Wednesday, November 20, 2024

When Apparitions Seemed to Act With Persistence (Part 1)

In most accounts of apparition sightings, the apparition seems to be a one-shot affair. In a typical report a single person will report seeing an apparition that never reappears. But then there are reports of someone seeing an apparition again and again and again. 

One such report appears in the old newspaper story shown below. To read the text more clearly, click on the image or use the link below.

persistent ghost

You can read the full story using this link:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85058179/1907-03-23/ed-1/seq-3/

We have in the story above an account of a named witness who reported seeing an apparition of his father-in-law many different times.  The witness was so spooked by these events that he apparently abandoned a "palatial palace" home he had lived in. 

In the account below a named professor claims to have seen several apparitions, and claims to have seen an apparition of a Colonel Brice that a friend of the professors saw three different times:

You can read the full account here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1957-11-10/ed-1/seq-48/

At the link below we read of a librarian who reported seeing an apparition multiple times, with the apparition seeming to appear at a very section of the library with books about the supernatural:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1860-03-16/ed-1/seq-1/

The account below tells of an apparition consisting of a woman and her baby, one that was seen at three different times (click on the image to read the account more clearly):

apparition of woman and baby

The account can be read here:


Below is a headline from an old newspaper story:

newspaper account of ghost sighting

The full account can be read here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82015080/1905-08-16/ed-1/seq-7/

In the account we read that a party of three went out to investigate the apparition, and reportedly observed it:

newspaper account of ghost sighting

The account below seems to tell of an apparition with the spooky habit of acting like of a herald of death or an omen of doom:

omen of death

You can read the full account here:

https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84022472/1917-03-16/ed-1/seq-7/

Although very interesting (with its "herald of death" theme), the account above is not first-class observational evidence. We do not get the names of witnesses who reported seeing apparitions soon after such apparitions were seen. But the account below is first-class observational evidence. We have an account in which a trustworthy-seeming named witness reports twice seeing an unexpected apparition, in a totally unexpected sighting of a type we should not expect for any kind of hallucination to have produced. The account is one of the minority of apparition sighting reports that report an apparition of the living.  Under the assumption that souls may leave the body before death (as often reported in near-death experiences), we might expect some apparition sightings of this type. 

Below is the full 1905 account (click on the image to read it better):

apparition of the living

You can also read the account using the link below:


It is rather hard to imagine a less likely time for anyone to see an apparition through hallucination than the situation reported. We read that Mrs. Stewart saw the apparition at the very time that she was called to stand before parishioners to lead prayer. The apparition was of a man sentenced to die. The same apparition appeared at a second later time, also when Mrs. Stewart was leading parishioners in prayer.  Mrs. Stewart then visited a prison, finding that a man about to be executed looked exactly like the apparition seen. The account is first-hand testimony of what occurred very shortly before the testimony was given. 

The account below reports an apparition which one person claimed to have seen more than twenty times (click on the image to see it more clearly):

recurrent apparition

You can read the story on its original page using this link. 

In the account here, a writer says this: "My mother's ghost, clothed in the garb she wore in life, appeared to me twelve times, all told."  He speculates that such apparitions are merely creations of our minds, apparently the type not prone to believe the testimony of his own senses on such topics. 

There have occurred repeated reports of the apparition of Abraham Lincoln appearing in the White House in Washington, D.C.  In the article below from the Washington Times, the First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (wife of US president Franklin Roosevelt) mentions such an apparition appearance:

Lincoln ghost

You can read the report on it original page using the link below:


According to the page here, US President Harry Truman wrote in his diary on May 27, 1945 that "the maids and butlers swear that he [Lincoln] has appeared on several occasions," and that the same claim was made by "Mrs. Coolidge," the wife of someone who was US president about 20 years earlier. 

In the bottom right corner of the same page, we get some more specifics from Eleanor Roosevelt. She says that in 1934 White House staff member Mary Eban went up to the second floor, and quickly became "wrought up," claiming that she saw Abraham Lincoln (who died in 1865) sitting on a bed and putting on his boots. 

As the newspaper story continues, we are told the poet Carl Sandburg looked out a particular window of the White House, and got a strange feeling. The story tells us that "several employees have reported seeing Lincoln's gaunt apparition standing at that very Oval Room window." The same page tells us that a janitor named Jerry Smith claimed that Lincoln haunted the White House. The next page tells us that there were "daily sightings" of the ghost of Abigail Adams, the wife of US president John Adams.  The next page has a quote by a long-time White House employee who claims that a very prestigious visitor to the White House reported seeing the ghost of Lincoln. 

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