Even the ancient Romans believed that the spirits of the dead could return and haunt the living. When it comes to ghosts, ghosts, phantoms (call them what you want, the essence of this does not change), some just wave their hand or smile skeptically, others twist their fingers at their temples. But, nevertheless, there are thousands of witnesses who saw ghosts with their own eyes, there are hundreds of photographs (and most of them are not fake)
In the last 15-20 years, even science has taken up the study of ghosts and ghosts, especially since modern technologies and equipment allow it to be done. By the way, despite the development of these very technologies, every year more and more people begin to admit that they may exist. "Ghostbusters" even conducted a kind of poll, during which it turned out that 42% of Americans had contact with someone who had already died. Moreover, among widows and widowers, the number of people in contact with the deceased increased to two-thirds.
According to the encyclopedic definition, a ghost or ghost is something that has been seen. An image (usually visual) that looks like a human, animal or inanimate object, but is not a given object and is endowed with properties that are not inherent in either a person, an animal, or this object (in other words, an image without a carrier).
The concept of "ghost" generalizes a whole class of phenomena, apparently of different origins. It is used in cases of observation:
- a human figure, possibly resembling a deceased, capable of flying, passing through walls, suddenly appearing and disappearing before the eyes of an eyewitness;
- unidentified creatures that resemble humans, but differ in their anatomical structure or capabilities (for example, a moth-man);
- human faces or other parts of the body floating in the air (the phenomenon of "black hands");
- ghostly beasts or ghostly vehicles (buses, planes, trains, Flying Dutchman);
- objects appearing in the photo during its development, which were not at the time of photographing. (Human faces, incomprehensible shadows, glowing clouds, lights, threads hanging in the air, etc. may appear in the photo).
In addition to the visible image, testimonies of strange sounds, the phenomenon of a poltergeist, as well as an inexplicable effect felt by a witness are also associated with ghosts. Sometimes eyewitnesses claim that the appearance of a ghost is accompanied by a sharp change in air temperature (sudden unreasonable cold), unpleasant odors (sulfur, miasma), anxiety of pets, and disturbances in the operation of electronic equipment.
A man's face is clearly visible behind one of the aviators. Colleagues easily recognized him as Freddie Jackson, an aircraft mechanic who served in the squadron shown in the photo. Two days earlier, Freddie was tragically killed, and on the day of the photo he was buried. Colleagues decided that Jackson, not realizing that he had died, decided to participate in a group shooting.
It happens that when phantoms appear, ectoplasm is detected - a viscous substance. At the time of conducting spiritualistic seances, she appears from the holes in the body of the medium (ears, nose), who is in a state of trance. Its clots can sometimes be found in the photo, where the ghosts are captured. By the way, this substance was well studied by the French physiologist, Nobel Prize winner Charles Richet. Moreover, he even managed to cut off and preserve a lock of female hair of an ectoplasmic nature during a spiritualistic session. So, ectoplasm feels warm and waxy to the touch. In bright light, it disappears. Usually it is grayish or white, but there are exceptions (purple, blue). In most cases, ectoplasm occurs outdoors.
I must say that among the people who encounter phantoms, not all are "dark and uneducated." Among them there are scientists, teachers and doctors. So, for example, Academician Natalya Petrovna Bekhtereva has repeatedly seen the ghost. After the death of her husband, a close friend began to live with her in the apartment. Both women several times observed the ghost of the deceased and heard his steps.
City ghosts
It's no secret that ghosts used to live in ancient castles and monasteries. With the development of civilization, they began to settle in cities - in cemeteries, in "bad apartments", subways, sewers, in a word, "bad places."
Favorite ghost towns are London, Paris, Prague, New York and Moscow. But the leader in the number of urban ghosts is, of course, the capital of Great Britain. And the most mysterious object of Foggy Albion, besides the Tower, is the London subway. This is a very ancient structure, its construction was started back in 1863. There are many mysterious creatures living there, periodically "creeping" into the real world. So, for example, all Londoners know that some phantom entities live under the northern line of the metropolitan metro. They rarely come to the surface, preferring the labyrinths of tunnels. - They feed on food waste, mice, rats, pigeons, and sometimes people - late or drunk passengers.
They say that these phantoms, the spirits of those who died in the subway during its existence. According to another version, during the construction of some stations and tunnels, workers dug up burial grounds with victims of medieval plague epidemics. In those distant times, the dead were collected around the extinct city and simply dumped into pits filled with lime. Now the dead, not buried according to the Christian rite, roam the London subway.
There are also "personal" ghosts that appear in separate places. So at the Yeldvich station, which was closed in 1994, they often see the ghost of the Singer. She committed suicide in this place during one of the parties. The artist's shadow hardly bothers the passengers. A quiet ghost named Sarah, or the Black Nun, lives at Benck Station. She is looking for the body of her brother, the embezzler cashier, who was executed in 1911. At Ferringdon Station, the spirit of a hatmaker's apprentice is crying in the tunnel. The girl was killed in 1758 for poor academic performance.
