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Ghosts & Computers (Including The Vertical Plane)

Yes! Thankyou thankyou thankyou!

*smothers escargot1 with sloppy kisses*
 
Yes it was indeed someone puporting to be from Elizabethan times and communicating throught the family's trusty BBC Micro. :)

Damn! There was me clicking on this Thread and expecting 586FAC75 to be claiming to be a computer entity communicating from the far future. Thereby providing many hours, or days of harmless entertainment and speculation. :(
 
The book referred to The Vertical Plane by Ken Webster is now going for £16 on ebay. Methinks from what has been posted its not worth the money currently being bid.
 
We have that book. I have read it, andI saw the original TV thing. Looked like a big legpull to me. :lol:
 
He went back downstairs and came straight back up with more stuff, only to find the drill unboxed and the cord completely unwound, all in a matter of 30 seconds with no one else upstairs
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Sounds a bit boggartish to me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boggart. Or perhaps he has a springer spaniel like mine? He can open doors, boxes, packages and even the zipped pockets of discarded clothing. He also likes unwinding anything on a drum (toilet and kitchen rolls for instance). He usually then helpfully leaves things around (unless he eats them). He can perform such feats in seconds and in complete silence. In a way this is associated with electronic communication. I often turn around from reading my email to find all the cushions have been removed from the sofas and stacked in the centre of the room. The best part is to watch him grinning afterwards.
 
Re: FUTURE CONTACT BY COMPUTER.

zardozzz said:
UPDATE: I personally know the man who lives in the cottage now. He is an extremely down to earth person, in fact he is the sort of person to challenge a ghost rather than run away. Nevertheless the evidence of his own eyes has been challenged several times since he moved in a few years back. Here are two incidents which i remember off the top of my head, (i'll ask for more)
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Hey Zardozzz if you are still on the MB did you ever find out more?
 
Re: FUTURE CONTACT BY COMPUTER.

zardozzz said:
The next one was last week. The family were in bed, at 3AM or so, when woken by all the house lights coming on and great noise downstairs. On walking down the stairs it became obvious that the TV was on very loud and changing channels, as he entered the room the channel surfing stopped, but the TV and all the lights stayed on.
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Hmmmm. I started a thread about weird stuff happening about 3 am. Why does the creepy stuff happen around then?

I remember the programme about Tomas. Wasn't there something about the couple coming home to find all the cutlery arranged in some sort of delicate sculpture which clattered to the ground as soon as they entered the room?
 
Re: FUTURE CONTACT BY COMPUTER.

jimv1 said:
Hmmmm. I started a thread about weird stuff happening about 3 am. Why does the creepy stuff happen around then?
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There's a really bad film called "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" which said that things happen at 3am becuase according to religious bods it's the opposite of the time Jesus died (3pm), but this could have just been made up for the film.
 
No - it's something about the holy trinity, and it's Satan sending it up.
I thought that movie was mostly ok, actually.

And Will Storr mentions his encounters with 3.33 am, too, in that book - (Sniiiip - ed.)
 
Time-travelling/ghost computer messages

Apologies if this in the wrong section, I'm not sure where it should go!

I wonder if anyone can help me remember this story. Back in the late 1980s/early 90s on one of the regular UK telly channels I saw a programme which featured a segment on a ghost story of sorts.

The main subject was a computer (one of those old-fashioned green screened ones) on which messages appeared from a person hundreds of years previously. The owner of the computer could type messages to this person and get replies. The person from the past was puzzled by this magic green box which could talk through written words. By the end of the segment I seem to remember the messages had stopped after the historic person raised concerns over people she/he knew thinking he/she was a witch due to the magic green box.

Does this ring a bell with anyone? It might have been on something like 'Strange But True' or something similar. If anyone does remember it - does anyone know if anything came of the story?

Thanks.
 
Hello, and welcome to the board!

It rings a bell with me - and I think you're right, it was on Strange But True. Buggered if I know of anything that came of it though! The one I remember the most from that programme had the kids dancing round a pylon, whilst murky monks lurked by cars!

