Poltergeist heist: Who are you really going to call?

You know the story. Loud banging noises but nothing has moved. Clocks falling from the wall. Dishes tumbling off the bench. The landline, which no-one is using, suddenly shouting incomprehensibly. And those weird instances of hands going pinch and poke in the night. We’ve got a ghost. A poltergeist. That pesky type of ghost causing trouble: robbing us of our sanity and sleep.

It started off being a joke. We’d just moved in. It seemed fun to have “our ghost” who we could blame for any accidental breakage. Our ghost was definitely the friendly variety, just wanting to occasionally let us know it was there. But then things changed. Things became really weird. And the worst part is, while I might joke and pretend, I don’t actually believe in ghosts.

When it comes to vague ideas about “spirituality”, I’m all there. I have no black or white views. I tend to think, broadly speaking, lots of things happen that we don’t understand. And sometimes we get cold shivers and discover we’re in a location where people have died, or we think about someone the very moment that something happens to them. And I can certainly joke, and half believe, that we have a spiritual presence in our house. But when push comes to shove, as it were, I really struggle to accept that paranormal activity actually happens. I tentatively told a friend about our “ghost” and she said encouragingly “have you seen all those photos of people with ghosts on the internet?”. Yes, I said. But I think it’s all bollocks.

Despite the series of unexplained events, I’m steadfastly now avoiding the idea of a ghost. Possibly because to believe in the paranormal would be to start disbelieving in some very basic science. It seems illogical and irrational. Not to mention scary. Some of the things that have happened include being woken in the middle of the night. I’ve been woken by what feels like someone pinching my nose so I can’t breathe. I’ve also been woken by what feels like hands placed gently on my eyes. I’ve even felt the shape of the palm and the fingers. I have boldly refused to let it bother me and even told my friend: “well it doesn’t matter what the ghost does to me, because they’ll probably do worse to my partner.”  A few days after I said that I woke in the morning to a sleepy, relaxed, dishevelled and slightly sheepish partner who said “I just had the best dream”. Yep, I thought… how typical…

Another weird thing was sensing the cat walk across the pillow behind my head, to then discover the cat wasn’t in the room. You’re probably thinking I’m a strange deranged lunatic at this point; I often think that too… But, here’s the catch. The telephone talking, the loud banging, the giant heavy pillow moving from one side of the bed to the other in the middle of the night, and the loud knock on our bedroom door at 2am didn’t happen to me. They were experienced by others in the house. Are you hearing scary music? I feel there should be scary music...

A “ghost” is essentially the spirit or soul of a dead person. It’s an old word (been used for about 500 years), is of Germanic origin and the belief in souls itself is ancient. The term paranormal covers activities for which there is no scientific explanation. The key here though is that while currently beyond the scope or realm of scientific understanding, they may well be understood in the future. On the other hand, supernatural suggests that we will never be able to explain or understand them (think “miracles” and “the divine”).

It’s hard to know what to think. There’s a branch of psychology called “transpersonal studies” which is essentially spiritual psychology. Although they tend to research the levels of belief that people have (using the paranormal belief scale) rather than the occurrences themselves. There are also as many books supporting the existence of ghosts as there are books reasoning they don’t exist.

But sometimes you get sick of coming up with rational and scientifically based reasons for random unexpected events. What if you decided to come up with one reason to explain everything – the ghost who wants attention? What do you do then? In short, who are you going call? Well, as it turns out, there are people you can contact. If you go to the NZ ghost story Facebook page you can be put in touch with paranormal forensic investigation teams. You can even sign up for a ghost hunt. Although, and I found this as weird as the events themselves, the easiest thing to do in the first instance is Ask the Internet because there is a step-by-step guide (with pictures) on how to get a ghost out of your house on WikiHow.

Compared to most sites which actually do have the accompanying “scary” music (a brilliant reminder of Jack Palance saying “believe it or not”) WikiHow, at first glance, appears reasonably matter of fact. Step one sensibly involves eliminating non-supernatural factors. For example, the possibility that your “ghost” is caused by infrasound (sound too low for humans to hear). They also helpfully highlight that if you live near a dump then you should watch for methane gas “giving a smell of brimstone and bursts of fire”. If you are still reading the entry… the suggestion is to then get a psychiatric assessment completed. However, if you manage to eliminate other explanations, prove you’re not mad and have other witnesses to the weirdness, then they suggest you politely (but confidently) ask your ghost to leave. If that fails, you could try an exorcism (with the note that it only works if you’re Christian). They also suggest that you clean your house. Well that’s it, I’m stuck with that ghost for life.

Fortunately there are sensible opinions provided by different groups (the Committee for Sceptic Enquiry, for example) about how to interpret the uneasy sense that something you don’t understand is happening. One of the Committee’s key messages is that a belief in ghosts stems from misinterpreting what has been seen. Lights being reflected in mirrors rather than ghostly apparitions, and pianos playing by themselves because of temperature changes. They also draw reasonably compelling parallels between notoriously unreliable evidence from eyewitnesses to crimes, and people who believe they have seen, felt or otherwise experienced a strange paranormal event.

I do think though, that the slightly disconcerting thing when odd things happen is that they are odd precisely because there is no observed scientific explanation. It is possibly even ironic that because of the lack of witnessed evidence we can only have faith that there is a sound and scientific explanation. But there it is. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I wish science would stop waking me up in the middle of the night.