. Indeed, not only did ghost stories become the vehicle for the moral tale. Sometimes fame would be achieved and remembered by the famous becoming ghosts.

Typical is Grace Darling, one of England’s greatest heroines. Born in 1815, she was the daughter of William Darling, keeper of the Longstone Lighthouse on the Farne Islands off Northumberland. In 1838 the ship Forfarshire floundered. Grace and her father took their small rowing boat into stormy seas and rescued five crewmen. Grace then made a second trip with two of the crew and saved a further four seamen. Grace died of consumption four years later. Seen as a darling of the nation, it was evident she would not be forgotten, and it seems her ghost walks the lighthouse to make sure of it. As late as 1976, two lighthouse keepers appeared on television, telling of their separate sightings of the heroine.

THEORIES OF HAUNTINGS

Most people, today, appear to be scathing of ghost stories, yet in private, most people have experienced something ‘strange’ enough to be classed as a ghostly experience. In 1971 Dr W Dewi Rees reported in the British Medical Journal that half the widows in his practice had seen their loved ones after death. In the 1890s the Society for Psychical Research published a Census of Hallucinations, showing that out of 17,000 people interviewed nearly 1,700 had seen ghosts.

Many theories have been offered to explain ghost sightings. SPR member Frederic Myers thought ghosts to be a kind of residue of personal energy they generated whilst alive. Edmund Gurney suggested they were, perhaps, a form of telepathy from beyond the grave. In 1943 GNM Tyrrell advanced this telepathy theory by arguing a ghost is a two part drama. The telepathy becomes the ‘producer’, then an other-worldly stage ‘director’ went on to provide the props.

MIND + ENVIRONMENT = SPOOKY

Following the publication of Alfred Watkins’ ‘The Old Straight Track’ in 1921, introducing ‘leys’ and the subject of Earth Mysteries, ghosts have been put down by many to geophysical forces, many ghost sightings appearing at the conjunction of two leys. Fellow founder of the SPR Sir Oliver Lodge came up with a well used theory when he argued that an event can be photographed upon the environment in which the event took place. Known as the ‘tape recording’ theory, from time to time the event is replayed, producing the ghost.

Researcher Tom Lethbridge offered a variation on this theme in 1963. An old witch used to live next door to him. When the witch died, he felt a field of depression around her cottage. It reminded him of when he had felt a similar depression near Wokingham as a teenager. A couple of days after this feeling, the body of a suicide was found at the exact spot. Could such fields be impinged upon the environment?

Later, Lethbridge and his wife were to visit Labrum Bay and he again felt a depression. On a subsequent visit to the nearby cliffs, his wife felt an urge to jump off. Lethbridge associated these fields with magnetic fields. Calling them ‘ghouls’, he knew people also produced magnetic fields. Could emotions pass from an event imprinted on a ghoul to a person’s field, thus producing the same emotion, and maybe a ghost? Ghosthunter Andrew Green has another variation on the theme. When he was a teenager he visited a building thought to be haunted.

A murder had been committed there and twenty people had jumped from an adjacent tower. Going up the tower he, too, felt the urge to jump. Outside the building once more, he took a picture. When developed, there was an image of a girl looking out of a window. Kodak informed him that such images were not unusual with certain films. Green decided such images, and ghosts in general, were generated by someone thinking of a loved one, the thought placing a heat image of the deceased on the location.

DREAMING AND HALLUCINATION

There is, of course, a problem with all these theories. They are all unprovable. More practical is research, in the 1950s, by Nathaniel Kleitman of Chicago, into dreaming. He noted that dreaming actually occurred during REM, or rapid-eye-movement sleep. If awoken during this period or soon afterwards, the dream was recalled with absolute clarity.

Researchers then went on to ask, if, at the point of awakening, the dream was on-going, could it be externalised? The most common ghost is, of course, the ‘bedroom visitor’. If externalisation of what goes on in the mind was possible, then a valid and logical explanation could be put to the majority of ghosts. Research then went on to show that at the point between wakefulness and sleep, externalisations were, indeed, possible. Whilst going off to sleep, hypnogogic hallucinations can occur. Whilst awakening, they are known as hypnapompic. But could such a phenomenon be at the heart of all ghostly activity?

