As a person who’s watched a lot of TV lately, I find recent programming rather Halloween-minded. I refer to shows attempting to capture paranormal activity on camera.

On the Travel Channel you find the show Most Haunted. . A group of middle-aged people, men and women, visit places with a ghostly reputation. They sit around all night hoping to see something scary. Last night they were at a site in England, underground in caves and tunnels.

At first the camera followed men who heard something moan. They repeated the moan footage enough times that I heard it too, whatever it was.

Then attention shifted to women who wanted to “help” lost entities “find their way”. These ladies felt along in the dark, seeing via infra-red lights. Suddenly one woman screamed. They huddled together, clutched one another, shrieked and yelled.

When the fuss died down, one asked the rest, “Did you see those two men?” Yes, they all saw “it”, two ghosts walking along in the style of the Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover.

Then the entire group assembled around a Ouji Board, begging ghosts to show themselves. A leg fell off the table, so the group was satisfied.

One individual “by a tremendous act of will” persuaded a ghost to go toward the light. At no point was any of this even slightly spooky in spite of horror show music and green lighting.

A better job is done by A&E’s Paranormal State where Penn State students track ghostly shenanigans. That one has scared me a few times. Especially, I was creeped out the night that their medium said of an entity, “It’s not human, but it’s not animal, either.” Also, I heard a voice in a Revolutionary War fort, a child’s voice in the hospital part of the site, “Please, help me.” That was pretty bad.

Do I believe that there’s such a thing as a ghost? Well…there’s something, whatever you call it. If one showed up right now, stood in front of me, created the famous “cold spot”, floated away in a roiling cloud of black smoke, howled and moaned…I’d sit here staring with my mouth open and then for the rest of my life, I’d wonder, “What was that? Really.”

In the Old Testament, Saul visited the Witch of Endor, forced her to conjure up the spirit of a prophet. However, this kind of stuff was strictly forbidden to the Hebrews. Was that because it’s actually possible to drag the dead back here to participate in our lives? Was it because spooks are a figment of our imaginations and we ought not to kid ourselves about the chance of seeing paranormal activity? I have no idea.

I once met a woman who described waking up to find her father sitting on the foot of her bed. He didn’t do or say anything, just sat there for a minute and then disappeared. Next morning, she learned that exactly at that time, many miles away, he died. It would be impossible to find a more rock-hard sensible person than that lady, not even remotely susceptible to fantasies. Out of respect for her sterling qualities of character, since that time I’ve not said, “There’s no such thing as a ghost, “ while continuing to wonder and doubt.