The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1892-09-02
MARCHING PHANTOMS.
4 WEIRD, SPECTRAL PROCESSION
SEEM AT DUSK -

II
Il pis story and His Explanation
From the PIttsblrg Dispatch.
Urbst sppears below is not the common
-, story. The writer contends that he
no ghosts; yet what he seemed to see
l .-.s "a real to him as the figures Of men and
-.omsn he sees in everyday life. He voucbes
/ ,,,v for what ii seemed he saw, and the
/ Di,nnfch, knowing him well, trusts him
1 .u,nIjcitly. His explanation is that IL was
+ entirely subjective phenomenon. He
- the phantom procession with what he
A..;gnates as temporarily defective or de-
-.Dgad oerebal sction-a sort Of waking
/ dream.
His is probably the real explanation of
ths soparitions that so frequently obtrude
themselves and to people whose veracity 10
m. 70 be questioned. They see, or are led
A. think they see, as he indicates, yet so
SI,tiuotly and in such detail that they are
conpelled to believe that they see with the
material eye.
The writer Of what follows is inclined to
think the tendency to these waking dreams,
A such they be, is due to some hereditary
t.int. he charges up this remarkable phan-
tasm TO heredity and oites a number of in
N%N~S -
occult phenomena.
PREVIOUS INSTANCES IN THE FAMILY.
His maternal grandfather declared on his
Death bed that he saw the Savior enter the
death chamber and described the vision to
his sisters as "white as snow" with out
stretched hand aud smiling. 1t was phan-
tasmio. Another sister OF this grandfather
had son In the war OF 1872, fighting In
dians in Western Ohio. One evening she
said she saw this son approach her with a
covering over his head and making peculiar
gestures. She at once mourned him as dead
and it afterward developed that the son had
been found dead and scalped and with his
hunting shirt covering his head, the cover
ing evidently done by himself ere death
ended his agony.
This and much more in the family tradi-
tons. The writer's mother, on more than
one occasion, was made to yield, in spite of
her protesting intelligence, to strange visi-
tstons, and usually in open day. An in
stance may be given. The home farm house
was basement structure facing the east
1t mad high porch on the lower SIDE
It was about9 o'clock p. m. on a summer
day that the mother sat on the shady porch
sewing. No other members of the family
were about except two boys engaged in
nearby cornfield. A door from the rear Of
the house opened into the kitchen facing an
opposite door that opened on the porch
other apartment-an every day parlor.
CURIOUS CASE OF TELEPATHY.
While the woman was engrossed with her
sewing, a pit-a-pat sound as Of bare feet,
came across the kitchen floor aud entered
the parlor. The mother sat with her back
toward the door and a little to one side OF
1t, and continued sewing. Again came the
y pita-pat. and she wondered why she had
not heard the boy 90 out. Directly another
f "A and again
& younger lad was prankish. She called him
4 by name, no answer. Another call and no
response. Being now assured that the boy
was up to something that he thought was
funny, she gathered up her sewing, arose
and entered the kitchen, turned to 20 into
the other room through the open door, and
Just as she stood in the doorway a moan
like murmur, as Of one trying to say some
thing in dire distress, greeted her. Being
woman OF great personal courage, and
though convinced that the son could not
produce such sound, which she, thought
continued a full half minute, she entered
the room, explored every place, other
rooms, and finding nothing, went to the
field, found the boys innocently at work,
and was told that neither had been at the
house since dinner.
TIE CAUSE OF THE PHENOMENON.
Well, date and time were kept, and in
due season came the information that an
aunt in Indiana, whose old home this had
been, from an oil lamp splitting or explosion,
which, was never known, was fatally
burned in her room and died IN great agony
on that afternoon, trying to speak but
could only murmur!
IL is bard to explain.
Coming down to the writer, this Is not the
first instance that occult phenomena have
occurred to him, although this is the first
instance Of anything of so weird and start
HnUlV a cha
OF course, cases such as these cited may
be explained as mere condolences, but how
about the following, which is told by a man
OF veracity, common intelligence, fair edu-
cation and inclined to be logical-a man
who has no sort of belief in ghosts, who is
perfectly confident that had another per-
son been with him such person would have
seen nothing, with the likelihood that he
also would then not have been subjected to
TINS most singular mental experience. Here
Is the story:
What | am about to narrate was an act
8 uaI occurrence, and took place at a point
less than forty-hve miles from PittshurR no
longer ago than March of the present year.
IL relates to something 80 much at variance
win what Is generally claimed az falling
WITHIN the lines of the supernatural and it
Is 50 against every grain Of my mental
makeup TO admit even of a supernatural
that for months had decided to never make
partition. now do SO because in a manner
am not left to my own choice, aud what |
snail try to relate | have no way to ade-
quately explain. protest against doing
what am about 20 do, and l shall reserve
70 myself the right to conceal my name and
IDENTITY with what still seems to me must
De most inexplicable hallucination.
am inclined to regard life as a phenom-
enon that may nationally he accounted for
Anu can IN no way see how what we call
mind can be in and of itself an entity and
aLser bodily dissolution, preserve an intelli- |
gent identity.
A PROCESSION OF ASPIRATIONS.
Yet, so far as ocular evidence can go, l |
nave seen with the physical sight, with !
mortal eyes. not one only, but an entire |
procession OF beings in human form, which,
they be not spiritual, were certainly not
u the flesh, and what is most remarkable, |
snd TO me utterly unaocountable, is that the
entire band Of appsritions was concerned
ure saw VI 'oPuA"
now think that my presence was, il not
10 Intrusion, merely an incident, that what
Witnessed had no external connection
SIsh myself, and that IL had been better
1a u not been chance witness to it,
Ia