UNDERSTANDING HALLUCINATION

Hallucination is one of the most feared words in the English language; more feared, it would seem, than ghost - a word it could easily explain. The reason for the fear is that hallucination is thought to be the province of the psychologically unstable. But this is not the case. In 1954 researchers at Canada’s McGill University showed that we can all, at times, hallucinate. Placing subjects in sensory deprivation chambers, it became clear that when outside stimuli seems to be cut off, the mind continues to function to the point that it can create seemingly externalised hallucinations.

It seems that when the mind has nothing to process, it will create its own hallucinatory world. And this seems to be equally the case when we are tired. At such times we can mis-identify, or create externalised images, from our own mind. What could best be termed as a moment of ‘sensory decalibration’ many researchers are satisfied that this is the mechanism behind ghostly encounters. If such a vision occurs as you are nearing sleep, we have the classic bedroom ghost visitor.

ELECTRO-MAGNETISM

At times even the environment can have a hallucinatory effect upon the mind. Psychologist Michael Persinger working in Ontario showed this with his ‘heaven and hell’ chamber. Bombarding the brain with pulses of electromagnetic energy, subjects have lost control of their feelings and experienced various paranormal phenomena including ‘ghosts’. Persinger believes that electromagnetism changes the level of melatonin in the brain, causing the hallucination. And such electromagnetic disturbances are all around us, giving the environment a strong influence upon our minds. Such electromagnetic build-up is most commonly associated with thunderstorms - as are many classic ghost stories.

CULTURAL STIMULI

This connection seems to be scientific fact. In the above we have proven mechanisms that could lie behind ghostly encounters. But why should people be more prone to seeing a ghost in a suspected haunted building? Even more disturbing, how can a person correctly visualise information about a location they should not have? The answer may not be quite as disturbing as we think. Britain is known as the ‘ghost capital of the world’, with no fewer than 10,000 suspected haunted sites. And the reason for this is easy to find.

For it is a simple fact that Britain can boast well over a thousand years of unbroken cultural development. And it is this - culture - which seems to be the key. Such cultural development impinges upon sites of cultural importance which, if ancient, are guaranteed to have supernatural elements imposed upon them. Typical is the Tower of London, which has been home to many cultural ghosts which have been repeatedly seen and are still seen today. Hence, we can argue that when a person is visiting such a site, and is perhaps tired at the time, an hallucination of such a cultural ghost can automatically follow. This process doesn’t, however, explain the almost exact form of such sightings, nor how a non-cultural ghost can be correctly identified after the encounter. But a subtle advancement of this cultural input does.

PHANTOM HITCHHIKERS

In February 1951 a guard shot at a figure running between two parked bombers on an American Air Force base in England. When the guard went to investigate, the intruder had disappeared. Investigating the incident, a security officer called Bordeaux interviewed another airman who, at the same time, picked up a hitchhiker in RAF uniform.

Offering him a cigarette, when the driver again looked, the man was no longer there. The above is one of the earliest accounts of a phenomenon known as the ‘phantom hitchhiker’, where a driver stops for, or gives a lift to, someone who doesn’t exist. With the above incident we must bear in mind that all American Air Force bases in England were originally RAF bases, which were repeatedly bombed during World War Two. Due to this, right up to the 1960s dozens of similar ghost stories existed of dead RAF personnel.

However, not all incidents occur within an easily identified existing culture of ghost sightings. Typical is the case of Roy Fulton who, one night in 1979, stopped his van to pick up a hitchhiker near Dunstable. A youth of about twenty, the hitchhiker opened the door and got in. Setting off again, Fulton turned to speak to the youth, but he had disappeared. Immediately reporting the incident, witnesses testified that Fulton was deeply shocked by the incident.

The first, natural, inclination is to dismiss such stories as attention-seeking or active imagination. But neither of these scenarios adds up. Stories often come from perfectly sensible people who would rather cover up the event than leave themselves open to ridicule. Something is certainly going on here. And cases can get stranger.

AN IN-DEPTH MIND

One night in 1975 a man rushed into a police station to report he had ‘knocked over’ a girl at Bluebell Hill on the A229 in Kent. Getting out of the car, he had seen she was dead and placed a coat over her. When the police arrived, there was nothing there. Earlier that year, a taxi driver had picked up a distressed girl near Bluebell Hill and taken her home.

