What is the difference between a residual and an intelligent haunting? A lot – especially regarding how those experiencing these two distinctive phenomena are made to feel.
With an intelligent interaction (or haunting), you and the spirit are very much aware of each other’s presence in the same environment. Making direct eye contact with a full-body apparition is uniquely unnerving. And any attempts to communicate, audibly or physically, for example, can feel frightening and violating, especially in the private sanctuary of one’s home. So, that kind of fear-inducing experience can cause a visceral reaction and a surge of adrenalin, triggering a fight-flight-or-freeze instinct.
On the other hand, residual hauntings can be inherently perceived as startling or confusing but not threatening in the same way that intelligent hauntings are. It is immediately apparent that whatever you see is unaware of your presence. It isn’t trying to interact with you any more than a character in a movie or TV show would during the performance. The film just plays, sometimes decades after production. The actor has no idea who will be watching or when.
Residual hauntings are like short videos produced from energy imprinted into a specific environment. The energy is generated from constant repetition (like footsteps on a staircase) or an extreme emotion from a specific event that became forever embedded in the atmosphere where it occurred. And somehow, just that few-second clip randomly plays over and over again.
It’s a truly incredible phenomenon, and the following shared experience is a great example:
“My family and I once did a cross-island trek to see all the great lighthouses on Manitoulin. I explored them with my parents as a child and wanted to create a similar memory with my own kids. As it turned out, the memory from that experience was nothing like my childhood. It is inexplicable — and still something I think about today.
We had spent the first day of our holiday checking out the two closest lighthouses on the list, within an easy drive from where we were staying. As we approached the last one we planned on visiting that day, I promised the kids we’d go swimming at the nearby public beach when we were done. It was hot, and a swim in that beautiful bay appealed to all of us. But first, on to our next destination.
We parked the car near the beach and walked to the nearby lighthouse. We all stood looking at the structure. After a few moments of admiring its beauty and purpose, we started to retrace our way back to the car and the beach area for a swim. And I’ll always regret that I handed our digital camera to my spouse after taking that series of lighthouse photographs. If only I’d held on to it to document what I would encounter next.
There is a lot to admire in such a picturesque village, and I was looking from one old historical building to the next as we made our way along Main Street. My family was walking a lot faster, so they got ahead of me and waited down a ways on the other side of the road.
Just before I crossed the road to catch up with them, I came to a large, derelict building. Even in its current state of disrepair, it was easy to see how grand it must have once been in its heyday, but that was a bygone era.
As I looked for traffic, up and down the road, to see if it was safe to cross, I stopped in my tracks when I saw the side of the building I was approaching. I had only noticed some overgrown trees and vegetation when we walked by it earlier.
But now, I stood there staring, trying to figure out who or what I was looking at. Two ladies in long skirts and upswept hairdos were standing right there. Right amongst that dense overgrowth of vegetation that covered that area of the vacant property. And, because it all happened so quickly and was so difficult to process in that short timeframe, I may have just convinced myself it must have been an optical illusion and eventually forgotten about it. But the way every detail has remained frozen in my memory, still as clear as the moment it happened, continues to convince me this was not a figment of my imagination.
They were just metres away from me, but seemingly oblivious, not just to the tree branches encasing them, but to me standing there, staring at them incredulously. They both looked youthful, but I couldn’t estimate their ages from that angle. Their skirts and blouses looked so elegant compared to contemporary styles. And their hairstyles, too, had an elegance, piled up onto the top of their heads like Gibson Girls. I can still see them now, in my mind’s eye, though the sighting was so brief and happened many years ago.
They appeared solid as any other person would be, yet I could see the tree branches still growing right where they stood, like two superimposed photographs.
I remember wondering why they looked windblown as they both tucked loose strands of hair behind their ears, trying to tame it in the gust when the air was perfectly still around me as I watched nearby.
My kids called to me from where they were all waiting across the road, wondering why I was still standing there like that. I took the briefest moment to look at them when I heard them calling me and then immediately looked again at the two ladies, but they had vanished.
As impossible as it seems, I knew it was a long-ago era I had somehow glimpsed. The ladies’ location, directly within those overgrown tree limbs, was confusing, but I knew what I saw was real.
I’ve never used the word “ghosts” when talking about this to others, always referring to them as “those ladies” instead. I wasn’t frightened by what I saw and thought calling them ghosts seemed inappropriate. I don’t think they were ghosts. But they were apparitions of some kind.
So, recently, but years after this experience, I got a text message from my son, who has heard me speak of this encounter many times since it occurred, asking me if I’d ever figured out why “those ladies” from the past looked like they were standing within the current day’s tree limbs. I told him that still stumped me.
He sent me a copy of a historical picture he had come across while exploring that location again during a recent getaway with his partner. It showed a raised platformed sitting area beside that same building in its heyday, with several ladies of that era enjoying the shade under a large canopy.
Now, the canopy, chairs, and ladies are long gone — or are they?
I know I glimpsed two of them still enjoying their holiday there about a century after that photograph was taken. The world changes year by year. Trees and other vegetation overgrew the comfortable sitting area that once protected female guests from the summer sun.
But somehow, a few seconds of that time replayed before my eyes. It looked like they were chatting, embedded in that vegetation that now grew in the same area that was once an enjoyable gathering spot in its day.
I doubt I’ll ever process how this was physically possible, but I know it happened.”
And, I’ll add a pertinent side note here, following that shared account:
It has been concluded by many in parapsychology that limestone and water are two of the most potent energy conductors known to produce this phenomenon. (Think of all the documented haunted limestone castles in the UK!) Manitoulin has an incredible abundance of limestone cliffs and alvars and isn’t just the largest freshwater island in the world; it also has over a hundred inland lakes. The two best conductors thought to capture this phenomenal residual energy and replay it randomly over time permeate throughout the Island.
So, I’m not shocked or doubtful that this remarkable experience was witnessed as described — with its rich history and wealth of natural resources, including such abundant water and limestone, I’d be more shocked if this type of “haunting” didn’t occur quite often, on Mystical Manitoulin.
Do you also have an exciting and mystical tale to tell? Whether you’ve experienced a haunting, a mysterious cryptid sighting, or a brush with the inexplicable, please share it with Canadian author Dorah L. Williams at dorahlwilliams@gmail.com
Your story, too, could be featured in an upcoming column of Mystical Manitoulin!
