Don't want to steal any of the thunder you'll be creating at the meeting of the Springfield Ghost Society, but I'll try anyway. I've discussed this topic prior on this site, but thought it appropriate to review it in light of your seminar.

Here's a link to a website that has Halloween ghost sounds.

http://www.soundboard.com/sb/Halloween_Ghost_Soun…

Now, the sounds at this site are not purported to be real ghost sounds – which is important. These are the sounds whose likenesses we hear around Halloween and are much like those used for years in movies, scary Halloween albums, cartoons, and oral stories to represent what ghosts sound like. We have become enculturated to these sounds that when we hear them, we think of ghosts or spirits.

Compare many of these sounds, especially number 8 -"the long ghostly wail", with the famous 1994 Columbiana County, Ohio moan/wail. Note: (and other purported BF recordings – but the CC, Ohio recording is the finest).

We then can begin to understand that throughout the ages, persons of yore who heard such sounds might have heard them at night in the wilderness and interpreted the calls through their religious beliefs to have emanated from spirits, ghosts, or demons lurking outside in the foreboding world of nature. Many such encounters have been passed down to us as ghost stories in folklore where the storyteller recounts a creepy encounter passed down to him or her from another person and that very well could have a germ of truth to its origin.

To add to the effect, for their listeners during their tale, the teller might have mimicked the sounds they were told of that were heard during the encounter. Such tales probably sprung from someone's actual personal encounter who heard something sinister and feared that it was the devil or a malevolent ghostly entity calling for his or her soul from the dark woods, or a mountain, or a gully on a black night.

Naturally, I firmly believe that what we recognize as the "ghost" sounds popularized through the years also have, as their original source in many instances, a very real and frightening creature – but of a different sort.

As the case with the researchers at Bachelor's Grove, you might be able to suggest to those in the meeting that a connection very well could be made between what we as a culture in general have accepted as the sounds of ghosts in the night and the sounds that come from a big hairy man going bump in it.

"From ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties,

and things that go bump in the night,

good Lord deliver us."

Have a great seminar!

T

(Not edited enough if typos or grammatical errors are present.)

If it wasn't 1,500 miles away I would love to come and listen. Don't suppose you would donate a plane ticket and motel rent, didn't think so. You all have fun.