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Ghostly Websites Flourish on The Internet
Forget the haunted house; this Halloween your own computer may be enough to scare you
October 31, 2007— It’s early morning, still so dark it looked like nighttime, and I was walking alone down the street. Suddenly, I heard a noise behind me—a cold chill ran down your spine, my stomach muscles begin to tense, you turn, and there, standing just a few feet behind me, was a shadowy figure dressed in what looked like a paramedic’s uniform, but faint, somehow, like an imprint of a person rather than a solid form.
Before I can blink, it vanishes, and I turn and run, not stopping until my ankles begin to burn and my breath comes out in shallow gasps. Later, at the office, I laughingly tell one of my coworkers about the experience, chalking it up to my overactive imagination. To my surprise, my coworker does not laugh back. Instead, her lips are tightly pursed and her face has gone pale. “Which street did you say you were on?” she asks.
When I tell her, she shuts her eyes and in a frightened, whispered voice informs me that, exactly one year ago to the date, a fatal six car accident took place on that very street. One of the most tragic deaths, she says, was that of a young paramedic who attempted to free one of the victims of the accident and in doing so, was killed by an oncoming car and died on the very spot where you glimpsed the shadowy figure. She’ll never forget that accident, she says, because she and her little brother, who had just become a licensed paramedic, were very, very close.
This story may not be true, in fact it isn’t, but it is similar to the many stories circulating on the Internet—stories of ghost girls roaming the side of the highway, and office buildings and libraries haunted by former employees who just couldn’t seem to stay away.
Ghost stories, formerly the stuff of books and tales on cold winter nights, have made the technological leap in a big way. Websites abound that focus on photos, videos, web cam broadcasts, and first hand accounts of ghostly experiences. One such site, TheShadowlands.com, the mission statement promises to “provide real proof to the existence of real ghosts in the form of pictures, stories, and advice.”
But just how many people actually believe in the existence of ghosts? The figures may surprise you. According to a recent survey, 50% of the US population believes, leaving the other 50% to scratch their heads and wonder exactly what an “ectoplasmic orb” is.
So watch out this Halloween when you’re walking late at night, (or early in the morning, as the case may be) you never know what you might run into, or whose deceased relative you may see shambling along the side of the road.
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