Beyond the Curtain

            They say that monsters don’t really come from our earth.  They say that some monsters and ghosts come from other dimensions.  They say that even some UFOs are not from outer space at all, but simply from another dimension.  Who are they?  A select few monster, ghost, and UFO hunters and theorists.  It is a theory that seems to tie things up quite tidily.  It makes a good explanation as to why no one can get any concrete evidence; the strange being or whatever simply slipped back into their dimension.  I can certainly see the possibility of parallel realities.  I bet these alternate existences can account for a lot of crazy things that happen out there.  So let’s go over the whys and why nots regarding the possibility of parallel universes and the phenomena connected to them.

            I’m going to start out with regular people.  I understand that people have been proven to exist and there is evidence of said existence everywhere.  So I guess you can’t really call people paranormal phenomena.  However, stuff that happens to people can get kind of weird.  Have you ever had a day where everything seems slightly off to you?  It could be a personal problem, I mean, we aren’t always at the top of our game.  But sometimes, maybe it isn’t us.  Maybe something weird is really going on.  We very well could have slipped into a parallel, albeit similar, universe.  This is highly unlikely, since the illogical implications of this would be astoundingly numerous.  For instance, how do we move from one universe to another?  Does it happen while we are asleep?  How do we get back to our own universe after slipping into another?  Are parallel universes really that similar that we can hardly tell the difference?  Though it is very unlikely that we jump around from universe to universe on a regular basis; perhaps the theory of being sucked into a parallel dimension isn’t that far out.  People disappear sometimes.  I’m not talking about those cases where there is a tiny bit of evidence that suggests that the person was killed, kidnapped, or vanished on their own accord; I’m talking about a person that straight up vanishes.  They have perfectly normal lives, no true enemies, and close bonds to other people.  Then one day, they are gone.  I’m not making this up.  I watch a lot of true mystery shows and I read about this stuff as well.  There have been people who have to reason to run away, but they vanish, with no clues as to their whereabouts.  Could it be that these people have disappeared into another dimension?  Where else could they have gone?  Of course, there are many logical explanations; but maybe, just maybe, this is the solution to some of those missing person cases.  The police can’t put “skipped dimensions” on a report, though I’m sure that some of them want to.  My question is do any of these people ever come back?  The answer looks grim.  Unless they somehow manage to come back to their correct universe hundreds of years from where they initially left.  If that were the case, wouldn’t we be finding missing people from bygone eras?  I haven’t heard of a medieval knight showing up in the modern streets of London.  If a person popped up that was obviously from the past, I think we would have heard about it.  Maybe these missing people from our time and from older times will never come back; or they just haven’t come back yet.

            Then there is the missing time phenomenon.  People sometimes discover that they have missed a few hours, such as a road trip taking a much shorter time than expected; or the very opposite, a road trip taking much longer than expected.  Missing time is usually attributed to aliens.  Could it also be a journey through a parallel dimension?  They could have passed through some sort of wormhole that stretches or shrinks time.  Maybe it’s some weird space physics thing that I don’t understand and really shouldn’t be talking about. 

            I think that some people, while not actually stepping into one, have glimpsed parallel universes.  Yes, people have wandered into scenes from the past; there are famous accounts of such incidences.  However, there are stories of people seeing houses that tend to disappear.  There are also stories of entire towns showing up that shouldn’t be there, and vanishing just as quickly.  Are all of these instances shadows from the past?  Why couldn’t they be inter-dimensional houses and towns?  Maybe some houses in a parallel universe are built on some sort of dimensional rift.  The same thing could happen in our universe, but have you ever heard of a person going home and their house just wasn’t there?  There seems to be a lot of evidence that allows for other realities to seep into our own, but very few occasions in which our universe releases anything that belongs to it into other dimensions.  Perhaps we are the less evolved reality, we have yet to discover how to enter a parallel universe.  That’s why they are always coming to us. 

