When Multiple Witnesses See the Same Apparition

 In a 1973 book we read this:

" Professor Hart in 'Scientific Survival Research'  published in the International Journal of Parapsychology, March, 1967, comments that collectively perceived apparitions cannot be considered to have been produced by their viewers for two primary reasons. One is that, with examples which included more than one possible witness  between one third and two thirds of all phantoms are collectively seen. He notes that each viewer observed the phantoms according to correct perspective: the percipients do not disagree regarding phantasmic actions, the garb, and the appearance of the apparition; each percipient saw the apparition when moving about according to normal parallax and perspective, and when a viewer walked around a phantasm (which has occurred in a few cases) it was seen according to normal perspective and appropriate parallax according to the point of angle."  

Later in the same book we read this:

"Cases of collectively perceived apparitions exist in large number -- so large, in fact, that Tryrell pointed out in 1953 that he had studied 130 such examples and had no doubt that there were many more. Professor Hart notes in 'Six Theories About Apparitions' that in 156 cases involving phantoms, 46 featured other individuals placed so that during the appearances they would have seen the apparition if they had been real persons. It is noted that 26 of these, or 56 percent were witnessed collectively."

On page 38 of the January 23, 1880 edition of The Spiritualist we hear of an apparition sighting involving multiple witnesses:

"Mr. Shakespeare, one of the members, suddenly looked up, exclaiming, ' Good God, there is my father ! ' The whole Council then saw a figure of an unknown person glide through the chamber into another room which had no outlet, and disappear."

On January 7, 1881 H. D. Jencken wrote the account below of events occurring about ten days earlier, events involving his wife and a servant, an account published soon thereafter on page 21 of the January 22, 1881 edition of the publication Light:

"At about half-past six in the morning, on the 29th December last, the servant woman, as is her custom, opened the shutters of the back parlour window, when, to her surprise, she saw two luminous figures clad in white robes. The figures appeared to float across the lawn of the small garden, and moved towards the house. Alarmed at what she saw, the servant ran upstairs and called Mrs. Jencken, who descended into the parlour and likewise saw the two figures, which were not unlike, in size and outline, to my two boys. More bold than her servant she opened the window, when, lo and behold ! the two figures approached the window and stood on the small balcony in front. This movement of the apparitions so frightened Mrs. Jencken that she, accompanied by the servant, in their alarm closed the window and ran away. The interesting part of this account is the agreement in the description of the figures between Mrs. Jencken and her servant, the time the forms remained visible, and the time they occupied in approaching the window, evidently drawn towards Mrs. Jencken."

On page 255 of the publication here, we have an account of an apparition seen by multiple witnesses:

"We had only gone a short distance, and were traversing a small pasture, when I caught a glimpse of a figure in white behind us and sideways to me. I called the attention of my companions to it, for it was plainly discernible—a tall figure all in white, even the head appeared to be shrouded in white. Mr. de Wolfe shouted at the figure ' to keep off, that we wanted nothing of it,' or words to that effect, and then the figure seemed to move more rapidly towards us. It came with great swiftness and with a gliding motion; I could perceive no motion like walking. I turned round and looked at it several times. When I first saw it it was coming from the direction of an old apple orchard. We walked rapidly across the pasture, and got through the bars of the fence that divides my father’s land from the Sharp property. On the other side of this fence is a lane leading up from the main road to our house. The figure followed us along the line of this fence, keeping all the time on the Sharp side of it, till it came to the corner where a cross fence formed the upper boundary of the pasture. I was on the inside nearest that corner, and I plainly saw the figure at that corner about ten feet from me. As we walked up towards our house I went up to the lane fence and saw the white figure gliding away in a northerly direction. I had a good view of it, and it seemed to be up from the ground two or three feet. We all saw it several times....I have been questioned by several persons about the appearance we saw as above stated, and to the various suppositions offered by them, attributing the figure to fraud, viz., to a man on stilts, or a person dressed in white designing to frighten us by a practical joke. I have only to say that I consider such suppositions baseless, that I believe the form to have been that of a spirit, and the most careful inquiries relative to the possibility of personation by any person in the form, as well as calm reflection since I saw the apparition, have only confirmed me in that belief."

