Of Ghosts and Sour Milk

I don't believe in ghosts. I don't believe in an afterlife. Things like Ouija boards have a very old and well established scientific explanation (the ideomotor effect). And people like Colin Fry would make me laugh if it weren't for the fact that so many people listen to every word that drips out of his mouth like a thirsty baby pig suckling greedily up to a teat. Except his milk is sour and bitter and makes you ill. Yes that's right, Colin Fry is just like a fat mother pig with a bacterial infection.

Anyway, I don't discount people's personal experiences as made up. I just think that sometimes we have a tendency to see something that we can't explain and therefore consider it super-natural, when in truth it's just unexplained. But that's not to say that people are in any way crazy.

This got me thinking, what if there is something to all these sightings of ghosts. What if, rather than a visitation from the spiritual realm, we're seeing light (and therefore images) from "the past". Perhaps this light has been caught in some sort of vacuum or tear in the fabric of space and time which has only now been released. When we look at the closest star to our Solar System, Alpha Centauri (4 and a half light years away) the light we see has taken about 4 and a half years to reach us. In effect, we're actually seeing that star as it was four and a half years ago.
Light is weird, space is weird, time is weird, I am weird, the popularity of T-Pain is weird, many things are weird. So what if light from the past, light which happened to emanate from a human being, has somehow re-surfaced and appeared in front of somebody 100 years later? Maybe the light reflected off a mirror which then travelled for 50 years before reflecting back off another reflective surface on a distant planet and bounced back to earth? Unlikely? probably. Impossible? Possibly. I'm not here to answer questions, I'm not bothered with details.

If this is possible (baring in mind I just made this up while I was supposed to be reviewing company values) then it could go some way to explaining apparent apparitions.

And if this is possible, it has got me worried. So far, people viewing "ghosts" tend to see images of people doing every day things. Things like walking around a garden or sitting in their favourite rocking chair. All well and good. Nothing overtly disturbing about that. Oh look, there's granddad smoking his pipe and reading the paper. " Hi granddad, I see you're reading the Herald, January 23rd 1975. Anything interesting in the news?" If anything, this is rather a pleasant thought, the chance to at least see departed loved ones if not interact with them.
NO IT'S NOT PLEASANT! What if we see something altogether more disturbing. If my pseudo-scientific pontificating has any semblance of possibility, then we are just as likely to see Grandma and Granddad making Dad! Jesus, that would invariably damage you for life! Imagine the horror! No don't even imagine the horror, oh but you are now because I've implanted it in your mind! It's probably all you can think about now, while you're sitting there with your laptop sipping your coffee, or mopping up the coffee you've just spat out on the table in disgust.

But it gets worse, kind of. It's one thing seeing the "beautiful" coming together of two humans that are very much in love, even if they are your grandparents. It's something else entirely if YOU become visible to somebody else. That time you were singing along to Madonna wearing your mum's bra in the back garden when there was "nobody" around. Well there wasn't anyone around, AT THAT TIME, but now you've just re-appeared in front of your Wife and her family during a barbeque. Sure, they can't hear Madonna's dulcet tones because it's only photons of light and not sound waves, but that's probably not going to save your marriage.

Worse yet, what if intelligent beings on other worlds have developed powerful telescopes, providing incredible detail down to a couple of metres. Imagine that they are on a planet that is 25 light years away. Imagine that we have made contact with these intelligent beings. It's 24 years later and you have been selected as the first inter planetary ambassador.
Then, while about to give your first inter-planetary address on television (which will probably be a floating TV, it is the future after all) a discovery is made through the alien telescope. The light beams, emanating from you 25 years ago have reached the eyes of the President of Quixalootle.
As you are about to utter your first word, the most important moment of your life, an image of you is displayed.
Viewers from our planet and from theirs, are greeted with an image of you standing around the back of a bike shed at school, furiously masturbating to a picture of Paul Holmes all the while looking over your shoulder to make sure that nobody can see you.

But they can see. Just 25 years later than you were concerned about at the time.

I don't know about you guys, but I'm showering in swimming togs from now on.