Real Ghosts - What Are Ghosts Essays - English-language Films

Real Ghosts - What Are Ghosts I have chosen to do my book report on a book called... Real Ghosts. what is a ghost suppose to look like? First you may think of something in a white sheet with holes for eyes, you may think of a ragged figure dragging chains and moaning. Or an idea of a ghost may be a figure you can see through, something that goes in and out of rooms without needing to open doors. That is the way ghosts are usually described in stories or shown in movies. But real ghosts come in many different sizes and shapes. Sometimes they are strange and frightening looking. Sometimes they look very ordinary. It is hard to tell they are ghosts at all. Often ghosts cannot be seen, but are just heard and felt. This book is about real ghosts. Are ghosts real? At 3:25 pm an airplane crashes and the pilot is killed. But at the same time in another city, a lieutenant claims that he saw and spoke with the pilot. A judge says that he had a conversation in his home with a reporter at 1:30 the night before. But at 1:30 that night the reporter had died of a heart attack in his own bed. In an old mansion in england a photographer actually snaps a picture of a shadowy figure on a staircase. It is the "brown lady" of raynham hall. Each of these people claims that he really saw a ghost. In this book the author (daniel cohen) investigates many strange stories. Sometimes he uncovers a hoax, but other stories leave puzzling questions... Do spirits really haunt old houses? Can a human be transported back into the past? Are ghosts real? Return from the dead? A man named john thorne lived near an old haunted house. In 1958 he had an odd experience... He woke up in the middle of the night to find a strange woman in his bedroom. It was dark, but he could still see that she was wearing a long dress, the kind people wore a hundred years ago. Thorne turned the lights on, and the figure had disappeared..... On 1961 thorne's brother, william, came for a visit. On the first night william heard footsteps outside the door. When he looked out of the open door... He saw a woman in a long black dress holding a handkerchief in her hand. Suddenly the room became very cold..... The real exorcists and others? The exorcist was an extremely popular book. It was about a young girl who was "possessed" by the devil. It took a ritual called "exorcism" to drive out the evil spirit. An even more popular movie was made from the book. People thought that the movie and the book were true. They were not. The book was a piece of fiction written by william p. Blatty. But blatty's book was based on a real case. One of the reasons that the book and the movie were so popular, is that people thought they were actually a real case. Here we have to be very careful. "based on" in not "the same as. " the writer and the movie producers made many changes in order to make "the exorcist" more dramatic and exciting than the case that inspired it. In the book and the movie, the "possessed" subject was a young girl. In the real case it was a boy. And that was just one of the changes made. There were many, many, many more. A large part of the exorcist was not based on anything at all. It was just made up. One reason is that we really don't know a great deal about the real case. Very few records were kept. Not all of what few there have been made public. Some of those involved in the case have since died. Many others just don't want to talk about it anymore. Here is what we do know. The case began early in 1949. The possessed subject was a fourteen year old boy who was called douglas deen. He lived with his family in a suburb of washington d. C. The first thing the family noticed was strange noises coming from the boy's room. They suspected mice. Exterminators were called in but found nothing. And the noises continued... The disturbances became more violent. Heavy furniture moved back and forth. A bowl fell off the top of the refridgerator for no apparent reason. A picture