            Then are monsters multidimensional beings?  Are they the ones who possess the power to enter into our reality?  I’ve heard the theory many times, that monsters are not really of this plane of existence.  If that’s the case, the veils between realities are oddly specific.  If Bigfoot is from a parallel universe, why then is he only seen in the woods and other hard to reach places?  Why is the Loch Ness Monster only seen in that lake?  Could it be that Bigfoot prefers our forests to the ones in his dimension?  Maybe our wilderness is a vacation destination for an entire population of alternate reality Bigfoots.  Does Bigfoot—who by all accounts seems to be smarter than an ape, but not quite as smart as a human—possess the ability to travel to different universes?  If it is an accidental shift, why doesn’t Bigfoot show up on the streets of a busy city?  Would these inter-dimensional portals really be that specific to the creatures that pass through it?  I think our world is mysterious enough, I think our monsters are from Earth.  Tears in our reality just don’t fit the monster agenda.  It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

            You could say that ghosts are the best example of travelling between alternate realities.  Brief flashes of out of place people certainly seems to be evidence of universe overlap.  I understand that certain locations may contain a vortex, or doorway to another world.  If you have a vortex in your house, weird things are bound to happen.  But if you have one side of a vortex on your end, where is the other end?  Some vortices lead to the other side, and by other side, I mean afterlife; you know, where dead people hang out.  Now this particular other side could also be categorized as some sort of parallel universe; it’s where people travel to when they pass on.  I don’t really want to go into that, so I won’t.  I want to talk about alternate realities that contain living beings.  So yes, it’s pretty obvious that some ghosts are spirits of the dead; since these particular ghosts can be recognized and historically backed up.  What about one time ghost sightings?  Or sightings of a ghost that really has no business being in that location?  People sometimes get a glimpse of a person that seems to be out of place and these people tend to disappear with no logical explanation.  Are these the sightings of actual ghosts?  Or, maybe these are sightings of a person who slipped into our dimension.  Maybe the people who come from other realities don’t necessarily realize what has happened to them.  Perhaps people from our universe slip into others as well.  If a certain location contains the right kind of vortex, people could be popping in and out of realities and hardly realize it.  The journey may last a split second.  In essence, we could be each other’s ghosts.  This may be a good explanation for a one-time ghost sighting.  If you catch a glimpse of some strange man in your hallway, but you only see him once, does that mean you have a certified haunted house?   Probably not.  It could be a spirit passing through; but it also could be a little slip up in the order of the universe.  People in this world have claimed to see visions of scenes that should not be there; a look into the past, or what seems to be the future.  Could this be evidence that people from our time and place can slip through a rip in reality and see a different world?  Inter-dimensional traveling may account for at least a few ghost sightings.  And I’m only talking about the really weird ones, the ones that don’t make historical or familiar sense.  It could just be an overlay of a different dimension.

            If you’re going to try and travel through parallel universes at will, you probably need some kind of technology to do it.  Perhaps some sort of advanced flying machine?  Are UFOs multidimensional travelers?  Do they come from another universe and not from outer space?  You’d think that a trip into another dimension could be accomplished on the ground, but maybe not.  Perhaps the upper atmosphere is the optimal place to try and cross into another reality.  Yes, aliens could be alternate earthlings.  Not all of them, mind you; the ones that take soil samples and mutilate cattle probably aren’t from a neighboring universe.  Those ones probably come from the far reaches of the galaxy.  As far as abductions go, parallel universe travelers could still want to do tests on us.  Maybe they are looking for something, something that would help their dimension prosper.  Maybe a cure for a disease?  A way to repopulate a dying planet?  I apologize for being too speculative, but you kind of have to in my field.

            So do I think parallel universes exist?  I’m on the fence about that.  Mainly because the mathematics and physics of the concept would blow up my brain if anyone tried to explain it to me.  From a strictly paranormal point of view, it’s all possible.  If I have an open mind about one thing, I should open my mind up to everything.  Just tell me next time you pop into another dimension, tell me what it’s like.