Later, he went back to the house to check she was alright. He discovered that the girl had been killed in a car crash in November 1965, along with three of her friends, close to the site. He went on to pick out the girl from a picture of the dead girls. To many researchers such stark testimonies are concrete evidence of survival of bodily death. But could a more rational explanation exist to answer such cases? I’ve often written about cryptomnesia, and the ability of the unconscious to absorb phenomenal amounts of information.

We do, infact, absorb most of our information unconsciously. When you look down a busy street, you only ‘see’ what you are looking for. But this seeing is only a conscious mechanism. Whether we are directing attention at other things in the street or not, unconsciously the information is still received and enters our memory. This same sensory ability applies to every sensory event. We may not be listening to that radio in the background, we may only be scanning that newspaper, but a remarkable amount of the information enters the unconscious mind. And whilst we may never access this information, it is feasible to suggest that whilst driving, tired, by the site of a previous horrendous accident that had been previously reported, we may unconsciously connect with the forgotten report and hallucinate images from it.

The end result of the encounter is that the very person involved is hallucinated before our very eyes. Ghost have a logical explanation. Indeed, so exact can the mechanisms be seen to be that the question must be asked: why don’t we see them more often than we do? Well, it could be that we see ghosts more often than we think. Consider the above taxi driver. Until he went back to check on her, he never knew the girl was a ghost. So maybe we do see ghosts more often. But unless we have reason to suspect, we don’t realise what they are.

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The climate in Shakespeare is cool in the winter and hot during summer and while you can visit anytime, check before visiting, the town is not always opened. Shakespeare has had many names over the years from Mexican Springs to Grant to Ralston and finally to Shakespeare.

The little town began in the late 1850s as a storied carrier with the Butterfield Overland Stage Company built an alternate route that passed through Mexican Springs. Because good water was hard to find and was abundant in Mexican Springs, The National Mail and Transport Company built a mail stop and renamed the city Grant.

Not long after William C. Ralston became interested in the little town and tried to start a mining company but the silver claims had been staked and improperly recorded. Then in the late 1870s, the Shakespeare Mining Company staked claims in silver and renamed the town. Mining continued strongly until the depression when mining ceased. The land is now a privately owned ranch so call and check on the times and be courteous.

Like an ancient gargoyle, Annabelle Stark watches over St. Elmo. Dead for nearly 50 years, she stares out of windows and wanders the empty streets. More than 2,000 residents abandoned this silver- and gold-mining town in the 1920s, but not Annabelle.

Her father was a cattleman, a mining boss and a member of the town's elite. Attractive but lonely, Annabelle hung out at her pa's hotel, the Stark Home Comfort Inn, even when tumbleweeds and jackrabbits outnumbered visitors. After a stint in a mental institution, Annabelle returned and died in 1960, but skiers and snowmobile riders who venture into the old settlement each winter insist they still see her patrolling and haunting her beloved town in a flowing white dress, scaring off vandals and trespassers.

From Colorado Springs, take U.S. 24 west to U.S. 285 south. Take U.S. 285 for 21 miles then turn right on County Road 280, right on CR 270, then left on CR 162 for 12 miles.

Bodie is a cursed ghost town. Pilfer anything from one of the old sun-bleached buildings north of Mono Lake -- a nail, part of a clock or even an old bottle - and bad luck latches onto you forever. Don't believe it?

Then tell it to the visitors of this ghost town who have been returning stolen stuff with tales of heartbreak, death and serious injury that beset them once they left this Eastern Sierra settlement. One fearful visitor even returned the nail that pierced her tire as she drove through town.

From U.S. 395, take California 270 east. Drive 10 miles to the end of the pavement and continue three miles on a dirt road.

George Reese, Samuel Bailie and Hans Roth are a few of the names in Frisco's weed-choked cemetery, the final resting place for many victims of the legendary violence that nearly killed this silver-mining town toward the end of the 19th century.

The bloodshed provided job security for the undertaker, who drove the main street in an open wagon evenings, carting away the bodies. Times changed when the marshal, William Pearson, from neighboring Pioche, Nev., showed up one day to set things right. First came a warning: Lawbreakers wouldn't be arrested; they would be shot.

Then came justice. On Pearson's first night on the job, six outlaws bit the dust. Only a few lopsided, splintery buildings, along with five charcoal kilns used in the silver- and lead-melting process, remain in Frisco today, and of course, there are all the tombstones in the cemetery that rise from the desert shrub near the Nevada-Utah border like bad teeth sprouting from the ground. Want to visit this haunting mystery..

