From: wolfgang@nosc.mil (Lewis E. Wolfgang)
Subject: My Own Ghost Story
Reply-To: wolfgang@nosc.mil
Organization: NCCOSC, NRaD Division
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 22:53:31 GMT


Hi,

     Let  me preface my story with a little bit about myself.   I 
am 46 years old, have never subscribed to an organized  religion, 
have  worked for 28 years in a highly technical/scientific  envi-
ronment,  subscribe  to  Scientific American  and  The  Skeptical 
Inquirer,  and up until five years ago didn't believe in  ghosts.  
Now  I  am  not so sure.  We have all heard  ghost  stories  from 
friends,  and I always explained them away as "blots of  mustard, 
bits  of cheese".  I can't explain my story away that  way,   and 
now I confess to some internal puzzlement. 

     It was about 9:30 PM in Chula Vista, California (a suburb of 
San  Diego).   The evening was clear with the  temperature  being 
about 65 degrees F.  My wife and I drove our 1985 Toyota Van (the 
one with the big windshield) to the local supermarket and  parked 
approximately  in  the middle of the lot.  The parking  area  was 
well  lit with mercury vapor lamps (the kind that give off  white 
light, not these yellow-dim-bug-lights that are in use now).  

     As we walked back to van with my wife beside me I looked  up 
and saw a woman sitting in the drivers seat of OUR van.  Thinking 
non-verbally and quickly my train of thought went thusly:  "Opps, 
danger, wait, automatic burglar alarm turned on, hmm, how did she 
get  in,  couldn't, must be mistake".  The woman  was  wearing  a 
loose  fitting white garment.  She was illuminated by  the  pole-
mounted mercury lamps and did not glow internally.  

     As I thought "this must be mistake" I started to look  clos-
er. My wife on my left then made a sound that could be  described 
as  "Oof... oof... oof".  I glanced in her direction to see  what 
she was oofing about and saw that she had an incredulous look  on 
her  face  and was pointing at our van.  Up until  this  point  I 
didn't  say  anything to her about what I saw.   I  then  thought 
"Whups, waz-up" and looked back to the van.  It was now empty.  

     We  cautiously approached the van and it was  indeed  empty.  
The  burglar  alarm was armed and the seat was cold.   We  talked 
about what we had seen and even walked back to where we had first 
seen  her  to see if it was a reflection off of the  large  wind-
shield.  Try as we could, we could not re-create the effect.

     For me, this was a significant event beyond the fact that it 
happened to me first hand.  My wife made an independent,  contem-
poraneous  observation  of what I had seen!  This  precludes  the 
obvious  explanations for what we saw and I am convinced that  we 
did see something.  My wife, who is from the Philippines,  claims 
to have seen many ghosts (stories for another day) and says  that 
this  one looked like an old friend of her's who had the  misfor-
tune  of dying 10 days prior to our sighting.  My wife  was  dis-
traught  in  that she didn't learn of the death until  after  the 
burial  and  felt that she didn't have a chance to  properly  say 
good-bye.

     Could  this have been "the last good-bye"?  If so, why in  a 
Toyota van?     

                                        Luck,
                                        Lewie
                                        wolfgang@nosc.mil