"I know what I heard. I know how I felt."

Last night, I was at a charming Halloween party talking up Uhura with silver-foil on my head. We were talking about ghosts.

"I was in the bathroom at some friends' new house," she said, "And they went out to get carry-out, and while I was, you know, going, there were three hard knocks on the door. 'I'M IN HERE!' I yelled. I thought that they were back. When I was done, I was washing my hands at the sink, right next to the door, and it happened again--three hard, solid knocks. This time I was close enough to open it and yell at them. And there was nobody there. I was so scared I ran out to the porch and freaked out until my friends came home. They said that I was not the first person to experience that."

"Well, there are any number of ways--I'd have to be there---but there are any number of ways that the door could be rattled."

"No, not rattled. Three solid knocks."

"A train or..."

"I know what I heard. I know how I felt."

And there's the problem. You know how you feel, and how you feel changes how you perceive things. I was having fun, you know, so I dropped it, and told her I had no idea what had happened to her, but I would be really interested in seeing it if I could. She was smart though, and she was well aware that she had been "primed" (she used that word) by media to entertain the idea that it was a haunting.

Next was an older member of my new department:

"I was on the road to San Juan, where I taught English for 20 years, and I was driving down into a valley, and then I saw this vast dark triangle in the sky. It was moving and it stopped."

"Was it at night?"

"Yes, and without prompting, I pulled over and I asked my kids if they saw something in the sky and they said yes." (I pointed out that the way she phrased it she was prompting them.) "To this day they don't talk about it, but if you ask them, they'll tell you they saw it."

"Did it stop when you stopped?"

"No, it stopped before. And down there they know that there are a lot of countries...you would be surprised at how much secret stuff is underwater off the coast there."

"I really wouldn't. There are all sorts of things out there from all sorts of countries."

Another person who was in on the conversation asked, "I think that Bing...Bing were you leading up to something when you asked about it stopping?"

"No, nothing in particular," I asked the woman telling the story. "What type of things are they testing out there? Could you give me an example?"

"Lots of things." I kid you not. That was her response. Not an example. I don't know. Maybe living off of the coast and in the shadow of the US breeds conspiracism. I think that is possible. But my coworker was adamant that she did not know what it was, and she thought it might have been a government project. I told her that was more likely than aliens. But I did not know what it was.

Then there was the Christian. "Do you believe that there is a dark side?"

I may have blinked. "Well, I know... I know that I live in an envelope, and the envelope is the real world. I'm inside it, it's all around me and I can't see outside of it. I am limited to knowing what is in the envelope."

"Well, God can be anything. He can be an overweight black woman who likes cooking."

"So, God's the Oracle in The Matrix."

Uhura started laughing, and so did Animala, who was also festooned in a silver cap and was going as "Jiffy Pop." "I was just thinking the same thing!" Uhura said.

"But the devil," the Christian said, "He can be anywhere, in the darkness, in the doubt and what we don't know."

"But doubt is a perfectly respectable position. I think it is OK to not know things. It gives us something to look at and think about."

"Oh, I agree we can't know what's on the other side of the envelope. I'm a Christian, you see." ("NO!" I thought) "And the Bible says that there is a devil."

"Yeah, but do you see what you just did. You said that we can't see what's outside of the envelope, but in the same breath you said that the Bible allows you to see outside of the envelope. It can't be both ways."

I'm a lot of fun at parties. No, really. Read my "about me" section.

HJ