Ancient Spookiness 👻

Gabrielle Birchak/ October 8, 2024/ Ancient History, Modern History

In Greece, near Athens, there was an old house that always seemed emp­ty. The renters would always move out ear­ly, claim­ing it was haunt­ed. This house was infa­mous for its dark past; neigh­bors even claimed it was spooky. They said they could hear the clank­ing of chains echo­ing through the halls at night. Even brave young influ­encers would vis­it and run away in fright. Every­body said a ghost of an old man roamed the house. His gaunt fig­ure appeared in the dead of night, ter­ri­fy­ing any­one who dared to enter this often-vacat­ed house.

So, there is a gen­tle­man by the name of Nate Galene. His par­ents are from Greece, so he’s flu­ent in Greek. He is a pro­fes­sor of data analy­sis and phi­los­o­phy from North­east­ern Uni­ver­si­ty in Boston. He had just been hired to teach a grad­u­ate pro­gram at the Nation­al Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty of Athens. He need­ed a place to stay, and he found this gor­geous house. The rent was excep­tion­al­ly low for the area. As the land­lord walked him around the grounds, he warned him that this place was haunt­ed. Even the skin­ny, old gar­den­er who lived in a small house in the large back­yard told Nate about the ghost. But Nate wasn’t fazed because he was a data ana­lyst, a num­ber guy, and a very ratio­nal thinker, hence the phi­los­o­phy. So, he rent­ed it.

On his first night in the main house, Nate set up his lap­top in the liv­ing room to work on upcom­ing les­son plans because cours­es would be start­ing very soon. Being new to Athens and noth­ing like Boston, the neigh­bor­hood was qui­et, which was eerie for him. Mid­way through his work­load, he heard clank­ing. It was faint but unmis­tak­able. Nate froze and went down to the hall­way and peeked around. He saw noth­ing. Feel­ing a lit­tle unnerved, he turned on all the lights on the main floor and returned to work. Then he start­ed to hear clank­ing again. He thought it was pos­si­bly the plumb­ing, and every­body was mak­ing a big deal out of noth­ing. Deep in the thick of his work, he saw a skin­ny, old man walk into the room. Nate was unfazed. He quick­ly looked up, think­ing it was the gar­den­er, looked back at his lap­top, held up his fin­ger, and told the old man in Greek to wait a cou­ple of min­utes while he fin­ished his syllabus.

Nate thought, “If I keep work­ing long enough, the gar­den­er will return to his house.”

So, the old man stood there while Nate sat on the sofa for fif­teen more min­utes, writ­ing the rest of the syl­labus. Final­ly, the old man rat­tled some­thing so loud that it sound­ed like large chains.

Nate sat straight up and looked at him. It was not the gar­den­er but a tall, skin­ny, gaunt, and skele­tal-look­ing man. His pierc­ing blue eyes were sunken. His mat­ted hair was messy, and his beard was tan­gled and wild. He had chains wrapped around his wrists and ankles. As he dragged them, they made a sound that made Nate’s skin feel like it was crawl­ing. The old man motioned for him to come, but again, utter­ly unfazed by this scene, Nate sighed, calm­ly closed his lap­top, and said, “OK, how can I help you?” The old man motioned for Nate to fol­low him.

So, Nate grabbed his phone, turned on the flash­light fea­ture, and fol­lowed the old man deep into the back­yard. There, in the large back­yard, the old man stopped in front of a grove of fig trees.

Nate, grow­ing impa­tient, asked, “What are you try­ing to show me?”

At this point, the man melt­ed into the ground. Even though it was odd, again, Nate wasn’t wild­ly shak­en. He was very calm about what he observed and didn’t know what to make of it. Since it was four in the after­noon back in Boston, he called his best friend James and calm­ly told him that he saw a man melt into the ground. Truth be told, accord­ing to James, he was scared, which is unlike Nate. So, James stayed on the phone with him for a few hours until Nate final­ly felt calmer.