Old School Ghosts

            Has anyone ever seen a ghost of a caveman?  I think I read a fictional, Victorian ghost story about a caveman ghost, but I’ve never heard any reports of such ghosts that claimed to be true.  This brings up a major question that occasionally swirls around the paranormal community.  Do ghosts have a life span?  Would you call it a life span?  Wouldn’t it be some sort of death span?  Well, whatever.  I can see that ghosts could stop wandering this earthly plane when they finish up their business and go into the light, or whatever.  Are there instances when their energy simply runs out?  One of the big theories about ghosts is that they are a form of trapped energy.  Some people believe that energy from a human doesn’t simply cease to exist, rather, it can become stuck on earth.  A violent, unexpected death is one way a person’s energy might hang around.  The person may be so surprised by their death, they probably aren’t even aware that it happened.  A lot of people say that some spirits cannot rest in peace until their business on earth is taken care of; that’s why they stick around, trying to get someone to see them and help them out.  Other ghostly manifestations include an imprint of energy on the environment.  These ghosts can’t interact with the living, it’s simply a replay of events.  Anything can trigger a residual haunting; the weather or a change of any kind to the environment.  I bet a residual haunting’s energy disperses quicker than a trapped soul.  I’ve never been a ghost, though, so I’m not really sure. 

            So what is the life span of a ghost?  Some say it can be as long as 500 years.  That seems reasonable.  I don’t hear much about ancient Egyptian ghosts; though that would be awesome!  We also don’t see any ancient Greek or Roman ghosts.  Not to my knowledge anyway.  If you have a story about a ghost from an ancient civilization, please let me know.  I guess ghosts just can’t hold it together anymore after 500 years.  If they have unfinished business, perhaps they realize that if they can’t get it taken care of in half a century, it’s never going to get done, and maybe they finally move on.  Why 500 years?  Your guess is as good as mine.  Maybe it has something to do with earth cycles, whatever those may be.  Maybe it has to do with some sort of energy decay.  A half life or something?  Almost everything eventually decays, the matter just falls apart after a certain period of time.  I guess ghosts just reach their energy limit at 500 years.

            However, I’m still stuck on the caveman ghosts.  Let’s imagine that we live in prehistoric times, when the first homo-sapiens popped up.  If you were one of the first of what we now call a modern human, what kind of spirits would you be haunted by?  If any at all?  Do you think that the spirits of Neanderthals or Cro-Magnons would be flitting about?  I think this brings up many questions that could be included in the great debate of creationism versus evolution.  Now I believe in both, but some things just don’t make any sense to me.  I think, if you become a ghost, you need some sort of soul, a spark of life, a knowledge of your own self and how you interact with other people.  So, at what point in human evolution did we acquire a soul?  Was it when we first walked upright?  When we used the first tools or made the first fire?  When we first developed verbal communication?  When we first knew and understood what death was?  Were we ever too primitive to have a soul?  Religious scholars tell us that only humans can have a soul.  Yet there are hundreds of stories of pets returning and interacting with their owners; it’s beyond a mere residual haunting.  If these stories are to be believed, how are these pets coming back if they don’t have souls?  Maybe a soul is really a being’s energy, the energy of life itself.  Maybe to be alive means you have some sort of soul, every living creature has that living spark.  I don’t think that plants have souls, though, they really aren’t that sentient.  I absolutely have never heard of a ghost bush or tree.  Sorry tree huggers, I just don’t think it’s a possibility.

