The Ghost Hunter
This afternoon saw the long-awaited visit from Innes Smith, a paranormal investigator who has been reading about the ghost that's said to haunt the basement beneath my office. I wasn't quite sure how to approach my conversation with him. On the one hand, I don't believe in ghosts and was tempted to have a bit of a laugh. On the other hand, I wouldn't dream of poking fun at anyone else's beliefs, even if I didn't agree with them. So I played it fairly straight; I told Innes about the supposed spooky goings-on and about the one eye-witness account I had heard about the ghost on the staircase. He listened politely and suggested various explanations.
Then we went on a tour of the area outside my office. We climbed the stairs to the first floor, then descended to the basement. I showed Innes the exhibition of photographs telling the history of the building. I then suggested we might incorporate some kind of all-night ghost-hunting vigil into a forthcoming radio programme.
Having myself studied psychology for four years, I was most intrigued by Innes' theories on how the human brain might react to any kind of paranormal energy. In a nutshell; if a ghost sends out energy, the quality of the image depends on the imagination of the observer. Innes suggested it might be a bit like dreaming. Some of us have vivid dreams, others vague, but very few dreams have a lot of detail.
Innes then told me about a video clip that appears on the website of the It was taken on a hotel's CCTV camera and appears to show a strange dark figure on a landing. It's worth a look...but perhaps not just before bedtime.