The fol­low­ing day, Nate woke up and had an epiphany. He decid­ed to imple­ment a plan and went to vis­it the gar­den­er. He told him every­thing he was think­ing and con­vinced the gar­den­er to call for an exca­va­tion team. The dig­gers showed up two hours lat­er. He and the gar­den­er went back to their dai­ly duties. Sud­den­ly, the exca­va­tors dig­ging in front of the fig bush­es start­ed yelling. Nate and the gar­den­er ran to the fig bush and looked down at the deep, dark hole in the dirt. There, deep in the dirt, was a skele­ton and large chains in the same spot where the man melt­ed into the ground. Nate and the gar­den­er were in shock. The gar­den­er told them to imme­di­ate­ly stop dig­ging. He then reached out to the Ephor­ates of Antiq­ui­ties and Cul­tur­al Her­itage, who arrived, cor­doned off the area, and called the land­lord to tell him that the Her­itage need­ed to begin an arche­o­log­i­cal dig. Nate was told that he could stay in the house as long as he didn’t go into the backyard.

That night, as Nate sat in his liv­ing room work­ing on his course­work, the house was silent. No chains, no noise, no ghosts in his liv­ing room. Just pure, won­der­ful, wel­com­ing silence. At last, the old man and his chains found peace and a place in his­to­ry for the world to see.

For the record, I mod­i­fied this tale from an ancient sto­ry writ­ten in 100 CE by Pliny the Younger, a Roman author and lawyer. He had sent a let­ter to his friend Sura describ­ing a sto­ry he had heard about Athen­odor­us, a philoso­pher and a sto­ic. Sto­icism is a Hel­lenis­tic phi­los­o­phy that seeks to tap into pos­i­tive emo­tions and min­i­mize neg­a­tive emo­tions to devel­op a life of virtue. As a result, Athen­odor­us could find calm even in the face of fear. Athen­odor­us had just arrived in Athens, Greece, and, like Nate, was impressed with the price of the house and decid­ed to live there. A ghost­ly appari­tion arrived as he sat in his moon­lit liv­ing room with a can­dle, scrolls, and a pen.

 And, like Nate, Athen­odor­us lift­ed his fin­ger and told the ghost to wait while he fin­ished his thoughts. Athen­odor­us also went back to writ­ing. When he was done, he stood up and fol­lowed the ghost out­side, upon which the ghost melt­ed into the ground. The next morn­ing, Athen­odor­us called an exca­va­tion team who came and found bones and chains. Accord­ing to Pliny, after they gave this ghost a prop­er bur­ial, it nev­er came back.

So, as you can see, ghost sto­ries have been with us for thou­sands and thou­sands of years. We are intrigued with the belief that we can be vis­it­ed by peo­ple who no longer live amongst us. Even in ancient times, peo­ple have been haunt­ed by rest­less spir­its, like the chill­ing tale of Athen­odor­us and the ghost that plagued an aban­doned house in Athens. The sto­ry may be cen­turies old, but our obses­sion with para­nor­mal activ­i­ty tran­scends time and culture.

Then there are the ghost­ly sto­ries sur­round­ing some of the world’s most famous sci­en­tists. Even in death, their pas­sion for dis­cov­ery may still linger in the very places they called home. Let’s dive into the haunt­ings of these great sci­en­tif­ic minds and explore where the bound­aries between sci­ence and the super­nat­ur­al blur. Is it a para­nor­mal phe­nom­e­non, or is there some­thing else going on?

Pre­pare to hear the ghost­ly tales of the sci­en­tists whose spir­its might still wan­der the earth, start­ing with one of the great­est sci­en­tif­ic minds in his­to­ry: Sir Isaac Newton.

By Georges Vertue d’après John Van­der­bank — tirage orig­i­nal, Pub­lic Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=82955426, Mod­i­fied by Gabrielle Birchak

Sir Isaac Newton’s Haunt­ed Manor – Wool­sthor­pe, UK

Isaac Newton’s dis­cov­er­ies laid the foun­da­tion for clas­si­cal physics, but could his spir­it still be lin­ger­ing at his child­hood home? New­ton was born at Wool­sthor­pe Manor, a rur­al estate in Lin­colnshire, Eng­land. This was not just the place of his birth but also where he con­duct­ed his famous exper­i­ment with a prism, dis­cov­er­ing the nature of light. He spent years work­ing on math­e­mat­ics and optics, and his ground­break­ing laws of motion and grav­i­ty are here.

