I was telling some people in chat about a "what are ghosts?" theory I find very interesting and original. I forget whose theory it is; if anybody knows about it in more detail, maybe they can elaborate.

Anyway, this guy, whoever he was, suggested that ghosts are some kind of *recording* which has been laid down in the landscape by someone who originally observed the person/scene, heard the sound, felt the temperature drop or the emotion or whatever the unexplained spooky manifestation might be. For example, if a ghostly nun is frequently seen walking along a corridor, this theory says you are not seeing the nun's spirit -- you are seeing the nun do what somebody *saw* her do originally in that location, and for some reason this perceptual moment was somehow embedded in the surroundings to the extent that it could later be picked up by others. It's like psychic television. You're watching what somebody else filmed.

The guy further believed that such "recordings" may fade over time, depending on how strong the original recording was. So you might just get one ghost sighting by a particularly sensitive person, or you might get all sorts of people seeing the same ghost regularly for years. He had all sorts of ideas about how the whole process might work, none of which I remember well enough to bother repeating.

I don't think this theory is any more or less likely than any other. However, it struck me as quite original.

Brunnen-"ghosts are really a smalltime criminal in disguise, according to the Scooby Doo school of psychic research"G