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Ghosts & Computers (Including The Vertical Plane)

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Anonymous

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FUTURE CONTACT BY COMPUTER.

Does anyone remember the Fortean Times story,presented by Lionel Fanthorpe on the television series,about an alleged three-way communication between a future computer operator,a person from the past,trained to use one and a couple from our time?
If you have noticed this story in the archives while researching something else,I'd appreciate a steer towards it,please?
I'm doing some research.
Best wishes,Bob.
 
Is this the same story covered on "Mysteries with Carol Vorderman"? I have very vague recollections of this, if I remember correctly a man from the 17th Century had found a "box of lights" and was communicating with a British couple in the 1980s (?) The future communicants, I *think* called themselves something like "The Tachyons".

I remember at the type thinking it was utterly ridiculous and totally unconvincing (and I'm speaking as someone who sleeps with the lights on after the X-Files), especially the bit where 17th Century man had a bit of a love-in with 80's woman. It was investigated by the Society for Psychical Research, who thought it was a fake but couldn't say how it was done. The programme also featured an academic who specialised in 17th Century English, she thought the language, grammar etc was incorrect for the period.

I don't have any links or other info, I'm afraid, just my hazy old memory.
 
If it is the same case, the language experts also found that the man who lived in the house was likely to be the culprit.

Whether he was having a laugh, trying to scare his partner or genuinely thought he was communicating with the past/future, I don't know.

:)
 
I hazily remember this as well - didn't somebody discover that the plot had been lifted from a pulp British SF novel?
 
Wow - I saw that on TV years ago and had forgotten about it until it was mentioned here.
 
The book is called The Vertical Plane, by Ken Webster. I'm not sure it's still in print, but a search of most Fortean book vendors will probably turn you up a copy.
 
The book stands up far better than the TV dramatisation (for that's what it was).

I think the messages from the 'future' were from a group calling themselves 2109 or something similar. There were others too. There was poltergiest phenomena also.

I actually think it's an interesting story, but as far as research goes, apart from the aforementioned book, there's almost nothing else to go on.
 
I remember this one. The fella from the past was called Tomas. The computer they had was a crappy BBC Micro, and had no modem or anything.

As well as computer stuff, there was writing appearing on the wall and floors, which makes me think it was more poltergeisty than time travelling computer shenanigans. Although it seems daft to apply logic to such weird concepts, wouldn't it make more sense for poltergeists to muck around with a computer, than time-travellers confined to a computer to somehow manage to write on a wall with chalk?

However, wasn't it proven that the writing was just a crappy copy of medaevil writing by an expert? And wasn't it a case of everything happening to the family involved, with phenomena happening when the researchers weren't looking?

I remember thinking at the time it was a bit Jef-the-talking-mongoose-esque.
 
Evilsprout said:
And wasn't it a case of everything happening to the family involved, with phenomena happening when the researchers weren't looking?

Isn't that always the case?

Ken Webster wrote an article about his experiences since his book was published (including the making of that TV 'reconstruction') for FT back in 1998, a small part of which is here -

http://www.forteantimes.com/articles/108_para.shtml

Annoyingly, I don't have that issue to hand at the moment, so the rest is confined within my ultra-unreliable memory banks... which is where I shall leave it for now. ;)
 
I apologize if this subject has come up before, but im kind of new here. I started a thread on this matter over at shadowlands some time back but did not get too much info- whch came as a suprise. Has any people here
ever experienced or heard of people experience messages typed onto their pc by a unknown force? It just seems odd to me that ghosts seem to be capable of moving heavy objects and thowing them, touching people etc. You would think that in this age of the computer there would be far more reports of this? After all imagine all the people who die evrey day who were, when alive, using pcs on a dailey basis- would it not be a more obvious way to communicate? The only case i have heard of is "messages" appearing on some guys screen but it was just double dutch! Thankyou in advance for any responces. X
 
There's the Welsh monk story - threads here and here. And there was another incident mentionned somewhere but other posters will probably know more about that.
 
Sorry, what i said above sounded wrong. What i meant in the part about ghosts being able to throw things and touch people...it just seems odd how they seem capable of this activity yet you dont hear much about them doing something that would surely be a better way of communication like typing?
 
There was a case from the 1980s (with a much more basic home computer) where a couple started receiving messages from a 'ghost'. It was aparently of a man and he was a bit miffed that the couple were living together out of wedlock ;) I can't for the life of me remember much more about it, but I think the'ghost' in question was of a man from the Elizabethan period.
 