But after New­ton died in 1727, rumors began cir­cu­lat­ing that his spir­it nev­er left Wool­sthor­pe Manor. Vis­i­tors over the years have report­ed strange occur­rences. Some claim they’ve seen Newton’s ghost in his study or mov­ing near the famous apple tree, where leg­end says the falling apple inspired his the­o­ry of grav­i­ty. Oth­ers have heard unex­plained foot­steps in the house at night as if New­ton were still pac­ing through the halls, lost in thought.

It’s easy to see how Newton’s bril­liant and often reclu­sive nature could con­tribute to these tales. His mind was con­stant­ly at work; per­haps his unfin­ished busi­ness with the uni­verse kept him teth­ered to this world. Whether through the eerie silence of his study or shad­owy fig­ures spot­ted at night, it seems that Wool­sthor­pe Manor remains a place of sci­en­tif­ic and super­nat­ur­al significance.

Niko­la Tesla’s Mys­te­ri­ous Death and Elec­tri­cal Haunt­ings – New York, USA

Niko­la Tes­lawas a vision­ary inven­tor who rev­o­lu­tion­ized the world with his work in elec­tric­i­ty and mag­net­ism. Yet sad­ly, he died impov­er­ished and alone in a hotel room in New York. He lived the last years of his life at The New York­er Hotel, where he passed away in Room 3327 in 1943.

Tesla’s con­nec­tion to elec­tric­i­ty runs so deep that even in death, strange elec­tri­cal dis­tur­bances have been report­ed around the hotel. Guests and staff have long claimed to expe­ri­ence flick­er­ing lights, sud­den pow­er out­ages, and the inex­plic­a­ble mal­func­tion­ing of devices, all with­out cause.

Some believe Tesla’s spir­it still haunts the hotel, con­tin­u­ing his life­long obses­sion with elec­tric­i­ty. Peo­ple have also report­ed see­ing a ghost­ly fig­ure in Room 3327 and feel­ing a pres­ence watch­ing over them. Could this be Tes­la exper­i­ment­ing with the cur­rents of the after­life? Or is it just a quirk of the hotel’s aging infra­struc­ture? Either way, the sto­ries have cement­ed Tesla’s place not only in sci­en­tif­ic his­to­ry but also in the annals of the paranormal.

Marie Curie’s Lab – The Shad­owy Fig­ures of Paris, France

Marie Curie, anoth­er icon­ic sci­en­tist, left an indeli­ble mark on the world with her dis­cov­ery of radioac­tive ele­ments. Curie’s ground­break­ing work came at a tremen­dous per­son­al cost, as she suf­fered from the effects of radi­a­tion expo­sure, lead­ing to her death in 1934. Her lab­o­ra­to­ry in Paris, now part of the Curie Muse­um, still holds her note­books and per­son­al effects, which remain too radioac­tive to han­dle safely.

But it’s not just the lin­ger­ing radi­a­tion that unset­tles vis­i­tors. There are whis­pers of Marie Curie’s ghost still haunt­ing the halls of her old lab. Staff mem­bers have report­ed see­ing shad­owy fig­ures in the cor­ner of their eyes, only for them to van­ish when they turn to look. Some feel cold spots or sud­den chills, pri­mar­i­ly near her old office as if the air remem­bers her pres­ence. Oth­ers claim to hear soft foot­steps echo­ing down the halls late at night, as if Curie her­self were con­tin­u­ing her work in the afterlife.

Is it pos­si­ble that Marie Curie, whose pas­sion for sci­ence lit­er­al­ly con­sumed her life, remains teth­ered to where she made her dis­cov­er­ies? While the sto­ries remain unver­i­fied, they add a haunt­ing dimen­sion to one of the great­est sci­en­tif­ic lega­cies in history.