            So if living energy constitutes some kind of soul, there had to have been Neanderthal ghosts, right?  The Neanderthals, by all accounts, knew what death was, and, just like people today, they could die very unexpectedly; probably even more so.   A Neanderthal would be walking to his cave, minding his own business, when a saber-toothed tiger jumps out of the brush and snaps his neck.  I think that would be pretty unexpected, and it might create a ghost.  However, unlike today, where most people are aware of at least the possibility of ghosts, Neanderthals probably freaked out when Oog started appearing to his family again.  To the primitive mind, death is the very end.  It’s when you know that they won’t get up again, and their body is just taking up cave space.  They get rid of the body somehow, and that’s it.  So if Neanderthals could become ghosts, I think that may throw things into chaos.  How is Oog standing right there when everyone knows he was devoured by a saber-toothed tiger?  This makes me wonder who the first ghost was, and how they became a ghost in the first place.  I’ll have to dwell on that for a while.  Now, these thoughts lead me to other ideas.  It is a stated fact that humans and dinosaurs never lived at the same time.  However, strange drawings and other bits of prehistoric information sometimes trickles in and confuses us.  Why are there cave paintings that seem to depict a giant reptile of some kind?  What if dinosaurs’ energy still swirled around humans’ very early ancestors?  Of course, this contradicts the theory that ghosts only last for 500 years.  The great thing about paranormal theories, though, is that you can be as far out as you want to be, because, as of right now, there’s no definite way to be proved wrong.  Though I do think I kind of went off the deep end here.  It’s just that cavemen have always fascinated me.  They existed before that enigmatic explosion of civilization, and no one knows what started it.  Let’s save all of that for another time.

            In ancient Egypt, where it was really in style to be dead; ghosts were welcomed as proof of life beyond this mortal coil.  The soul was called ba and the spirit called ka.  The ba was a person’s traits and personality, while the ka was a person’s life essence.  When a person died, it was believed that the ba and ka united and created the akh.  It is the akh that could be interpreted by westerners as a ghost.  Indeed, the akh has very similar traits to what is thought to be a ghost today.  They could be good or bad, they tended to appear when their mortal resting place was disturbed or out of order, and they could certainly haunt people by causing them nightmares and such.  Though I can’t help but wonder if ancient Egypt even had that many ghosts.  They seemed to spend a lot of time preparing for death.  There were books that described what to do in the afterlife once you died.  Though ancient Egypt was very advanced, primal human nature still crept throughout this civilization.  Jealousy and a thirst for power probably plagued the ruling class.  Tons of pharaohs died before their time.  Just like today, you can be ready for death as much as you can, but if it’s suddenly taken from you, it all could get a little confusing, I’m sure.  I bet pharaoh ghosts appeared when their tombs were ransacked, that’s a definite possibility.  But who did they appear to?  I’m sure ghosts were well received by the general public, since the akh was considered to be something very real.  I bet most of the ghosts in ancient Egypt were the lower class or servants.  They probably died at their prime all the time; crushed by a huge pyramid stone, or during any number of hazardous building tasks that servants, slaves, and the Egyptian working class were made to do.  Did anyone care about low class ghosts?  Probably not.  

            The origins of how we imagine or perceive ghosts today, I believe, began in Classical Greece.  There seems to have always been ghosts in Greece, but they evolved as time went on.  At first, ghosts were actually kind of pitied, they were never feared, and they were kind of pathetic.  They wandered the earth and whined about it, I guess because Hades didn’t want them or something.  Later on, around the 5^th century BC, ghosts got scary.  The dead had to be mourned in public, sacrificed to, sang to, and appeased in every way possible so the dead person’s spirit didn’t get angry and haunt his or her family.  Unlike today, cemeteries were thought to contain the spirits of the dead, as it was believed that a ghost hovered near its mortal body.  Today, most people who research ghosts think that the spirit takes up residence in a place where it feels comfortable or where they were killed.  They rarely hang out in cemeteries.  Back in ancient Greece, the living generally avoided cemeteries for the same reason that one avoids a haunted house.  The Greeks had a festival where they honored the dead and actually invited ghosts to come and hang out for a while.  After the party, however, the ghosts had to leave, no exceptions.  I’m talking a lot about traditions here, so did ancient Greeks actually see ghosts?  Very likely; it’s probably why a lot of rituals were put in place to appease them.  I will be researching actual ancient ghost stories eventually, so, you know, look out for that. 

            When we get to the Roman Empire, ghosts really branched out and became kind of fun.  Here, we start running in to haunted houses.  Some would be so haunted, they couldn’t be lived in.  The Romans figured out that a haunting could usually be stopped when a murdered person’s body was properly buried.  I think there was a lot of murder in Rome, just as in all the other ancient empires.  Murder seems to produce ghosts, so there you are.