A low-hanging ironwood tree drapes over the crumbling remains of an abandoned stone house, one-time home of Henry Wickenburg, patriarch of this forgotten town. Run your hands along the rough gray bark and turn your eyes to the skeletal frame of branches that arch overhead. Justice was often swift and harsh in these places.

Eighteen miners were strung up from this tree more than 100 years ago, close enough for Wickenburg to see their feet dangling in front of the window. Their crime? Stealing ore from established claims. Although the mines of the area yielded countless riches, Wickenburg ended up a pauper who later put a bullet in his head.

Today the town's last full-time resident, Marge Osborne, recalls seeing mysterious haunting figures and hearing unexplained knocking whenever she walked the streets at night beside the jail, the assay office, the schoolhouse, the smithy. Although most of the structures have withered under sun and rain, the old ironwood thrives, nearly engulfing what's left of Wickenburg's ruined home.

Take U.S. 60 west 2 1/2 miles out of Wickenburg to Vulture Mine Road. Turn south and travel 12 miles.

Pity the hard-luck residents of Skidoo, perhaps the sorriest little mining settlement in the West. In its short-lived, miserable history, the town had the misfortune of attracting such desperate characters as Joe "Hooch" Simpson. In 1908, this down-on-his-luck barkeep made the mistake of gunning down the town banker for $20, and when a lynch mob finally got its hands on him, they couldn't even wait to build a proper gallows.

They hanged him from the telegraph pole that brought news of the outside world to this benighted patch of earth. When a reporter from the Los Angeles Times showed up for a photo, the good citizens of Skidoo accommodated him by digging up Hooch, brushing him off and hanging him again. But then the town doctor, in a macabre moment, lopped off Hooch's head to test for syphilis, the possible cause of his sudden madness.

No wonder today the twice-hanged, headless Hooch still haunts these empty hills in Death Valley where all that remains are a historical marker, broken bottles and hundreds of abandoned mine shafts.

From Stovepipe Wells, drive southwest along California 190 for nine miles, turn left on Wildrose Canyon Road and, after nine more miles, turn left on the first major gravel road and continue for almost eight miles.

For more information, call the Death Valley National Park at (760) 786-3200.

Here, guests enjoyed French cooking, hot baths and a decorative lobby with dark mahogany walls and gold-leaf ceilings, but the young woman never knew such luxury. After all, she was a prostitute and, worse, pregnant. Prospectors, entrepreneurs and laborers abandoned Goldfield in the 1920s when the boom went bust.

As you walk through the darkened hotel with Virginia Ridgway, the head of tourism for what little remains in Goldfield, she swears she is neither crazy nor drunk when she talks about having seen a glowing man in a black hat and hearing footsteps where there should have been none in this four-story brick building. Today, the haunted room where the imprisoned woman died is empty and hollow.

From Las Vegas, drive 184 miles north along U.S. 95. For more information, call Ridgway at (775) 485-6365.

Dusty whiskey bottles line warped shelves. Dog-eared hymnals rest in church pews. Framed black-and-white photos, veiled in spider webs, hang on crooked nails. The haunted ghost towns of the American West recall a desperate era. Located on high plains and open deserts, where sand storms and cold winter nights have embalmed any semblance of life, these towns still whisper their legends to anyone willing to drive through and listen.

Pull over and step outside, and you'll hear the stories of the men, the women and the children who abandoned their homes and gave up their claims so fast that they seem to have vanished mid-stride and mid-sentence. As Halloween nears, they seem more than eager to speak.

Perched on a rock, she could be waiting for a bus. But if so, she could be in for an awfully long wait. This photo of what looks remarkably like a female figure with her arm outstretched, was taken on Mars. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it has set the Internet abuzz with claims that there really is life on the red planet.

Others may well feel that it is simply an optical illusion caused by a landscape. The image was among many sent back to Earth by Spirit, Nasa's Mars explorer vehicle which landed there four years ago. Initial inspections revealed nothing unusual, but closer examination by amateur astronomers has thrown up this intriguing picture.

As one enthusiast put it on a website: "These pictures are amazing. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw what appears to be a naked alien running around on Mars." Another, dismissing cynicism about the somewhat stony look of the "alien", wrote: "If you show me another rock in another photo from Mars, or Earth, that naturally looks like that, I will reconsider.