JerryB said:
There was a case from the 1980s (with a much more basic home computer) where a couple started receiving messages from a 'ghost'. It was aparently of a man and he was a bit miffed that the couple were living together out of wedlock ;) I can't for the life of me remember much more about it, but I think the'ghost' in question was of a man from the Elizabethan period.
The man who received the communications was called Ken Webster. There was a book written about this particular haunting which also involved poltergeist activity. The communicator was I think called Tomas Wainman (or something similar). An expert in Middle English was asked to analyse the words and phrases used, to see if they fitted in with the historical knowledge we have of the relevant period. The book was called VERTICAL PLANE and was written by Ken Webster. AFAIK parapsychology experts were also called in but were unable to collect any conclusive data. An independent English language expert was unimpressed by the language used claiming that there were errors in word spellings etc. (Typical sceptic - even people in Elizabethan times probably had difficulties with spelling!) :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
 
Thankyou all so very much! I checked out all the links given and found them very informative. It would seem perhaps that the spirit world moves with the times after all! That "Jane" episode is real interesting indeed. And as for the Ken Webster story, i THINK i saw something about that about 7 years ago on the tv programme: "strange but true?" Reading this brought it all back...i could be wrong though? God, i miss that programme! Again, thanks all. X
 
Ghosts and Computers

Its very interesting reading people's efforts to remember details I wrote in Vertical Plane or snippets they recall from the TV and what was supposed to be the outcome. Needless to say its a charming mix of accuracy and nonsense which is no moe than to be expected!

So there is the book - pretty much out of print [1989] and out of circulation now except for a few copies Janet Bord [once] had [unless you read German...] and there was BBC's 'Out of this World' series in 1997 which had the TV drama doc. about which I wrote in Fortean Times 108 [March 1998] pg 40-44 [and do read all of it, please to avoid further confusion] Yes it did have 'ghost in a computer' elements but that like almost all reactions to our experiences says more about the 'habits of thought' applied to the unusual than anything else. Hmm Maybe I should lodge a copy of the fuller version of the BBC drama doc with FT archives?

KW
 
Ghosts making contact via computer? Stories abound
"Even Jay Leno is including afterlife jokes in his monologues," said Mark Macy, a Colorado-based author, researcher and expert in ITC. "If Jay's talking about it, you can be sure it's on the minds of most Americans today."

Macy operates the World ITC Association's Web page (http://www.worlditc.org), which includes the history of ITC and how spirits supposedly communicate with the living using not only computers but also cameras, voice recorders, telephones and televisions.

ITC traces its roots to 1901, when a U.S. scientist made a recording of "conjured spirits" while visiting a shaman in Siberia. Since then, there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of instances where believers say contact has been made with the dead.
 
Red Mist

Don't know if it counts, but a friend of mine once work up to see a red mist over his pc. He swears he wasn't dreaming but who knows. He said he shouted at it to leave the computer alone and it drifted to the window then vanished.

The only odd incident that I have had with a computer is my friend sent a message to me at work and I received it every few hours for over a week. try explaining that to the boss!
;)
 
Well, as well as the red mist, my PC has other problems.

I downloaded the new Fellowship of the Rings demo onto my PC and it locked up. I reset and it locked up again at scan-disk. I reset it and it died. It just refused to power up...

I had to sit and meditate to calm myself. Sadly, for some bizarre reason known only to the PC, it refuses to even power up if I am angry with it. My PC sulks!!!

It has been one of those days, in case you had not noticed...
 
My computer has an ironic sense of humour to do with me being angry with it.

if i get angry with its fine, stays as slow as it was... then it waits until i calm down and have forgiven it before it crashes and won't let me use it for the rest of the night.

so i guess it sulks... kind of.
 
Ghosts and Computers

We own a haunted farmhouse in North Wales, the spooks just loved to mess around with our computers. E-mails using Welsh words would be sent out at all times of the day and night. When we were in, out or asleep. Often the computer was off when these messages were sent. We never have come up with a logical explanation for this! :eek!!!!:
 
Tangnefedd,

Do you speak Welsh, and thus know the content of the emails?
 
Tangnefedd,
Did the messages make sense, or were they random words?

:eek:

Also related: Isn't the phenomenon of 'speaking in tongues' often reported as sounding very similar to Welsh?
 
Ghosts and computers

The words were random but the same as the ones that had appeared as stains and carvings on our walls.

I have not heard that the sounds uttered by folk speaking in tongues sounded like Welsh. I was brought up in a Pentecostal church and I can remember folk speaking in tongues, and it was nothing like Welsh!
 
I wrote a letter to FT a year ago or so about my grandad fiddling about with my mum typing a Word doc. You may remember it from the letters page, but I thought I'd mention it.

