Can science rationalise ghosts?

What is the reason for ghost sightings and is it possible to logically explain these spectres people are frightened of?

The Journal of the Society for Psychical Research seems to think so.

The work of an engineer, Vic Tandy was published, who in his own words claimed that: “It was as though something was in the room with me.” He claimed to have seen a spirit emerging in his peripheral vision, but the apparition would vanish as soon as he spun around to confront it.

The origin of the Lowveld’s apparitions are derived from fortune seekers who lost their lives from starvation, ill-heath or due to other nefarious reasons in their quest to survive the harsh environment, which confronted them.

Examples hereof are the ghost tour of Alanglade’s House, a lavish double-storey establishment, built in 1915, which housed the town’s mine manager, who lost his 10-year-old girl due to meningitis. The Kaapsehoop tour has equally mesmerising folklore tales of ghosts, murder and mayhem that guarantees to make the hair on your head stand on end.

ALSO READ: Meet the ghosts of the Lowveld

Ghosts, sometimes known as apparitions, are usually considered to be the soul or spirit of a dead person that can appear to the living in a translucent shape or even in a lifelike realistic form. There are many references to ghosts in ancient civilizations like the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians. They’re mentioned in the oldest known written work of Mesopotamian literature, The Epic of Gilgamesh, which was written between 2 150 and 1 400 BC.

Tandy being a man of science who worked in a laboratory in the 1980s, discovered that infrasound could be responsible for his ghostly encounters.

Used for monitoring earthquakes, infrasound is low-frequency sounds vibrating from 0,1 to 20Hz, which is below the threshold of human hearing.

“I was sweating but it was cold, and the feeling of depression was noticeable,” Tandy explained.

There are mainly two sources for low-frequency sounds, that which are of a natural origin and artificial urban created noises. Wind, ocean waves, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and thunder are all potential contributors to low-frequency vibrations.

Tandy stumbled upon the reason for his hauntings by chance. He was an ardent fencer and clamped his fencing foil in a vice to do some repairs. It started to vibrate for no reason and he was stunned. Tandy did some further investigating and found that a newly installed extractor fan emitting noise at a frequency of 19Hz was the reason for the vibration.

When turned off, the feelings of fear and dizziness would disappear. He recreated the low-frequency sounds under laboratory conditions at several locations and concluded that infrasound at a low frequency, had a range of physiological effects, like presumably seeing apparitions of people who had long since passed on.

ALSO READ: Water crisis looms if taps run dry