            I would love to see the ghost of a caveman, or an ancient Egyptian, Greek, or Roman.  I just don’t think it’s very possible these days.  They seem to have all dispersed.  I don’t know how anyone came up with the 500 year timetable, but to me it seems fairly accurate.  Those caveman ghosts will always keep me wondering, and amused; seeing those cavemen running around in complete terror and confusion after seeing a ghost.  Is that cruel?  Have I rambled on enough?  Probably.

Get out!

Why are ghosts always telling the living to “get out?”  You listen to EVPs and they’re usually telling you to leave.  They decide to scribble words in blood, or ectoplasm, or whatever, on the wall, and it tells us the same thing.  What’s up with that?  Why are ghosts so private?  Both demons and ghosts tend to use this popular refrain.  Why are they so guarded?  What are they hiding?

            Some ghosts haunt their former homes, and in their mind, the home belongs to them even after they’ve passed on.  So I can see where saying “get out” would be applicable.  But do ghosts really need that much privacy?  Couldn’t they just go into another room?  I understand that a ghost may not realize they’re dead.  It could be a very traumatizing experience: the whole, not being alive anymore thing.  So death may be hard for some to accept.  In that case, this command seems logical.  No one wants strange people invading and living in their home.  Yet the ghosts just seem to immediately try to oust the living occupants.  I’ve read many ghost stories and watched many ghost shows, more than I really care to admit; but I don’t remember a single ghost ever asking “why are you here?”  Or even, “Hey, what are you doing?”  They don’t try to call for the police or any other type of assistance, this isn’t Beetlejuice.   It’s just “get out” over and over again.  This makes me think that there is some awareness of death.  I think the ghost realizes that it can do things that the living can’t as well as can’t do things that the living can.  It probably takes a lot of energy to say anything that the living can hear, so it’s best to just spit out the demand.  Say this command works and the people leave?  What is the ghost going to go then?  Walk around naked?  Have a ghost party?  It seems to me that they would just wander around in limbo, bored.  But I guess it’s better to be bored than have squatters.

            Sometimes people claim that they have a feeling that something in a particular room doesn’t want them there, so they leave.  Then when they come back later, the feeling is gone.  What do some ghosts only sometimes not want to share the room?  We all have to have our private times, I suppose.

            Demons!  They are always trying to kick people out of places!  What are demons going to do by themselves with no one to torture, scare, or possess?  Do demons pass gas?  Are they shy about their problem?  Is that why they forcefully eject people from certain places?

            This is probably the most inane thing I’ve ever written.  But I just can’t believe that such a majority of ghosts want us to “get out.”  Maybe we’re misunderstanding the EVPs.   What sounds like get out?  Met trout?  Bet gout?  Debt doubt?  Pet lout?  Wet route?  Maybe not.  Why would ghosts say any of those things?

            So let’s move on and talk about EVPs.  Electronic voice phenomenon.  There’s some pretty compelling stuff out there.  EVPs can be recordings of anything from footsteps, to moans, to screams, to words, to full-fledged sentences.  There are some interesting and creepy recordings on the internet…look them up…I’ll wait…

            I hope you listened to some good ones.  I think they are all rather fun.  They’re also interesting when they seem to answer questions being asked by the living.  They’re creepy when they get growly or demanding.  The theory is that digital recorders, or, for that matter, almost anything that records, can pick up things unheard by naked human ears.  And when these recordings are played back, voices of the dead pop up.  I don’t know how people find these recordings.  I personally could not listen to dead air for hours in hopes of distinguishing a voice.  I can’t even hear most EVPs when they’re played and pointed out to me.  I mean, I hear a variance in the sound, or lack thereof, but I certainly can’t understand what on earth the people who made the recording thought they heard.  So most EVPs are a grasp out into nothing and returning with nothing.  What?  Never mind.  Some EVPS have to be misidentifications.  Real things make noise, and they might sometimes be mistaken for voices.  But for those really fuzzy, quiet ones, I hear nothing.  But my hearing isn’t so good to begin with, so who knows?

