A Story May Be Accurate, but Is It True?

Spooky hallway in the Crescent Hotel and Spa
of Eureka Springs, AR. The Crescent is dubbed
America's most haunted hotel.

Sometimes we hear a story about paranormal subject matter that sounds really compelling. Some reports of unusual experiences might indeed represent odd occurrences, but it should be a given that many do not. How the storyteller frames the circumstances - what they leave in, what they leave out, etc. - can make a huge difference. 

The use of language is very important. We can either inadvertently or intentionally mislead others, as well as ourselves, depending on how we describe things, repeat and embellish them over time, and so on.

People often do not accurately interpret descriptions of things we try to transfer through words. We can't even transmit a thoroughly accurate signal, and they can't receive it if we could. To complicate matters, they often think they understand fully. They are then subject to taking on their own inaccurate mental vision of a story as if it is a correct representation of actuality, and then later describing that evolving and shifting mental vision as what someone else told them took place. The process then repeats as the story is passed along. 

Paranormal stories rarely have resolution. We often just don't know what happened, but understanding points an author may omit or fail to pursue has the potential to significantly help us with listing and ranking possible explanations. Let's consider an example.

The Ghost Story

Several years ago I resided in a house about 100 years old. I taught music lessons and sold instruments, often in the house.

One night I had just arrived home from the grocery store. I carried some bags up the front steps. As I reached an elevated wooden front porch, out of the corner of my eye I thought I caught a glimpse of an old woman standing in the yard to my right. 

She seemed to be standing in a line of trees. I initially interpreted her to be wearing outdated clothes, or, we might say, garments from another era. I thought she perhaps had on an apron or long skirt, and maybe a bonnet or something on her head.

I had the impression she was lost or distressed, which is to say it would be pretty strange to be standing around in someone's yard at night. I set the bags of groceries down before turning to address the woman because I suspected this interaction might require more care than a typical exchange with a neighbor. I was prepared to ask her if she was okay, and take some responsibility for the situation if she was not. I turned to face her and she was gone.

A few weeks later I was working at a musical instrument display I set up in a local store. I was playing an electronic keyboard. This one man, about 65 years old, took my business card. Momentarily he returned with excitement.

"Hey," he told me, alternately looking at me and my card, "I grew up at this address."

"Is that right?" I asked.

"Yeah, I sure did," he continued, telling me how the now paved road used to be dirt, and a few other things of note.

"You know," he eventually said, "that house is haunted..."

"Yeah?"

"Yes, it's my mom. She loved that place, and people saw her for years after she died. She played piano, and people who lived in the house would say they heard her playing a few notes now and then."

I encouraged him to stop by the house if the mood ever struck. One Sunday he took me up on it.

He came up the steps, onto the porch, and I welcomed him into the house. Far and away the most prominent thing one would first notice would be the musical instruments all over the place. This was no regular living area I kept. Electronic keyboards, music books, an old upright piano. He enthusiastically explained how his mom (the piano player) would have loved this. 

I gave him some space and allowed him to browse the home, just him and his memories. We chatted a bit afterward, about his mother and old stories about the house, and I bid him farewell.   

It seemed I had quite a ghost story on my hands, complete with my own sighting!

More of the Story

I would not try to validate or devalue the man's beliefs, as of course I wasn't there and have no idea what all may or may not have taken place. I really can't speak to his experiences and interpretations, but I can speak to mine.

There are some things that should be considered before we assume my experience necessarily has any relevance at all to his story, much less validates spirits walk the earth as apparitions after physical death. The following offers an example of how an author might omit potentially important info, leading readers to make a lot of assumptions about the above ghost story.

At the time in question, my music students were primarily senior citizens. Overwhelmingly so, as a matter of fact. I spent a great deal of time around aged people. I taught recreational music making on keyboards. I had been doing this in one capacity or other, from Florida to Maryland, for years.

We often conducted social events in the house to increase morale and create traffic. These might include keyboard concerts consisting of Big Band music, and costumes were encouraged. We'd do Western Day, 1950's Day, salutes to veterans, and so on, depending on things like holidays and time of year. Suffice it to say I spent significant amounts of time not only with seniors, but with us all dressed in outfits from yesteryear, and on that very property. I think it's reasonable to suppose that if my 'ghost' was a momentary optical illusion, it would seem pretty likely that what I might think I saw would be an older person in outdated clothing. I had, in fact, frequently seen and greeted just such actual people from the porch on which I stood. 

As first mentioned, the ghost woman seemed to be standing in a dark tree line. I was standing on an elevated porch, illuminated by a porch light. It doesn't seem like much of a stretch to suspect I may have momentarily mistaken a tree or shadows in the outlying dark for a person. A storyteller could, hypothetically, leave out the part about it being night, omit the fact they were standing in an illuminated area while glancing into the darkness, fail to mention the perception was simply a fleeting glimpse, etc. 

Also, and I came to think this might be pretty relevant, I had just arrived home from the grocery store. As the story suggests, it was nearing the end of the day. It was a work day, I was tired, and I went grocery shopping on top of that. So not only do those points seem potentially relevant to me, but particularly the part about being in a store just before it happened.

I had just left a place where lots of people were milling around. It wouldn't seem all that odd to mistakenly think I saw a person when I looked into the dark, or, in a manner of speaking, looked at an ink blot. This might be considered similar to spending a day at an amusement park riding a roller coaster, then continue to have the dizzying sensations when closing our eyes at night to go to sleep. When veterinarians get home after a long day, do they 'see' dogs in the shadows? And particularly if they saw a few more on their way home from the office? 

The musical aspect of the story might be considered an intriguing coincidence. While that is indeed the case, it's also true that it was extremely common for women of the relevant age group to play piano. It was once considered a pretty standard part of a well rounded education and cultural upbringing. We might also consider it's extremely unlikely the other residents of the home who apparently reported ghost sightings, as mentioned by the man, were using the property as a music store. It's a pretty shaky connection, albeit a potentially fun and entertaining story to tell.   

We'll never know for sure about the vast majority of these kinds of situations. However, the discriminating reader realizes all possibilities are not equal. A great deal more hypothetical circumstances must be taken into evidence to assume a ghost sighting than, for instance, a trick on tired eyes. Whether a writer chooses to research optical illusions or spend their time learning about seances may make all the difference as to how they frame a story. Similar may of course be said about a UFO writer allocating some attention to exotic aircraft as compared to spending inordinate amounts of time absorbing and relaying sensational stories.

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Recommended related reading:

UFO Critical Thinking 101

Eye of the Beholder