Robert Boyle and the Ghost­ly Lab­o­ra­to­ry – Oxford, UK

Robert Boyle, the father of mod­ern chem­istry, was one of the most influ­en­tial fig­ures in the Sci­en­tif­ic Rev­o­lu­tion, and his exper­i­ments laid the ground­work for much of mod­ern chem­i­cal the­o­ry. Boyle con­duct­ed many of his famous exper­i­ments in his lab­o­ra­to­ry in Oxford.

Over the years, Boyle’s old home and lab have gained a rep­u­ta­tion for being haunt­ed. Some vis­i­tors claim to hear the unmis­tak­able sounds of bub­bling liq­uids, clink­ing glass, and the occa­sion­al scrib­bling of a quill pen, which echo the exper­i­ments Boyle con­duct­ed cen­turies ago. Oth­ers report feel­ing like they are being watched as if Boyle is care­ful­ly watch­ing any new sci­en­tif­ic proceedings.

Though Boyle was pro­found­ly reli­gious and might not have been inter­est­ed in the idea of a haunt­ing, the leg­ends around his lab per­sist. Could the father of chem­istry still be at work, even after death? Or are these reports sim­ply the residue of his intense intel­lec­tu­al energy?

Carl Lin­naeus’ Ghost­ly Gar­den – Upp­sala, Sweden

In Swe­den, the nat­u­ral­ist Carl Lin­naeus was known for his work in tax­on­o­my, clas­si­fy­ing organ­isms in a way that shaped biol­o­gy for­ev­er. He spent his lat­er years on his estate at Ham­mar­by near Upp­sala, where he tend­ed to his gar­den and con­tin­ued his research.

Accord­ing to leg­end, Lin­naeus still walks the grounds of Ham­mar­by, espe­cial­ly in the gar­den where he once cat­a­loged plants. Vis­i­tors to the estate have report­ed see­ing an old­er man in eigh­teenth-cen­tu­ry attire wan­der­ing the gar­den paths, only to van­ish when approached. Some believe that Lin­naeus’ deep con­nec­tion to nature and his life’s work has bound him to this place, even in death.

The idea of Lin­naeus still walk­ing among the trees and plants he loved dear­ly is a fit­ting ghost sto­ry for a man whose work was so root­ed in the nat­ur­al world. His spir­it seems to live on in the estate’s serene sur­round­ings, whether real or imagined.

Galileo’s Vil­la and the Ghost of Arcetri – Italy

After his con­flict with the Catholic Church, Galileo Galilei spent the last years of his life under house arrest at Vil­la Il Gioiel­lo in Arcetri, Italy. Though con­fined to his home, he con­tin­ued his work, observ­ing the stars and writ­ing about his findings.

Some vis­i­tors at the vil­la claim to have seen Galileo’s ghost, still peer­ing through an invis­i­ble tele­scope, gaz­ing up at the stars he loved so much. Oth­ers have report­ed dis­em­bod­ied foot­steps or strange whis­pers echo­ing through the hall­ways. It seems that even in death, Galileo remains fas­ci­nat­ed with the cos­mos, unable to leave his earth­ly home behind.

Sci­en­tists who hon­or the paranormal

Alfred Rus­sell Wal­lace, an Eng­lish nat­u­ral­ist, anthro­pol­o­gist, and biol­o­gist who pub­lished his the­o­ry of evo­lu­tion by nat­ur­al selec­tion, believed in ghosts. He would attend seances and fell for the hoax­es. In 1874, he vis­it­ed a spir­it pho­tog­ra­ph­er named Fred­er­ick Hud­son and had a pic­ture tak­en. The pho­to shows Wal­lace with his moth­er. How­ev­er, Hud­son was exposed as a fraud­ster, and his pho­to­graph was cre­at­ed through dou­ble expo­sure. Wal­lace, stead­fast in his belief that ghosts did exist, pub­lished a book called On Mir­a­cles And Mod­ern Spir­i­tu­al­ism. This book and his stance on ghosts strained his work­ing rela­tion­ships with sci­en­tists such as Hen­ry Bates, Thomas Hux­ley, and Charles Darwin.