Shudder
 
Found this - which may or may not be the same event(s) ...


In 1984–86, Ken Webster (a school teacher) in Dodleston, UK, purported to be in contact with someone called Tomas Harden from the 16th century, along with other characters including one of them being known as 2109 (or 2105 communications in Luxembourg). The messages are purported to have been left on a humble BBC Model B fitted with an Acorn DFS upgrade. They were found on the editing screen of the ROM-based word processor EDWORD and within EDWORD files created on disk (or appended to them). The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) took the computer away to be examined by an engineer but were unable to make the computer work until its return to Webster's home. The SPR came to no conclusion regarding the case and left mystified. Ken detailed the curious case in his now out-of-print book The Vertical Plane [1989 Grafton Books, ISBN 0-586-20476-8], two episodes of a BBC 1 documentary series presented by Carol Vorderman [Out Of This World, 20 August 1996 & 27 August 1996 and in a Fortean Times article, The Vertical Plane - FT108, also a short interview with Ken Webster.
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SOURCE: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread286389/pg2

There's also a brief overview of the Webster exchanges here:

http://www.worlditc.org/c_04_s_bridge_24.htm
 
EnolaGaia said:
Found this - which may or may not be the same event(s) ...
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Thanks, that does indeed sound similar. At least it confirms I didn't dream up the story anyway! :lol:
 
We have the book. I remember it well on TV. It could stand a repeat!
 
Anyone remember the story about an old computer ghost?

I seem to remember reading somewhere years ago about a computer - probably a BBC Micro or Vic20 type thing (it was LONG before the internet) that had apparently started getting messages from a ghost or a person from the future or something.
Sorry to be vague, I can't really remember it all, which is why I'm asking :lol:
 
I remember this as a two parter on Carol Voredermann's Mysteries. It was a teacher and one of his ex students living together, getting messages from apr 1600's as well as from the future. For what it's worth I think on the programme it was a BBC. I thought it started off quite well but then got a bit OTT.
 
I remember it on the TV too.

I seem to recall there was a thread about it too.
 
OOh strange, I was just thinking about this book earlier this evening :shock:

I read it about 15 years ago having borrowed it from the library, quite an interesting story.
 
Fascinating story, but a very boring book unfortunately. We do have a thread on it, but good luck finding it!
 
I just tried a google video search for the series, unfortunately the google suggestions don't seem to involve many mysteries:

Vorderbum.jpg


:eek:
 
Yup, it's official.
Carol Vorderman is the hottest mathematician on the planet. :mrgreen:
 
I don't know, did you see Marcus du Sautoy in the swimsuit section of the Simonyi Chair selection process?
 
This was one of my favourite "Ghost" stories when I first heard of it. I think it was actually "Strange but True" the old Michael Aspel show which featured it but I could be wrong. The "Fortean Times" magazine ran an article a few years ago which had a interview with Ken Webster and he was sticking to his guns with regard to the story and upset at the way in which the tv show had portrayed him. The book by him "The Vertical" plane is out of print and quite hard to find (and expensive to buy) so I,ve not read it.
 
rushfan62 said:
This was one of my favourite "Ghost" stories when I first heard of it. I think it was actually "Strange but True" the old Michael Aspel show which featured it but I could be wrong. The "Fortean Times" magazine ran an article a few years ago which had a interview with Ken Webster and he was sticking to his guns with regard to the story and upset at the way in which the tv show had portrayed him. The book by him "The Vertical" plane is out of print and quite hard to find (and expensive to buy) so I,ve not read it.
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Yes, I think it was introduced by Michael Aspel.
I remember watching it and being quite entertained by the whole idea.
 
The series was called "out of this world", and was aired in 1996, it was presented by carol vorderman and chris choi. It was renamed "mysteries" in 1997 when it was just presented by carol herself.

It happened in doddleston, cheshire.
 
I remember it from Aspel's SBT. I have a couple of books from that series but sadly not here so can't check them :(
 
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