            For the ones I can hear and understand, though, it gets pretty interesting.  Is it really ghosts?  I’m not really sure about that.  I mean, think about it, there are millions of different kinds of signals shooting through the air at any given time.  Could EVPs be stray radio or TV signals?  Sounds plausible.  It could explain why people can’t hear them without a recorder, the waves may need some sort of electronic voice to be heard.  You can probably tell that I don’t really understand how these frequencies operate, but a girl can guess, can’t she?

            If they are noises from transmissions, then why do some EVPs seem to interact with the people doing the recording?  I’ve heard many EVPs that seem to answer questions being asked.  Then there’s the old, “get out.”  Unless people are broadcasting that particular phrase in many ways and frequencies, I think we’re hearing ghosts that want to be left alone.  Then again, sometimes the EVPs are like answers from the Oracle at Delphi; cryptic, unclear, very open to interpretation, in Greek.  A lot of EVPs I’ve listened to don’t directly answer the question being asked.  However, the logical and sometimes dishonest human mind can trick itself into thinking that it is a legitimate conversation.  This may prove that all EVPs are just radio waves.  It also may show that when you become a ghost, you play by different rules.  In the spirit realm, maybe there isn’t a need for direct and to-the-point answers.  The pace of the afterlife is slower.  There’s no need to hurry and make contact.  Spirits, to some, live on a higher plain of existence, maybe the strange words on the recording are slightly above true human comprehension.  That theory makes little sense to me, since many house spirits seem petty and mischievous, not heightened and enlightened.  But once again, I digress.  It’s hard to talk about EVPs without referencing particular ones or having some of my won.  But I don’t feel like doing the work and finding examples.  Go look yourself.  They’re neat, I swear.

Ghost Lovin'

Can you really cheat on your partner with a ghost?  My boyfriend thinks so, he doesn't want me to even look at a ghost with lustful intent.  I don't see what the big deal is.  It's a ghost!  It's not like I would carry on a secondary relationship with this ghost; I swear it would be a one time thing.  Some people claim that they are in love with a certain, special ghost.  I say that those folks need to get out and meet some alive people.  How can you take a ghost to meet your parents?  How about your friends?  And what about counseling?  You two are going to need it, since you don't live on the same plain of existence.  No, I wouldn't ever think a ghost is my soul-mate that will find me when I pass on and we'll live together as happy spirits for all eternity.  I don't want to have a seance everytime I want to go on a date.  But a one night ghost stand, that sounds like fun.
As a female, there's always a concern of getting pregant when you aren't ready.  Not with a ghost!  They can't spread their ghost DNA on and make a hybrid baby.  No mess, no baby.  Sorry to be so vulgar, but I'm sure it's a concern we all have when pursuing a ghost love fest.  As a male, well, you don't have to worry about being an accidental father of a half-ghost baby.  So with all that out of the way, let's talk about fun things.
I really don't think that having sex with a ghost constitutes as cheating.  Most people don't even know where to begin to look for a sexy ghost partner.  Psychics and sensitives might.  Maybe you should talk to one of them.  But then again, you really shouldn't do that if you are in a committed relationship.  Unless you're both open to it.  That might be interesting.  However, your partner really can't say anything if you accidentally sleep with a ghost.  If one comes to you in the middle of the night and seduces you in your half-awake state, how is that your fault?  It's not like you're visiting a hotel where a ghost is known to put the moves on its visitors.  And if you do happen to visit one of these hotels, it's not like you knew about it ahead of time.  And if you do know about it ahead of time, it's not like you really need to tell your partner.  I mean, there's no guarantee that the ghost will find you attractive.  It isn't wrong to hope it does.  We all want to be found attractive.  It isn't cheating!  If you don't do it on purpose, you can't be blamed.  It's like accidentally having a sexy dream about someone else besides your partner.  How is that your fault?
Just beware of Incubi and Succubi.  They will be covered by me later on.  I just want to bring up the point that ghost sex isn't cheating.