The account here from page 4 of the Psychic News of February 25, 1984 tells of a radio station where multiple people claimed to have seen an apparition. Gloria Johnson reported seeing a transparent figure floating by. She immediately went to a lunch room where others were lunching, and screamed, "Oh my God, I saw a ghost!"  We read this about Henry Eaton: "When Ms. Johnson burst into the lunch room, the engineer said he too had seen an apparition that morning." 

The account here from page 10 of the Psychic News of November 12, 1932 tells of an apparition seen by multiple witnesses.  We read this: "Both opened their doors, and both saw the figure of a Passionist Father parading the corridor, and finally disappearing...The apparition spoke and said that the rector had not fulfilled a promise made to him when in the flesh to pray for a him a certain number of times on certain occasions."

In the report here, from the August 28, 1982 edition of Psychic News, we read of a man and a woman who in 1981 both saw an apparition of a boy in their home. We read that in one occurrence the form persisted for two hours.  We read, "Two or three times weekly the apparition appeared."

On page 5 of the January 28, 1939 edition of Psychic News, which you can read here, we read of a woman who shot herself after shooting her husband. The woman was found at 7:45 AM on December 6, 1938, by a person who called the police. Arriving at 8:30 AM, the police determined that the two must have died the previous evening. At about 9:20 AM on that morning two witnesses in a passing car claimed to have seen the woman outside her house. After reading a newspaper account of the woman's death, the two went to the police and reported that they had seen the woman outside her house at 9:20 AM. The police insisted that they had arrived at 8:30 AM and found the woman dead. The account says the two witnesses had no doubt the woman was the same woman found dead at 8:30 AM. 

In the August 21, 1954 edition of Psychic News, which you can read here, we read that 50 students and members of the Coptic School in Jerusalem claimed to have seen an apparition of a woman holding a baby. The account tells of a room being flooded with light when the apparition was seen. 

Below is a story from page 2 of the February 2, 2008 edition of Psychic News. You can read the full story here. 

The account below appears on the front page of the December 26, 1953 edition of Psychic News:

The account here in a Scottish newspaper tells us that Robert Brock and Mrs. Hartley saw an apparition of Hugh Astley, on the same night of learning that Astley had suffered a severe injury in a railway accident. This is not a typical apparition account, as Astley apparently recovered from his injuries. But the account is one of quite a few accounts in which someone claimed to see an apparition of the living. We are told the interesting detail that Astley had suffered a brain concussion, and was probably unconscious when the reported apparition was seen.  You could fit the story into a theory that in a coma the soul can kind of wander the way souls seem to wander during near-death experiences. 

Below is part of the account:

The account below appeared on page 8 of the December 23, 1989 edition of Psychic News:

An article here tells us that near Dublin, Ireland an eight-foot-tall ghost was seen near a railway line by multiple witnesses, including a party of six that went out to see based on previous reports.  The article below comes from the Charlevoix County Herald, January 29, 1916, and can be read here. 

Below is another news account of an apparition seen by multiple witnesses. The original account in the Medford Mail Tribune (dated 25, 1913) can be read here and here. We read of twelve witnesses, and an apparition persisting for three hours.

The account below appeared in the La Jara Chronicle of November 23, 1906 (you can read the full account here):

An 1875 newspaper account tells this story of an apparition seen by more than one witness:

You can read the full account here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84038198/1875-09-20/ed-1/seq-3/

Apparently the news report below appeared after an apparition was seen by multiple witnesses:

You can read the strange account using the links here and here. 

We read below of a ghost seen by two witnesses:

You can read the 1926 story on the page here:

The accounts given above are only a few of many cases in which more than one witness reported seeing the same apparition. For many other cases different from the ones above, see my posts below:

When Two or More See the Same Apparition

When an Apparition Is Seen by Multiple Observers: 17 Cases

When an Apparition Is Seen by Multiple Observers: 17 More Cases

More Apparitions Seen by Multiple Observers
Many an Apparition Is Seen by More Than One
Still More Apparitions Seen by Multiple Observers

When an Apparition Is Seen by Not Just One