A few days after my grandad died at the ripe old age of 88, my mum was typing up in Word 5 (or whatever it is - a fairly basic, old version) the running list for the funeral service. My grandad had been a deeply faithful chap, with a penchant for rousing Victorian Methodist hymns. So the organist at the church suggested we have 'How Great Thou Art' played at the funeral, as it was a hymn that my grandad really liked and always asked the organist for (and it used to be my favourite hymn when I was in the choir, too - funny how I only realised we shared the same favourite hymn once he'd died. oh well).

So my mum's typing it up, and suddenly, she can smell my grandad's aftershave in the room - which may have been a psychological thing seeing as he'd just died, but who can say. Suddenly, on the screen where she's just typed the lyrics of the hymn, there's bullet points at the beginning of some of the lines. My mum was very surprised at this, seeing as she doesn't know how to put bpoints in! And she's a very fast, accurate typist as well, so it's very unlikely that she slipped on the keyboard. The lines highlighted by the bpoints were (forgive my memory) 'When he comes to take me, with shout of exclamation, what joy will fill my heart' - i.e. I won't be sad to be dead. My mum tried over and over again to take the Bpoints out, but couldn't, and even her more computer-literate husband couldn't get them out either, which completely foxed him, so she had to start the typing from scratch.

Yeah, it was probably one of those computer glitches that happens from time to time - but still, it was very strange!
 
The Chatroom Ghost

The following is taken from "Haunted Liverpool 6" by Tom Slemen published in 2002 by the bluecoat press and along with Slemen's other ghost books (which I highly recomend by the way) is probably availible on Amazon or another simmilar site.
He publishes the storys from witness acounts and interveiws he conducts, so of course as with all ghoast storys it's heard to know weater the events were hoax, urban legand or if they realy happened...


In december 1998, 13-year-old Mandy Belvedere suffered a fatal asthma attack and died in her bed room in Austin, Texas. Mandys asthma had been steadily worstoning since 1996, and doctors concluded the girl was allergic to modern life. It was hypothisised that the chemical additives which lace so many of our foods nowadays were having a detremental effect on the teanagers health, but no matter which diet was tryed she would always end up fighting for her breath, and had to have an oxigen tank perminantly in her room.

Another allergic reaction she would have resulted in scaly eczema like patches, which would appear on the girls face and arms. Mandys condition dramaticly curtailed her teanage social life. She had a daily home tutor, who popped in for a few hours each day. without a doubt her personal computer provided her with hours of fun and interaction with other teanagers,as Mandy often talked to her peers via the Excite corporation's internet chatrooms. She usuly went in under the name 'Belvedere_13' -her sername and age. Mandy had several friends accross europe and america who talked to her in tean chat, and she came accross as a very witty and funny girl. 2 good friends of mady's were Southport girls, Chloe and Emily. They were devistated when mandy died. She was also a friend of a 14 year old Aigburth boy called Justin who had made plans to visit the Texan girl before her death.

However shortly after Mandy's death, something bizarre happened. Mandy's screen name, Belvedere_13, continued to appear on the screens of people exchangeing messages on Excite's tean chat -Mandy's favorate internet chatroom. When Mandys mother was allerted, she assumed some sick hoaxer was at work, but events took a spinechilling turn when Mrs Belvedere logged onto tean chat and challenged the person 'masquerading' as her deacesed daugter. She asked Mandy to prove she was her daugter by answering 3 very personal questions (which I cannot go into here).

Belvedere_13 answered all 3 quearys in such acurate deatail that Mrs Belvedere almost fainted. More and more questions were put to Belvedere_13 by other members of Mandys family and each were answered in amazeing depth.
"Oh my God! is that you Mandy? Is it realy my girl?" Mrs Belvedere sobbed as she tapped in the question.
The typed aswer came back... "yes Mom."
When Mrs belvedere asked how it was possible to be in a chatroom on the internet when she was dead, Belvedere_13 failed to reply. Futher questions were also met with a lack of responce. The company running the chatroom was allegedly asked to try and trace the where abouts of Belvedere_13, but they said it was impossible.

Reports are comming in that Belvedere_13 still chats to people on tean chat even today. If you use the chatrooms, keap an eye out for the mysterious Belvedere_13...
 
went on excite.com but couldn't find any ghosties, Now I'm dissapointed :(
 
Poor kid:(

At the risk of sounding like a raving skeptic, I have to suspect that she did tell her online friends some of her most personal details which some sick idiot used for "fun".

Whatever the truth, I hope she is either oblvious to the situtation; at peace or happily chatting to her friends.

Jane.
 
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