Passengers passing through the South Kinsington stop see a ghost train that disappeared there in 1928 under mysterious circumstances. The train, in which there was only one driver, was heading for the depot. But after the train passed the fatal station, no one saw it. True, there is a legend among the inhabitants of the London bottom that the cunning man handed over the train to scrap metal and went to live in the Bahamas.
In July 2005, London was rocked by a series of terrorist attacks in which people died. And after a while, residents of the capital began to notice ghosts on the Aldgate - Edgeware Road stretch (one of the explosions took place there), who are asking for the cars.
And here are interesting facts about the metropolis, which is only an hour's flight from us, we are talking about Moscow. It turns out there are also a lot of "lost places". Moreover, many travel agencies have even included them in their itineraries. For example, Patriarch's Ponds and the house with the Bul-Gakov "bad apartment". Other routes are St. John the Baptist Monastery and its surroundings, the area near the Cathedral of Christ the Savior and even the theater. A. S. Pushkin. The actors testify that from time to time ghosts of director Alexander Tairov and actress Alisa Koonen wander around it. And on Sparrow Hills, late students sometimes observe the shadows of the “fathers of Russian democracy” Herzen and Ogarev.
The following story will not be told to you at any tour desk. Back in 1812, the only person who came out to greet Napoleon's army with bread and salt was a certain merchant. He was a member of the anti-government and anti-Orthodox sect of eunuchs and lived in the Vagankov area, where the Krasnaya Presnya stadium is now located. When the French left the city, the merchant hanged himself. A rich widow who is not indifferent to students moved into his house. After a while she was stabbed to death by a young lover for money. (By the way, that high-profile trial prompted Dostoevsky to write "Crime and Punishment"). So, the shadow of a Judas merchant appears from time to time in those places. So, she was seen on the Presnenskaya embankment before the tragic events of the uprising of 1905 and not so long ago, in 1993, before the execution of the Government House.
In many Russian cities one can hear stories about local spirits and phantoms. For example, in Volgograd, near the university, the ghost of a soldier with a bandaged hand is often seen. In the evenings, he approaches belated passers-by and asks for a smoke, and then disappears. The university is located next to the famous Bald Mountain, where fierce battles took place.
Regarding the topic of urban ghosts, it should be noted that science does not deny the presence in cities (both large and small) of places where all kinds of "devilry" is happening and explains this by geopathogenic zones. These zones are real physical phenomena. They form over voids in the ground, underground water streams, former river beds, ground faults. Here the geomagnetic field, radiation level, soil conductivity and other parameters change. The negative impact of active faults on the habitat is so great that they are considered risk zones. In geopathogenic points, negative natural and man-made phenomena can develop that threaten human health, increase injuries and accidents, lead to premature wear and tear of buildings.
Research shows that the impact of geopathogenic zones on human health is usually negative. Prolonged exposure to them can cause serious consequences: mental disorders that lead to "encounters with ghosts", imbalance of the hormonal and immune systems, diseases of the musculoskeletal system, changes in blood composition, cancer, strokes and heart attacks. In the old days, such cases were explained by an imposed curse or intrigues of evil spirits. By the way, in Russia “black spots” were determined simply, on the territory allocated for building houses, they hung pieces of raw meat. No houses were built where it rotted faster.
Evidence
Very often, specialists dealing with this topic really come across photo and video fakes, since nowadays there are plenty of technologies for this, and people already really want to be known as "ghost hunters". In other cases, some trifle that interfered with the shooting is recognized as an anomalous phenomenon: a finger on the lens, a reflection of glass, showcases or mirrors, poor-quality development, cloudiness, etc. But what about old photographs when people did not know about Photoshop and computer graphics? Or how to respond to the readings of impartial instruments? By the way, here is one of the loudest examples.
At the end of 1991, the British press discussed for a long time the incident that took place in the Butterfly nightclub in Oldham. The owners of the establishment, closing the premises, turned on not only the security alarm, but also a hidden video system, and then left for their homes. An hour later the alarm went off in the club. Police and owners soon arrived and found no sign of a break-in. But the video camera clearly captured a man in a light shirt with short sleeves and dark trousers. He stepped right through the closed door.
The incident caused a lot of talk. At first, the majority assumed that the video was fake. But expert verification confirmed its authenticity. And the most amazing thing in this case was that when the stranger reached the end of the corridor, he simply stepped right through the closed oak door of the cash register. The time of the alleged "burglary" recorded by the video camera exactly coincided with the time when the alarm went off at the police station.
The British Association for the Study of Anomalous Phenomena, as a result of careful research, has established that the Butterfly Club was located in the same room in which many people died a violent death a few years ago.
One of the frames of the above-mentioned video was printed in one of the newspapers. The next day, an elderly local resident announced that he recognized the ghost of his father, who died in this building while carrying out restoration work back in 1932.
Perhaps phantoms still exist in their own world. Or maybe we are phantoms for them.
“Interesting newspaper. Incredible No. 20 2008
