What is DOP (disappearing object phenomenon)?

DOP - disappearing object phenomenon - is a relatively common phenomenon in which an object disappears from view and later inexplicably returns. For example, a person puts their car keys on a kitchen counter, where they are always kept. When the person goes to get them, they are gone. A thorough search turns up nothing. Later, the keys are found on the counter where they were originally put (or some other obvious place.

 

It's difficult to document a genuine DOP occurrence because people can be careless, simply misplace things or be forgetful. But there are many compelling stories from people who are certain they looked for the object in the place that it later appears. In some cases, people audibly call out for the object to be returned - and it is. In some rare cases, the missing object has actually been seen materializing out of thin air. It is also known as the "borrower" phenomenon. It may be related to poltergeist phenomena.

Unexplained Noises heard from the Sky!

Weird. I wonder if it has something to do with the magnetic storm we are having today.

http://www.cjme.com/story/video-unexplained-noises-heard-sky-north-battleford/40843

Why are there so many ghost stories about a "woman in white"?

By Esther Inglis-Arkell

Does your town have a Woman in White? Of course it does. There is no town that doesn't have a woman in a white dress who wafts around drafty halls of the local manor, or paces the widow's walk of the local hotel. Find out about the woman in white legend, some local examples, and share your own stories of ghostly women in white. I know you have them. Everyone does.

The I remember living in was mostly open land until the 1960s. It was built up in the few decades between then and the time I arrived. The only old structure in the entire town was a large Catholic school, and so that is where the Woman in White used to hang out. Some say the school building used to be a convent and the woman was a nun in love with a priest, some say it used to be the house of a robber baron and the woman was his unfortunate wife, some say it was always a school and she was a lovelorn teacher. It doesn't really matter. Just as long as a ghostly woman gliding over the grounds, the reason could be supplied later.

White Women or White Ladies, are an international phenomenon. In Holland and Germany, centuries ago, they are said to be healers and gentle spirits. German legend has them appearing at noon, blindingly beautiful in the light. Dutch legend has them haunting graveyards during the night, the spirits of healers passed from the earth. They are not necessarily ghosts. Often they're treated more as elves or earth spirits, though they began as humans. Up in Ireland, and more northern countries, wailing women in white are said to foretell death. Down south, in Mexico, the La Llorona legend has it that these women in white drowned their children, and lurk by water to drown more. Yūrei, in Japan, are vengeful spirits attached to certain objects or places, and attack the people who come into contact with them. But these are all old legends.

In modern woman in white stories, there is always a tragic love story. The woman in white is rarely someone's sister, daughter, or mother. Oh, she maybe be any or all of those things (It's a pretty safe bet that she's someone's daughter.), but those aren't the things that her legend is dealing with. One of the next major towns I lived in was on the coast. A restaurant that overlooked the ocean was built on a beach famous for being the landing ground for bootleggers bringing alcohol close to San Francisco by boat, and loading it on to trucks to make the journey into the city. This much is true. The idea that a woman in white walks the edge of the cliff (or what the less romantic among us would call the parking lot) is not as well established, but the legend continues. Supposedly she was the bootlegger's girlfriend, while having a less wealthy lover on the side. The bootlegger killed her. It's not clear whether she was killed at that drop off point or whether her body just washed up there, but the important points; love, sex, betrayal, murder, are there in most Woman in White Legends. She's someone's unhappy wife, or illicit lover, or suicidal betrothed, or some other sad tale of romantic woe.

San Francisco itself has a rather unusual ghost -an urban woman in white who walks outside. Most cities have figures that appear in the windows of great old houses, or flit through the walls or along the roofs of old hotels, but we have one that walks up and down California Street, a high-traffic road that crosses the entire city. Our outdoor woman in white is said to be Flora Sommerton. She was eighteen in 1876, a celebrated beauty, an heiress, and the toast of society. Her parents decided to cement her status by forcing her to marry a wealthy older man. Flora's legend is as confused about the details as any other. According to one version she fled down California on the day of her wedding, in her wedding dress. Another has her running out on everyone on the evening of her betrothal in a white ballgown. What's atypical about Flora is she shows up again - just not alive. Fifty years later, in Butte, Montana, a woman's body in the same white dress was found in a hotel room. The room was supposedly covered in clippings about the disappearance of Flora, but the body was never positively identified.