" A third contributor, who might have come closer to the majority view, said: "Ah, the human eye can be tricked so easily."

Whatever the people says but it seems real.

When we think of monsters we automatically think of Dragons, of maybe King Kong, or perhaps the Loch Ness Monster. Through myth, media or mystery, such monsters almost become part of our psyche. However, there is another category of monster – creatures, or even strange people, who seem to invade the world briefly, and then disappear, becoming nothing but a puzzle at the extremities of paranormal literature. Let’s have a few examples.

DEMON AND GASSER

One night in April 1977 a teenager was driving near Dover, Massachusetts, when he saw an entity with large head, protruding eyes, long, thin limbs and peach-coloured skin. Two hours later, another teenager saw the same entity. The following night, what became known as the Dover Demon was seen by another teenager for one last time. Researchers subsequently matched the entity to the pygmy Mannegishi, a mythological creature believed in by the nearby Cree Native Americans. Several decades earlier, in September 1944, the residents of Mattoon, Illinois, were terrorised for nearly a fortnight by a Mad Gasser, a tall, dark-clad man with a tight-fitting hat. First seen as a shadowy figure outside houses, the gasser eventually squirted something into people’s bedrooms, resulting in temporary paralysis.

MOTHMAN

The Mothman terrorised Point Pleasant in West Virginia for several years in the 1960s. A grey, tall creature with wings, no head, human legs and red eyes in its chest, it was seen on over a hundred occasions. Some researchers associated it with ‘Big-hoot’, a Native American legendary monster, whilst journalist John Keel, who investigated it in the 1970s, associated it with the UFO phenomenon. So engrossed in the case was Keel that he began hearing voices, and all kinds of phenomena exploded around him.

SPRING HEELED JACK

Perhaps the most famous such entity was Spring Heeled Jack, who terrorized Britain from 1837 to 1904. Described as a cloaked figure with red eyes, pointed ears and talons, he could breathe fire and jump over houses. Usually attacking young women, clawing at them and breathing fire into their faces, it is interesting that such savage attacks didn’t leave permanent injuries.

MY METHODOLOGY

The nature of the above manifestations can be adequately explained by a concoction of hallucination and hysteria. Even the paralysis involved with the Mad Gasser can be put down to sleep paralysis, a phenomenon where the body reacts to the mind at the borders of sleep. Of course, you may disagree with that brief analysis, but the point I want to explore in this essay is not so much the ‘mechanics’ of the incidents, but what causes them in the first place. To do so, please accept, for the moment, my above explanation. Also, I want you to imagine that the ‘entities’ experienced came from a common thread of experience, made different only by the culture involved in the experience.

WHAT IS CULTURE?

When we do this, a possible explanation can be found, which also ties in with the more obvious ‘entity’ manifestations such as aliens, vampires and a host more. And it all revolves around what we class as ‘culture’. In one sense, culture is the collective input of artists, musicians and storytellers, enriching a society and giving it meaning. However, could it also be that culture is a social force in its own right, not only giving meaning, but representation of experience? In this sense, we can see culture as a kind of ‘over mind’, directing, from above the individual, his thoughts, beliefs and experiences. Hence, life becomes a tug-of-war of ideals born from the individual AND culture.

AN INVASIVE MEDIA

Into this dual form of experience and meaning we can place ‘media’. In effect, media is that form of cultural transmission throughout a culture of current news, ideals and symbols to guide, entertain and inform. Much of this media outpouring is of no consequence, and is forgotten, but occasionally a ‘story’ arises that continues to fascinate, and can even become part of the overall culture in itself. Of course, ‘media’, in this sense, is more than newpapers, television, etc. It is also the transmission of gossip, beliefs and stories, which may, or may not be true, but nonetheless can take on a life of their own.

ANGELS OF MONS

Just how fundamental can be this expression of media within culture? The famed Angels of Mons can offer insight. Appearing when the British Expeditionary Force fought to bring the German onslaught to a halt during World War One, a typical case was that of a Lt Col who reported a retreat during the night, escorted by a column of ghostly cavalry. Most researchers answer the mystery by way of a short story, The Bowmen, by Arthur Machen. Appearing in the Evening Standard on 29 September 1914, it tells a tale of the British being helped by the appearance of Agincourt archers.