William Crookes was a sci­en­tist who dis­cov­ered and named the chem­i­cal ele­ment thal­li­um. In 1867, his broth­er, who was 21 at the time, died from yel­low fever while on a work expe­di­tion lay­ing Tele­graph cable between Cuba and Flori­da. Clear­ly dev­as­tat­ed by his brother’s death, Crookes was intrigued by the idea of speak­ing with his dead broth­er. Sad­ly, he was also tricked by a spir­i­tu­al pho­tog­ra­ph­er who used dou­ble expo­sure to show him in a pic­ture with a ghost. Appar­ent­ly, dou­ble expo­sure was a big thing back in the 1870s.

One of my favorite sto­ries is about Thomas Edi­son and his desire to cre­ate tech­nol­o­gy that could com­mu­ni­cate with ghosts. In an Octo­ber 1920 edi­tion, he told an inter­view­er with Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can, “I have been think­ing for some time of a machine or appa­ra­tus which could be oper­at­ed by per­son­al­i­ties which have passed on to anoth­er exis­tence or sphere.”^[1] It was a spir­it phone that could com­mu­ni­cate with the dead. How­ev­er, the phone was nev­er cre­at­ed, and he said it had all been a joke.

Charles Robert Richet, who won the 1913 Nobel Prize in Phys­i­ol­o­gy or Med­i­cine for his work on ana­phy­lax­is, was also deceived while look­ing into the para­nor­mal. Richet believed that spir­i­tu­al medi­ums pro­duced a mys­te­ri­ous mat­ter that he coined “ecto­plasm” as they brought forth the spir­its. This is not the same ecto­plasm that we know in cell biol­o­gy, which is the out­er lay­er of a cell’s cyto­plasm. This “ecto­plasm” became a pop­u­lar, use­ful term for the ecto­plas­mic green slime that our heroes, the Ghost­busters, would gather.

Final­ly, author and biol­o­gist Rupert Shel­drake, who is still alive today, is the sci­en­tist who devel­oped the hypoth­e­sis of mor­phic res­o­nance, which is a con­cept that sug­gests a kind of col­lec­tive mem­o­ry in nature, where nat­ur­al sys­tems inher­it a mem­o­ry from all pre­vi­ous things of their kind. In oth­er words, if ants on one ant hill learn a maze, ants on oth­er ant hills might learn it faster even though they haven’t inter­act­ed. This hypoth­e­sis also includes con­cepts of telepa­thy and non-mate­r­i­al influ­ences on liv­ing organ­isms, which many ana­lysts asso­ciate with ghost­ly and spir­i­tu­al phenomena.

The thing about these sci­en­tists and their adher­ence to spir­i­tu­al phe­nom­e­na is that their explo­rations didn’t adhere to the sci­en­tif­ic method. And not apply­ing the sci­en­tif­ic method leads to anti-intel­lec­tu­al­ism. And we are expe­ri­enc­ing that even today. The sci­en­tif­ic method is cru­cial because it pro­vides a struc­tur­al, evi­dence-based approach to dis­cov­er­ing the truth. Sci­ence involves obser­va­tion, exper­i­men­ta­tion, and, most impor­tant­ly, peer review. This method ensures the con­clu­sions are based on facts rather than con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries and opin­ions. Even if we think we know the truth, we can nev­er get to facts until we eval­u­ate it through obser­va­tion and experimentation.

So, with that being said, lean into your curios­i­ty. If you think you hear, see, or feel some­thing, dig deep and dis­cov­er its cause. What could be a door that moves on its own? It could real­ly just be a loose hinge. Loose hinges are dan­ger­ous because the door could fall on you. And you wouldn’t want to be hit in the head with a door because you thought it was a ghost. Because that would be real­ly embarrassing.

Until next time, carpe diem.

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[1] Lescar­boura, Austin C. “Edison’s Views on Life and Death.” Sci­en­tif­ic Amer­i­can CXXIII, no. 17 (Octo­ber 23, 1920): 446–58. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015024546411&seq=487.