Ghosts of the Bluegrass

4. Presences Sensed by Light, Cold, or Sound

Popular themes of ghost stories are the feeling of cold spots and the hearing of strange noises that cannot be explained. Many stories, like death lore, involve the seeing of shadows and light. By nature, we want to explain all occurrences. The unexplainable causes great discomfort, which may be interpreted as fright. An inexplicable noise or sound conjures up images of ghosts for some people. Similarly, when a chill or a cold breeze is felt in the midst of warmth, some may think a dead person has returned. Why do we assume a ghost is cold or creates a cold aura? Maybe we associate cold with death because, as warm-blooded creatures, we know that when the life force leaves us, our bodies become cold. Or maybe we think of the chill of the underground: graves are dug deep into the earth, where it is cooler than on the surface. Likewise, caves have been at least partially associated with death since our earliest ancestors stepped foot into them. Nighttime is also associated with death and ghosts. We have all experienced the fear of dark, chilly nighttime, when the sun, which warms us and provides us with the relative safety of its light, is not present. The phenomena mentioned in these stories, light, cold, and sound, are the main criteria that are studied by ghost investigators as they attempt to prove or disprove supernatural events. Modern technology has made available devices that can monitor the unexplainable happenings in a particular place. Such devices include cameras that can sense the slightest change in light and shadow, monitors Presences Sensed by Light, Cold, or Sound Chapter 4 51 52 Ghosts of the Bluegrass that can detect the most minute fluctuations in temperature, and very sensitive sound recorders that detect sounds at all decibel levels. These can be controlled by a computer program to run over a long period of time without a human (which might affect a spirit’s actions ) being present.1 The following stories reflect the above-mentioned themes: unexplained sounds, temperature changes, odors, and lights and spots that appear out of nowhere. Freezing Manifestations This house is over a hundred years old. A girl lives there by herself because it is a family home, her father’s home. The house has been in the family ever since her grandfather’s time. It’s a big colonial home with big white pillars and three floors. The girl is a friend of mine. She has a cat, and she has told me that this cat would wake her at night hissing. You know how cats do. And every hair on the cat’s back would be standing up, and he is pacing around the room. The cat would just be pacing, walking around the room growling and hissing, and she said the room would be freezing. This is the truth. She is not a dummy; she doesn’t just believe in stuff like this at all. The temperature drops and it scares her to death, but she won’t tell her family because she doesn’t want them to worry. So she picks the cat up and throws it out the bedroom door. She calls it “the cat spells.” When the cat calms down, she lets him back in. She just blames it on the cat. She really thinks there’s something else but doesn’t really know what it is. She has gotten so scared before that she has grabbed her purse and run out of the house at 3:30 in the morning and gone to her sister’s house. She just gets a weird feeling because the temperature in the house drops, the whole house just freezes, and the cat goes crazy. One time she came home and the television was on, and she hadn’t turned it on for days. Also she’s got a centerpiece with dried flowers and a bow. She always puts it up on an extremely high shelf— you know how you put things in special places—so the cat won’t get Presences Sensed by Light, Cold, or Sound 53 into it because he would ruin the flowers. She has come in several times and the centerpiece is on the table and the flowers crushed. Her brother was there one night last summer. He had just dozed off on the couch downstairs. He had been asleep for about ten minutes . It...