The angels thus become simple battlefield hallucinations common during such campaigns, made more stark by a story upon which to focus. However, as the campaign progressed, stories began to emerge of an even more fundamental nature, removing them from simple hallucinations. However, as to their validity, we must introduce characters such as Phyllis Campbell, a patriotic nurse at a Mons dressing station. Hearing stories of angels from injured soldiers, she was one of many who went on to embellish the stories in an attempt to prove God was on the side of the British.

GETTING UNDER THE SKIN

We can see, in the above, how a ‘culture’ can be interpreted by ‘media’, leading to the manifestation of phenomena. Normal psychological ideosyncracies are enforced, giving character to what is seen in terms of cultural hopes, fears and desires. This can work in society as a whole. For instance, if we take the Mad Gasser, fears were high throughout America at the time of attacks from Nazi Germany, including gas attacks.

It was inevitable that, somewhere, sometime, such a phenomenon as the Mad Gasser would appear. But why Mattoon? The city has associations with war in its culture due to the future President Grant taking his first post there during the Civil War. A high spiritual element exists in their culture by being beside an Amish community. Still in their consciousness was a fear of disaster following some 100 deaths during a tornado there in 1917. And the town was, at that time, undergoing an oil boom, complete with fears of gas leaks from the field.

EXPECTATION

We can see, in Mattoon, influences that make it a perfect location for the hallucinated expression of a fear within the society of the United States at that time. Basically, it had to happen somewhere, and Mattoon fitted the cultural bill A similar scenario exists with Spring Heeled Jack. He attacked young women at just the time when society decreed, through an increasingly militant feminism, that they didn’t automatically have to be chaperoned at night. Indeed, attacks in London increased when the Mayor spoke in public of the dangers of such attacks. As for the Dover Demon and Mothman, they appeared at just the time that America had a growing New Age movement which pricked the conscience of America as to its treatment of Native Americans. Indeed, their mythological ‘beings’ were popping up all over the place, the most famous being Sasquatch, or Bigfoot.

A POPULARITY CONTEST

It is here that we can see the importance of studying these ‘monsters’ at the edge of paranormal literature. Caused by cultural expression leading to phenomena, Sasquatch shows their future progression if they capture culture’s imagination in a big way. They become, in effect, national, or even global, phenomena, and continue to be sighted. With this information, their importance is equally enlarged. Consider the idea that the UFO phenomenon could be a cultural expression arising at the time that we dreamt of going into space. The present UFO flap began in 1947, and the sighting by Kenneth Arnold that produced global headlines. And within ten days, a flying saucer ‘crashed’ near Roswell, New Mexico. How relevant is the fact that the area contained the only atomic bomb squadron in the world? Where else could it have manifested other than by the leading edge scientific and military unit on the globe?

A CULTURAL DIRECTOR

Paranormal phenomena and cultural expression go hand in hand, with culture the director of what will be manifested, as well as when and where. It is as if an ‘over mind’ above us decides what we will experience. Even Spiritualism can fall into line with this idea. After all, it is no coincidence that the seminal incident of Spiritualism concerned the two Fox sisters communicating with a ‘dead pedlar’ in New York State in 1848. Spiritualism gave a new ‘occupation’ to the housewife, with mediums being predominantly women and gaining financial and cultural independence from the practice. How strange that the central moment of the rise of feminism was born from the first feminist conference - in New York State in 1848.

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Occasionally, paranormal literature throws up a case so incredible that we either dismiss it as fantasy, or edge towards the idea that demons and possessions are a reality. The facts are just so fantastic, rational inquiry is often forgotten. But are we right to either dismiss or accept? Or is it possible that rational explanations can be placed upon the subject within an overall cultural explanation of phenomena? I opt for this middle ground.

ANNA ECKLUND

Consider the case of Anna Ecklund, born into a religious family from the American Midwest about 1882. Believed to have been abused by her father, at fourteen, she showed signs of possession involving acute sexual fantasies. A monk from Wisconsin was called in, who exorcised her in 1912, claiming she was possessed by the Devil. Failing, she reverted, being possessed until age forty six. Eventually being taken in once more by monks, she threw a fit and for over three weeks swayed between unconsciousness and erotic behaviour, including copious vomiting, levitating and speaking in strange voices. Eventually her body went rigid and the possession was over.

