I know, I know. You’ll think I’m blogging this only because it’s nearly Halloween, but I’m dead serious. Something really weird has been happening up here on Cinnamon Ridge! I have a loved one who is ill, so I purchased some monitors–essentially baby monitors–one set that is one way, meaning I can hear the patient but the patient can’t hear me, and another set with one monitor and two parent receivers that can communicate with the monitor. In other words, I can be anywhere in the house and hear if my loved one calls for me, and I can ask him what he needs. It sounds like overkill, but after using the one-way monitor, I quickly determined that being able to communicate with my loved one was an absolute must. This is a big house, and I grow weary quicker if I’m running from one end of it to another to see what my patient needs.
So I got all set up with the monitor systems about two weeks ago, and I’m loving how well they work. At least I was until last night. I was busy until late –translate that into the wee hours of morning–and was dog tired by the time I decided to call it a day. Got into my pajamas, went through my nighttime rituals, and then tiptoed carefully around my sleeping dogs toward my bed, beside which is a nightstand. On the nightstand is one of the parent receivers to the two-way monitor, and as I approached the bed, I heard a low, very soothing male voice coming over the air. I did not recognize the man’s voice. I had just checked on my patient and knew the television in there wasn’t on, either.
Who had entered our house? Better question yet, how had someone entered our house without my knowing when I had armed the security system early in the evening? Goose bumps rose on my skin. I stood in the shadows, listening. The man spoke softly, so I couldn’t make out the words. But it was definitely someone talking. I thought, “Get a grip. He turned the television back on at a low volume.” So I hurried back through the house to my patient, just to make sure he was okay As I suspected, nobody else was in the room with him. After a quick search, I determined that nobody who didn’t belong there was in the entire house.
I crawled into bed with a frown, partly because I had allowed my imagination to run away with me, but also because I’m not given to flights of fancy, and I had definitely heard someone talking. Too weird.
So this morning, I mentioned it to Sid, who replied that he’d been hearing voices as well. Sid immediately decided that the monitors were somehow picking up on another frequency, thus the voices we’d both heard. While we were discussing this, Kate, also in the kitchen, decided to research it on one of the iPads. She glanced up and said, “Do either of you believe in ghosts?”
I raised my hand. I’ve always believed in ghosts–not the spooky, wailing, chain-rattling kind–but the spirits of those who have passed on. Sid said he did not believe in ghosts. Kate seconded him adamantly, but then she added that she does believe in spirits lingering here on earth. Sid said he did as well. I determined that they were both splitting hairs. Ghosts or spirits, who cares? Do you believe in such things or not? Be brave; just say yes or no. They both said that they believe in spirits.
So after we had settled on the fact that we were all on the same page about spirits, which I underline to accentuate that neither of them are silly enough to believe in ghosts, I asked Kate why she had presented the question to us. She pushed the iPad toward me and said, “If you have close neighbors who also have baby monitors, you can sometimes tap into their frequency and hear what’s happening at their house instead of what’s happening at your own.” She waved a hand. “But you don’t have any close neighbors up here.”
That was an understatement. We have no neighbors. Well, maybe a half mile away, and I know for a fact that the two-way monitor gets out of range relatively close to our house. Sid suggested that we were picking up radio waves. Kate said that it might be possible, but after her quick foray on the Net, she’d seen far more references to baby monitors picking up on sounds that the human ear can’t detect. Read that to mean the voices of spirits.
Kate noted all the paraphernalia that ghost chasers carry to haunted locales, and monitors are always included because they can detect sound frequencies that we can’t. In other words, a monitor can make the voices of ghosts–I’m sorry–spirits–audible to us.
I sat down at the bar to read the article that she’d opened. It started with all the technical stuff, saying in more precise and scientific ways what I just put in the above paragraph, that monitors are a medium through which ghosts can make themselves heard. Then it went on to tell a pretty convincing story.
A young couple was expecting a baby, and like most parents, they got the nursery all ready prior to delivery date. Inside the room, they installed a baby monitor. In place of honor also sat a family heirloom from the woman’s side, a rocker that had belonged to one of her great-grandmothers. I can’t remember how many greats preceded grandmother.
They brought the baby home, and they were very pleased with how well the monitor performed. With perfect clarity, they could see and hear the baby. This determined, the mother was working downstairs near the receiver and heard someone singing to the baby, but she couldn’t make out the words. She thought her husband was in the nursery, but he wasn’t. He heard the voice as well, along with a clicking sound, as if someone were rocking the baby in the old chair. The mother raced up to get her baby. She found no one in the room. Nevertheless, she snatched the infant up into her arms and hurried back downstairs.
Both parents were mystified, and the father decided to try a little experiment. They had purchased a monitor that was equipped with a visual monitor screen. The parents took the baby back upstairs and put it to bed. Dad turned the camera toward the rocker. Then both he and his wife went back downstairs to stare at the monitor screen, their ears straining for any odd sounds coming from the room.
Well, the rocker never moved. But soon they heard a woman singing. She had a definite Scottish accent. The mother freaked out, as most of us would, and charged back upstairs to get her baby. A few minutes later, the woman’s father arrived with a box of gifts for the baby, and on top of everything lay an ancient book of Scottish lullabies. It had been passed down through the family by the ancestor who had originally owned the heirloom rocking chair.
So, everyone, what is your vote? Did I hear the voice of a ghost last night, speaking to my ill loved one? Or was the sound produced by some wayward radio frequency coming in over our monitor? You can share what you think in the poll below. If there is a poll. If so, I can’t see it when I preview this. But the text stuff shows in this version.
Reflections from the Ridge 