Ever since Arthur Koestler wrote the novel The Ghost in the Machine in 1967 (taken from a philosophical term coined by Gilbert Ryle in his 1949 book The Concept of Mind), the phrase has been used as a title for episodes of TV series such as The X-Files, Inspector Morse and Stargate Atlantis, as well as for an album by The Police in 1981.
Now a man in Austin, Texas, has brought it to another level with an auction on eBay for a 2007 MacBook which he suggests is haunted. The listing by ‘wfatzinger’ is quite specific: HAUNTED 2007 Apple Macbook 13.3” (White). Just in case you might have missed the fact that it’s haunted, the title then adds (VERY HAUNTED).
Some people might not be entirely convinced purely on the strength of the description in the listing headline, so wfatzinger provides a very detailed explanation of how the laptop may have come to be possessed. “It’s unclear just how this laptop came to be haunted, but I 90% bet it was the time I left it in a graveyard next to an abandoned mental hospital all night by accident.”
Next, he asks the most important question: “How do I ‘know’ the computer is haunted?” After taking the laptop home he noticed that all his songs in iTunes “had become scary or haunted”. Furthermore, the desktop background had been changed to “a scary photo”. That’s not all. He claims to have seen “the computer levitating” and in some cases “the screen and keyboard would open and shut quickly, as though the computer were attempting to speak”.
The section headlined Evidence of Spirit World Activity speaks for itself. “Notable Facts: Not only was there a full moon on the night I left the laptop in the graveyard, but there were also reports of an eerie green fog in the area, which people said caused them to feel a sense of intense nostalgia,” he writes. There were also “police reports of a terrifying old crone capering through a contiguous neighbourhood, setting trash cans ablaze and chanting incantations or curses, laughing and shrieking and brandishing a sharpened axe with a pentagram carved into the hilt. I’m NOT a computer expert, so I’m not sure which of these anomalous entities might have precipitated the haunting, but I thought it best to include all here”.
Dead cert
After revealing that the spirit started communicating with him “by grasping a pen between the keyboard and monitor and writing on pieces of printer paper from our home office”, wfatzinger gives a hilarious description of his attempt to cleanse the spirit from the laptop involving a psychic medium called Magnifique Capacite. Returning to her shop to ask her “to sign a ‘certificate of haunting’ I drafted up in Microsoft Office” to provide legal ‘proof of haunting’, he found it had vanished and been replaced with a store selling leather cell phone holsters. After listening to his sob story, the store owner “gave me a good deal on a black leather holster with an embossed image of Yosemite Sam on the front. It’s great because it fits on my belt and I won’t have to dig around in my pockets for my cell phone anymore”.
Just in case people might be put off bidding for the Macbook because of its haunted state, wfatzinger provides a section headlined Benefits of Haunting to set their mind at ease, describing the ghost as “a source for good in my life and I am sure will make a welcome addition to your family, too. Whether he was giving me a hand cleaning the garage, helping my son (Thames) perform a rap song at a middle school talent show, or acting as a crucial sounding board when Barb and I had that rough patch last autumn, this ghost has been a rock solid friend and constant companion”.
On 11 February 2015, with four days left until it closed, the listing had received 134 bids and the current bid was $3,250. Now that’s scary.
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