ROBBIE MANNHEIM

Robbie Mannheim - the believed influence behind The Exorcist - was similar. Just before an aunt died, she and Robbie tried to contact spirits on a Ouija board. After her death, his behaviour changed, the boy swearing incessantly. Strange disturbances then began in the house, and cuts appeared on his body. His parents called in a priest who said he was possessed. Exorcisms were attempted, but each time Robbie got worse, attacking one priest with a bedspring, resulting in a hundred stitches. On Easter Monday 1949, Robbie woke up and his demon was gone.

THEORIES ON ENTITIES

The idea that entities can possess the person was accepted as fact through most of human history. In 1917 teacher Max Freedom Long began a study of the Huna of Hawaii. His work confirmed the belief. The Huna believe that, rather than being an individual, man has three separate selves; the low, middle and high self. Long identified these as the unconscious, conscious and superconscious mind, the latter being the region of possession. Canadian psychiatrist Dr Adam Crabtree would see it differently. During therapy he would create entities. Typical was depressive Sarah Worthington. During therapy Crabtree asked if she ever heard voices. Saying she had, he asked her to recall them. Her persona then changed, becoming confident and she had a different voice. Crabtree asked who this possession was. It turned out to be her grandmother, who seemed to have problems of her own. Using this form of psychodrama, Crabtree treated Sarah by psychoanalyzing her grandmother.

MIDDLE GROUND

In the above we have two separate and distinct ideas upon possession. In the former, we see the possibility of the human mind having higher levels of consciousness, whilst in the latter, we see the possibility of entities being ‘split-off’ aspects of mind. This aspect is seen in the phenomenon of multiple personality, where the mind can seem to fragment into a number of different ‘personalities’, taking it in turn to inhabit the host. Could an amalgamation of multiple personality and the possibility of higher consciousness be merged to produce a credible theory of possessions such as Ecklund and Mannheim?

EMOTIONAL INFECTION

One well accepted theory of multiple personality is that it does not exist, as such. Rather, we have a chaotic mind coming upon a therapist, or idea, that it exists. Hence, a form of role-play comes into being, the patient playing to the therapist. In this way, a form of transference has occurred, with the therapist validating something that comes into being purely because of his validation. But what, exactly, is involved in such role-play? What part of the mind does the therapist’s bidding? It is interesting that each personality displayed seems to exhibit a particular emotion of the host. Hence, could it be that, in multiple personality, the role-play revolves around specific emotional traits within the mind?

COMMUNAL CONSCIOUSNESS

Emotions tend to be chaotic things. But more than this, whilst an emotion may be expressed for a variety of ‘personal’ reasons, the actual nature of various ‘emotions’ seem to be identical in all people. Hence, could emotions be of the ‘species’ rather than the person? If so, then we can see a ‘communal’ element of mind being tapped in multiple personality, suggesting that its similarity to possession is greater than we think, with an actual ‘outside’ entity being manifested. Carl Jung gave us a similar concept in his ‘collective unconscious’ – a mind below the ‘personal’ with ‘communal’ traits. And these traits included ‘archetypes’, or shared personality types such as the Child, Sage, Trickster and Hero. Could we therefore argue that, in multiple personality/possession, we are dealing with an archetype as entity?

A SUGGESTIVE CULTURE

Jung’s archetypes also include all manner of symbols, and together with the personality archetypes, we can see the collective unconscious expressed in mythology and society. It is almost as if ‘culture’ itself is an expression of this communal aspect of mind, but within the world we experience. Culture can, of course, come in many forms. An on-going culture can be built-up over millennia, as the ideas and communal symbols are passed down from generation to generation. Such a cultural form can be suggestive in the extreme. After all, if it is an outside expression of the inner mind, it would be, as one would be in sympathy with the other. And possibly so, too, with the ‘archetypes’ that transcend both.

THE DEMON LET LOOSE

If we return to the above cases we can ask what would be the reaction, in terms of culture, of a suggestive, possibly disturbed person being told that they were being possessed? Bearing in mind the cultural legacy inherent in the suggestion, combined with the authority of the priests who are enforcing the concept, can we imagine this person being very good and, as in the role-play involved in multiple personality, exhibiting the behaviour expected of him? And as the cultural expression increases, reinforcing the displayed entity’s existence, we can imagine an emotional archetype out of control, and a ‘possession’ in existence that is ‘communal’, in that it is ‘other’ than the personal mind. And as its ferocity increases, and the patient is further reinforced towards ‘possessed’ behaviour, we can also imagine the priests being similarly infected by the role-play suggested by the possession. And in such a cultural feed-back loop, the exorcists see what they think they’ll see.

