Simple explanations are sometimes right!

I had read about it but never seen a convincing example myself, until now.  I saw someone hanging washing in a garden maybe 100m away. But then after a while, as the person moved but never walked away from the washing line I realised it was actually a coat hanging on the line. It was windy which is what animated the ‘figure’ making it look real. I can now see how clothes on a washing line might, particularly in poor viewing conditions, look like a figure and, given its odd behaviour, be interpreted as a ghost.

Another odd recent experience concerns a wooden building I visited. I was alone in the building when I heard a loud eerie moaning sound. At first, I had no idea what it was. Even though I was looking straight towards the sound I could see no obvious cause. It was quite dark in the building. Then something flew! I realised it was a pigeon that had got into the building through an open window. Again, I would not have thought I could be so easily caught out by the sound of a pigeon but I was. It certainly sounded spooky. I have actually visited that building many times and never seen or heard a pigeon inside before. So it was a coincidence.

What both incidents show is that really simple commonplace  occurrences can, in the right circumstances, produce convincingly strange effects. Just because a natural explanation is  really simple, it doesn’t always mean it’s wrong.