After the esoteric excitement of the 90s and 2000s passed, many began to realize that authentic anomalous phenomena, in fact, do not occur as often as it seemed earlier. Moreover, they are extremely rare, which allows them to be called such terms as “phenomenon”, “miracle”, “anomaly”. Scientific methodology obliges us to look first for more economical, rational explanations for certain unusual events. This is extremely important, because, otherwise, we will simply devalue the concept of "miracle", we will not be able to critically divide the phenomena into "ordinary" and "unusual".
A striking example of this state of affairs is the poltergeist phenomenon. First of all, this is due to the fact that some typical poltergeist events (flying objects, turning on / off lights, the appearance of notes / SMS, arson, etc.) are relatively easy to simulate. However, quite often researchers are not even dealing with a deliberate falsification of the poltergeist process, but rather with an incorrect interpretation of unexpected and, at first glance, inexplicable events on the part of unwitting eyewitnesses. In the research practice of the Irkutsk-Kosmopoisk group, such cases are also not uncommon, but only a small part of them find an unambiguous rational explanation.
Several years ago, Irkutsk researchers encountered two cases of unknown activity in public buildings: a hospital and a company office, which, at first glance, resembled the pranks of the "noisy spirit". Although these incidents took place at different times, in different places and were in no way connected with each other, they were united by the fact that their main feature was spontaneous switching on of light. It was these episodes that most puzzled unwitting eyewitnesses, prompting the idea of a possible poltergeist.
At the end of 2015, an electrician working in a hospital in Irkutsk contacted Irkutsk-Kosmopoisk. He said that for several days there have been frequent and inexplicable light turns on in the corridor of this institution, next to his office. One evening in this hallway, he turned on the light to enter his office. However, as soon as he was there, the light suddenly turned off. The man turned it on again, but after a couple of minutes the light went out again. According to the electrician, he clearly heard the click of the switch. Being an expert in these matters, he decided to disassemble the "broken" switch, but did not find any malfunction or defect. In the days that followed, the lights turned off spontaneously again and again, including in the presence of other witnesses, whom the puzzled electrician invited to unravel this phenomenon.
Hospital corridor with a "restless" switch.
However, through joint efforts, it was possible to find a rational explanation for this incident. The whole thing turned out to be in an unusual electrical circuit of the "uncontrolled" switch. The latter turned out to be parallel with the switch of the neighboring X-ray department, and the electrician's colleagues were involuntary "little bums" here, who turned off the light behind the wall. When they did this, the lights automatically turned off in the hallway. At the same time, the electrician heard the click of the switch, but did not hear the steps, because the nurses and doctors walked in slippers. In addition, the flip of the switch was loud enough to be heard through the door separating the electrician's office and the radiology department.
Electrical diagram that explains the hospital "poltergeist".
The second case took place in early 2017, when employees of a commercial organization contacted Irkutsk-Kosmopoisk with complaints about poltergeist episodes in their building. In their words, unexplained incidents began just a couple of days before the New Year, on December 30, 2016. Several times workers heard footsteps on the stairs, or in the office, when no one was there. In March 2017, one female employee allegedly saw an unknown man in an empty office, who was “unnaturally close” facing the wall. She claimed that she could not imagine it, since she looked into the office a second time, the stranger was still standing. However, the reason for the appeal to the Irkutsk experts was the episode with the spontaneous switching on of the light in the corridor of the first floor. This moment was recorded by CCTV cameras and happened on March 21 at 6:00 am,when there was no one else in the building.
Promotional video:
Light turn on moment:
The reports of eyewitnesses about past sounds and visions were difficult to verify, the experts could only state that the eyewitnesses believed in what they said. However, the objective episode that took place with the morning light on could be studied. A more detailed analysis of the recordings from the CCTV camera made it possible to restore the picture. It turned out that the light in the building for some unknown reason turned on the watchman, whose room was located next to the building. This is confirmed by a recording from another street camera, where it is seen that at 05:58 he is heading towards the building. Also, on the recording from the camera in the corridor, it can be seen that at the time 06:00:45 a hand appears from the slightly opened front door, which presses the switch.
Rational explanations for other episodes in this building can be found in the cumulative action of psychological effects and certain unexpected events. People may often conclude that they have a poltergeist in their home or workplace after having an initial unusual experience that they believe is paranormal. The initial event may be of a psychological nature (for example, a frightening episode of sleep paralysis) or some physical event that defies any obvious explanation (for example, sounds of unknown genesis, unexpected switching on of light, etc.). Special contextual factors can play a key role here (belief in the paranormal, characteristics of the place, grief for the recently deceased, etc.), as well as launched reactive processes, for example, rumors aboutthat there are ghosts in a certain building. In such cases, entire groups of people, to varying degrees, are subjected to various anomalous experiences, from rather moderate ones (sensations of temperature changes, sensations of someone else's presence, etc.) to full-fledged visions of ghosts.
Thus, what appears to be paranormal is not always so. People with peculiarities of their perception and interpretation of reality are capable of generating whole supernatural stories that will be mistakenly labeled as a miracle or an anomaly. However, all this does not exclude the action of forces unknown to science, including reasonable ones, in those extremely rare cases when people are dealing with a real manifestation of the phenomenon.
Nikita Tomin, Roman Kulikov