What also stands out about Flora is her age. All women in white seem to be young and pretty, but Flora is just a few years out of the stage when we would call her that other ubiquitous phantom, the Girl in White. Any places that don't have a Woman in White will tend to have a little girl in a white dress floating around a house, staring at people. While Women in White are generally glimpsed from afar and go away soon, little girl ghosts have more of a personality. Sometimes they're solemn and sad, staring at people from windows and doorways. Sometimes they're mischievous, can be heard laughing or running around, and will hide things in the house. Sometimes, they're downright Japanese-horror-movie malevolent. (It's not a coincidence that Linda Blair spent most of The Exorcist in a white night dress.) But they're always around.

Perhaps there's a reason for that. Perhaps young girl ghosts grow up into Woman in White ghosts, and then when they can't squeeze into the dress anymore they head over to Butte, Montana. Whatever the protocol, it's clear that the Woman in White shows up anywhere and everywhere, including your town, right now - possibly reading this over your shoulder. Go ahead and look. I'll wait.

Hey everybody! Currently we are working a couple articles featuring some new locations in and around Regina. I hope to have them up in the next few weeks.

In the meantime here is an article about " True Believer Syndrome."

The true-believer syndrome merits study by science. What is it that compels a person, past all reason, to believe the unbelievable. How can an otherwise sane individual become so enamored of a fantasy, an imposture, that even after it's exposed in the bright light of day he still clings to it--indeed, clings to it all the harder?  --M. Lamar Keene

True-believer syndrome is an expression coined by M. Lamar Keene to describe an apparent cognitive disorder characterized by believing in the reality of paranormal or supernatural events after one has been presented overwhelming evidence that the event was fraudulently staged. Keene is a reformed phony psychic who exposed religious racketeering—to little effect, apparently. Phony faith healers, psychics, channelers, televangelist miracle workers, etc., are as abundant as ever.

Keene believes that "the true-believer syndrome is the greatest thing phony mediums have going for them" because "no amount of logic can shatter a faith consciously based on a lie." That those suffering from true-believer syndrome are consciously lying to themselves hardly seems likely, however. Perhaps from the viewpoint of a fraud and hoaxer, the mark who is told the truth but who continues to have faith in you must seem to believe what he knows is a lie. Yet, this type of self-deception need not involve lying to oneself. To lie to oneself would require admission that one believes what one knows is false. This does not seem logically possible. One can't believe or disbelieve what one knows. (Belief is distinct from belief in, which is a matter of trust rather than belief.) Belief and disbelief entail the possibility of error; knowledge implies that error is beyond reasonable probability. I may have overwhelming evidence that a "psychic" is a phony, yet still believe that paranormal events occur. I may be deceiving myself in such a case, but I don't think it is correct to say I am lying to myself.

It is possible that those suffering from true-believer syndrome simply do not believe that the weight of the evidence before them revealing fraud is sufficient to overpower the weight of all those many cases of supportive evidence from the past. The fact that the supportive evidence was largely supplied by the same person exposed as a fraud is suppressed. There is always the hope that no matter how many frauds are exposed, at least one of the experiences might have been genuine. No one can prove that all psychic "miracles" have been frauds; therefore, the true believer may well reason that he or she is justified in keeping hope alive. Such thinking is not completely illogical, though it may seem pathological to the one admitting the fraud.

It does not seem as easy to explain why the true believer continues to believe in, that is, trust the psychic once he has admitted his deception. Trusting someone who reveals he is a liar and a fraud seems irrational, and such a person must appear so to the hoaxer. Some true believers may well be mad, but some may be deceiving themselves by assuming that it is possible that a person can have psychic powers without knowing it. One could disbelieve in one's psychic ability, yet still actually possess paranormal powers. Just as there are people who think they have psychic powers but don't really have any such powers, there may be people who have psychic powers but think they don't.

www.skepdic.com