City of Wandering Ghosts

Usually, mainstream media shies away from the paranormal unless the show or website is specifically about that area. But natural disasters – a pandemic, tsunami, earthquake – often involve synchronicity and spirit contact that even mainstream news covers.

In a June 2021 article, CNN ran an article entitled:

They lost their loved ones to Covid. Then they heard from them again.

Yeah? Spirit contact on CNN??

When this article appeared on the CNN website in June 2021, the pandemic had killed about 600,000 Americans. Now, in February 2022, that number stands at more than 900,000 dead. And many of the survivors never had a chance to say good-bye. But other survivors believe their loved ones are still around communicating with them.

CNN highlighted this story about Michelle and Ian Horner.

Michelle died of complications from Covid in the fall of 2020. She and her husband, Ian, a morning radio deejay in Wichita, had been married nearly 10 years. He was devastated. But not long after his death, he began to believe she was trying to communicate with him.

As CNN wrote: “He was driving to his job in the predawn darkness when he spotted something odd. About two dozen streetlights flanking the highway had turned purple. They looked like a lavender string of pearls glowing in the night sky. Horne took it as a sign.” Purple was Michelle’s favorite color. Ian had worn a purple tie to their wedding. It was a bond between them.

“‘Michelle knew that was my route to work that I take every morning and was the route she took on her final drive to the hospital,’” Horne said.

The article noted that spirit contact experiences can be subtle: dreams, a scent, unusual behaviors of animals. “Other encounters are more dramatic: feeling a touch on your shoulder at night, hearing a sudden warning from a loved one, or seeing the full-bodied form of a recently departed relative appear at the foot of your bed.”

The 1918 influenza pandemic triggered the Spiritualism craze – mediums, Ouija boards, all sorts of tools and venues for spirit contact. After 9/11, a number of people reported sightings of and conversations with loved ones who had died in the terrorist attack.

On March 11, 2011, a 9.1 earthquake struck off the northeast coast of Honshu on the Japan Trench. The tsunami triggered by the quake hit the coast within 30 minutes with waves that were 130 feet high. It disabled three nuclear reactors and within three days, their cores had melted down. The disaster killed at least 20,000 and, as CNN noted, “so many inhabitants of Ishinomaki reported seeing their loved ones appear that a book and a documentary were made about this city of wandering ghosts.

I’ve always wondered what happens in the after world when thousands or millions of people lose their lives in a relatively short period of time in wars, pandemics, natural disasters. If thousands or millions of souls leave their bodies simultaneously, how does the after world handle the sudden influx? Are we all suddenly enlightened and know what to do, where to go, how to help each other?

Maybe it’s simpler than that. Maybe one of the first acts of the dead is to attempt contact with the loved ones to whom they didn’t have a chance to say good-bye. Perhaps all these disaster sites become cities of wandering ghosts.