Shot late at night on Nov 1st, Day of the Dead, in my father in law’s rambling old country house.
As I mentioned yesterday, I and a bunch of other people are playing a big game of video consequences this month. Each day, someone different makes a 90 second video, inspired in some way by the previous day’s piece.
Adrian Miles kicked it off yesterday with Like A Match, a love poem in audio, looping over a video of a match being struck, which changes when you move your mouse over the video.
The rules are that your video has to be 90 seconds or less, and inspired in any way (you don’t have to explain how) by the previous day’s video.
While I was pondering my response late last night, and filming the log fire we were gathered around, I caught this moment, which I decided to share as it is.
Then I went up to bed, in the haunted room. At 3am, Kate and I lay wide awake in the pitch black. Old country houses are dark. Every few minutes there was a loud and unexplained bang of wood on wood from somewhere within the room. Turning on the light would have woken the baby, so we spent a rigid hour with Kate asking me to whisper reassurances in her ear about the lack of scientific evidence for ghosts. Neither of us wanted to admit to the other how freaked out we were – Kate had already been in bed when I shot this video, and I didn’t want to frighten her by telling her what I’d just heard. Eventually, she quietly got up, turned on the light in the hallway, left the door open a little, and the noises stopped.
Turns out that Kate had had the same conversation with her stepmother yesterday evening about ‘the flamingo room’ – only she had the details, which for obvious reasons aren’t widely available, but which do add an eerie extra level of synchronicity to this video. If you want to know, the code is here, you’ll just have to View the Fire again, and think “Fox” and “Source”
—
(Update: Dennis’s response to my video is here)
That’s just spooky, Ru. It would have wigged me out as well. I’m no good with codes, so I’ll never know the rest, but that’s okay, that means I can’t dream about it and wake myself up with a thumping heart.
When I die I hope to come back as a ghost. But only if you get to choose where to haunt.
The beautiful atavism of this is the ancient world sitting around the campfire telling (ghost) stories. I feel the heat, and the world beyond the flame light, and the huddle of human bodies listening…
oooh.. exciting… this looks like it’ll be an interesting month…
That happened in your room and you guys still slept in there knowing that!?!
You two have braver souls than I.
@david i didn’t know the details until this morning. if i’d known, i’m not sure i could have stayed in there. i didn’t say that we were woken up by a weird hum that we couldn’t place – it wasn’t a plane or a car or heating. and when kate got up to investigate, it disappeared. then the banging started.
@robert yes! it’s what fires in old country houses are for!
@cheryl which is exactly why it’s in geeky code, for the sake of the house’s younger residents and visitors and other people who would rather not know đ
@david also, you have the freakiest real life ghost stories i’ve ever heard, in places you continued to stay… so don’t underestimate your courage in the face of paranormal activity đ
With regards to my paranormal experiences, there is a fine line between courage and stupidity đ
When I was in the first Gulf War, I had an “unusual” experience out in the desert….but that’s a story for another day….
very cool video….or is it hot? đ
Dennis’s response is here: http://ymimexico.org/vlog/2009/11/03/vlomo-day-3-legacy/
Great story! Loved the video and the story told by the fire. great and frightening… đ
Isn’t telling a young boy that you believe in ghosts the same as telling the children that santa isn’t real? just kind of the other way round??! poor kid, has to live in that house and now you have gone and freaked him out completly!
Now, I most definitely don’t believe in ghosts *but* some weird-ass stuff has been happening in my house recently. Lots and lots of my housemate’s stuff has been going missing and is no where to be found. She decided it must be a poltergeist which scoffed at. Last night we got home from a meeting with a clown (don’t ask – completely true) and had been in the house about an hour when she said she couldn’t find her hand bag. We searched for it high and low and finally found it in the middle of the garden! I refuse to believe in ghosties but, you know, I have no explanation for this either…