It turned out the video of Michael Jackson’s ghost was a trick of the light, (unlike the photos of his rehearsals, which were actually faked) which actually kind of bummed me out.
WORDS: ROBERT FOSTER
I believe in ghosts, you see. There’s varying degrees of belief obviously, from thinking you saw one, to consulting mediums, to levitating and speaking in tongues. I’m at the ‘embarrassing superstition I’m ashamed of’ bit of the supernatural spectrum. I know I shouldn’t believe in them, every rational part of me says it’s all a load of bullshit created for Living TV, but when I stay in a big creaky house I usually sleep with the lights on. If I go for a piss in the night I try not to look too hard into the darkness along the corridor, and sprint back to bed super-fast after I’ve done my business.
I’ve spent a lifetime being as lazy as humanly possible, but no one could accuse me of not being pro-active about developing my neurosis’s and superstitions. Ever since I was a kid I’ve sought out books about the supernatural, there was a book in my school library called Ghosts and Demons which had a painting of a banshee so harrowingly scary I used to have to dare myself to look at it. That bitch fucking scared me every time.
When the internet came along properly I scoured it for footage, photos and stories -evidence really- and still do that about once a month to this day. Usually late at night when I’m on my own in my flat - I love psyching myself out. For me it’s less about factual proof and more about a sense of the uncanny. I like fear. I also download some EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) -which is supposed to be recordings of ghost’s voices- and scare the fucking shit out of myself. Remember that Smiths track that begins with a woman saying ‘you are sleeping, you do not want to believe’? That’s off some record of EVP that Morrissey loves, now when you hear it you’ll be scared because that’s supposed to be the voice of a fucking GHOST and it’s in your room coming out of your stereo.
Poltergeist shit is scary too, I love this video cos you can hear how fucking scared the guy filming is. I try really hard not to believe in shit like this but it’s more exciting if you just imagine that it is real and what it would feel like if you were there.
Finally, this documentary has footage that shits me right up when I’m hanging out on my own, if I found out for certain it was a hoax I think I’d be quite upset.
