More Ghosts in the Machine
Now that people are more emotionally attached and in tune with their electronics than their houses, is it any wonder more and more people report that their computers are haunted? That there really are ghosts in our machines?
Years ago I came across a report concerning a suicide, where the suicide note claimed “I can no longer stand it. Every night, night after night it tells me to kill myself. It talks to me from my TV. It lectures me, humiliates me and mocks me.” What disturbed me most about this was what I found out with a few brief phone interviews. A neighbor told me that the victim told him that this happened even when the television was off.
“I thought he was crazy,” the neighbor said. “Hell, I knew he was crazy, but I’m telling you one night I snuck up to his living room window to listen. It was last fall. Warm enough for the window to be open but not so hot the air conditioning was on. I listened for ten, maybe fifteen minutes and all I heard was the program he was listening to- CNN or something. So I was feeling pretty stupid by then and I was about to turn around and get out of there when I hear someone say, ‘Cut your wrists. Get the steak knife and do it now.’”
For a minute the phone line was dead between us. I didn’t know what to say, so I just waited it out from him to get going again.
“Now I know you think this is crazy, but his TV was right near the window I was outside of and I’d swear that’s where the voice came from.”