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A wise seasoned parapsychologist used to say, 'some of my best friends are ghosts!' 'Really?" I thought to myself. That is quite a statement and one showing bravery and understanding of the unknown. To have come to a point in one's investigative and curious life to feel that way, must have an underlying hidden meaning.

Perhaps this individual, as many others, may also feel that ghosts are better to 'hang around' then some humans. I wouldn't doubt it as I wouldn't doubt anything in the occult and paranormal. Oh there are topics I snicker at because that's my opinion, but on the whole I don't joke about the dead and beyond. I don't joke about what happens when we pass also known as crossing over.

I believe Jon Edwards really coined that term when his show was picked up. Something magical happens when the soul detaches from the body and whisks off into an invisible realm where it can eventually go back and forth between Earth and the Afterlife world. Those are spirits who were lucky enough to peacefully leave their once human existence to go on and continue another way of living. However, for those trapped by terrible causes of death, causes whether they created them or not, become the walking dead!

These pour souls are the ghosts I speak of. Society is very wrapped up in the notion of 'well, if you can't see it then it doesn't exist!' Just like if we don't look at the car accident as were driving by, it didn't happen and there will not be a terrible impression made upon us. Unfortunately life does not work that way. You have to look at some point and you may not like what you see. How an individual deals with a difficult situation depends on many factors and everyone has to do it their own way. So, when one comes across a ghost or a haunting which always leads to a ghost, there are many questions and openings to be explained and answered.

Paranormal investigators are also called PIs, parapsychologists, scientists, ghost hunters, ghost chasers call them what you will, all aim for the same goal. They are all after the same thing...ghosts, ghosts and more ghosts. With today's technology in the ghost hunting business, it certainly has paved an easier path for those forming their own societies, groups and organizations to document real material of the existence of ghosts. This material is evidence that is coming in the form of EVPs, photography and video, motion detectors, temperature readings and digital everything. But, the one thing that any ghost hunter and medium will come across, is something that no piece of equipment could ever pick up on.

The sensation is a feeling and uneasiness that something or someone is in the room with you. A dense space of cold thick air surrounds your entire being and you can't breath. You can't move and you don't know how to react. Somehow your thankful you're not alone on your hunting because this feeling regardless of your experience and gadgets is very personal and can be very dangerous. There are evils that do exist as well as good. When you purposely walk into an environment where you know there is an entity waiting, perhaps more then one, be prepared to feel.

Brace yourself as you acknowledge the reality of this ghost who was once one of the living. Knowing what it was like to be a person now stuck between their old world and a place where they can't call home. Some ghosts just don't want to go and therefore will roam the Earth forever never at peace. Some ghosts are not ghosts at all and the evil I speak of. And some ghosts are happy to move along with your assistance, as they were waiting for your arrival to release them.

Can you begin to imagine what these lost souls must even experience? Stop for a moment with all the investigative research and think, is it possible they feel but differently then when once alive? There's anger when you hear some EVP recordings, as there is kindness in messages in EVP recordings. Based on that theory, I would have to lean in the direction of yes, they feel. So, going on that then imagine what torture it must be like to linger confused, disoriented and stuck in a rut.

For those ghosts that experience this, they are the saddest ones of all. For the evil that purposely wants to stay in our environment, they must go because no good can come of their roaming. Ghosts are what I feel most of us do not want to become when we cross over. But, we can't be in charge of our destinies in the 'how to die well department,' unless we bring that on ourselves. And even then, I feel that was predestined as well.

If you believe there is a God or a higher source at work, then you'll understand we have free will and accept that we must accept our fated paths. That is why it is crucial to live each and every day to the fullest and be kind to your family, friends, children, pets and communities'. Let the person in front of you pass while driving to the store. Don't be pushy in line and wait your turn, even if the person ahead of you maybe 1000 years old. You'll get there eventually. We all get there eventually; it just depends on what is meant to be for each of us. And I hope none of you including myself become ghosts, trapped here bidding a time which ticks and tocks forever. Always be well-Alexandra Holzer.

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