Bizarre Mysteries: Residual vs. Intelligent Hauntings

There are four types of hauntings: Residual, Intelligent, Poltergeist, and Inhuman. This month, we will explore Residual vs Intelligent Hauntings.

Residual haunt? Intelligent haunt? Are you experiencing a true haunting? Or, is your ghost an echo of a particular time, place, or event? Just what the blazes is hanging around your house, the local cemetery, the coffee shop? Well, wonder no more, my fine people with a pulse! Today, we will learn the difference!

Let’s start with the one that is most difficult to wrap your noggin around…the residual haunting. Thought to be the type of haunting people experience most often, a residual haunt is like an imprint or memory that plays in a continuous loop.

Like a scratched record from the 70s or a parent telling their toddler for the 456th time that ‘we must not stick sissy’s fingers in the electrical outlet’ , a residual-type haunt plays out the same scene, the same images, the same sounds, over and over. Also known as ‘psychic impressions’ left on a particular location, a residual haunting involves a trapped memory that is ‘absorbed’ (for lack of a better word) into the surroundings.

It’s like taking all your love and hate and anger and confusion regarding a specific event, wrapping it in a ‘Silly Putty’ blanket, and pressing it against the wall, leaving an imprint.

More often than not, residual hauntings occur in areas where strong emotion, duress, or tragedy occurred. These emotions are taken in by the atmosphere and leave a sort of fingerprint on the surroundings because, let’s face it…we are more than a mixed bag of atoms and DNA! All that energy that has to go somewhere when we kick it!

This event or replay of a timeline is like a recording, destined to play to, what is most times, a terrified audience.

But, fear not, folks! Residual haunts cannot hurt you because they are more like a photograph in time than a spirit taking form. In fact, the ‘ghost’ seen in these haunts is created solely from the energy and memory of the building or place it haunts.

So, the living are essentially watching a movie of the dead. There is no communication, no intelligent interaction. Basically, they don’t know you’re there because they aren’t really there.

Sounds like my kids when they were teenagers.

So, how do you know if your haunting is residual? Easy peasy. If the apparitions perform the same acts or steps or motions, seemingly unaware of anything but the ‘loop’ they are playing in, it’s residual. Phantom footsteps, piano music, knocking or voices, can all be evidence your haunt is residual in nature.

But, fear not! It is possible (some say probable) that most hauntings involve both residual and intelligent activity. So, if you have a hankering to jaw with the ghost of Abe Lincoln in the White House, you will probably find him, along with some residual imprints of some of our past president’s indiscretions and energy!

Some examples of residual haunts include the battlefield at Gettysburg and the Myrtle’s Plantation in Louisiana.

And what about intelligent hauntings, you say? Glad you asked, friends! Here is the difference in a nutshell…interaction!

Ghosts in an intelligent haunt see us, may try to communicate via electronic manipulation, sometimes will even try to talk to us. Disembodied voices are voices we hear with our own ears and don’t require an electronic device to listen to—think moaning, footsteps, whispers. EVP, or electronic voice phenomena, is communication we cannot hear in ‘real time’ with our ears. Instead, sounds and voices are picked up using a digital recorder and played back later.

So, why would a ghost hang around instead of moving on to their next destination? Of course, no one knows for sure. But paranormal investigators believe that the deceased had ‘unfinished’ business here on earth. Perhaps they died in a tragic accident or were killed at the hands of another. Or, maybe they have a message to pass on to a loved one. Sometimes, the emotional ties binding a spirit to a place or person are too great for the ghost to move on.

And sometimes, the dead don’t even realize they are dead! Which is truly heartbreaking and the reason paranormal investigators are all about ‘crossing over’ a lost spirit.

You know…”go to the light, Carol Anne,” kind of stuff.

Anyhoo…in an intelligent haunt, you may see doors or cabinets opening or closing by themselves, shadow people, or radios or televisions that turn on and off. Physical effects of a ghostly presence vary. You might feel a hand on your arm or a finger brushing back your hair, or you may experience ‘goosebumps’ on your neck or feel a sudden chill in the air.

And, of course, the Mack Daddy of all, you may physically see them. Sometimes they are transparent, sometimes as real and vivid as you or I.

All that being said, keep in mind that not every entity is a pleasant one. Just as in life, there are some pretty pissed off spirits in this world. A negative energy can have consequences, both physical and emotional. So, if you do encounter something that seems angry, violent, or mischievous, tread carefully. There is no shame in asking for help when ridding your space of a nasty ghost.

Because, let’s face it…we can’t all be Casper.

One last word about seeing or interacting with spirit. As we get older and more jaded, adults sometimes are blind to what is right in front of us. And I’m not talking ‘male’ blindness here—

Husband: Dear, have you seen my lucky socks?

Wife: Probably in your lucky sock drawer, sweetie.

Husband: sigh…I don’t see them. How about the severed head I put in the fridge?

Wife: Top shelf, next to the mayo.

Husband: (Laughing) Oh, there it is! If it had teeth it would have…oh, wait…

No, I’m speaking of adults and how we disavow what our eyes and hearts and brains tell us occasionally. And not just with ghostly phenomena, either. Children are programmed to believe what they see because they have not experienced deceit( or a weekend binger that sets off some pretty crazy delusions.)

Children, as well as household pets, are pure of heart and not cynical like their parents. So if your kid tells you there is a creepy guy in a clown suit hanging out in the closet (or in the sewers😳) or the dogs are barking at walls, refusing to go into certain areas of the house, or stealing a few swigs of your whiskey while shaking in their boots, listen to them.

And for the love of all that is holy, if they tell you to GTFO the house, don’t stop to put on lipstick!

That’s it for now. Next time, we will visit the other two, more frightening types of hauntings: Poltergeist activity and demons. Yikes.

Later, gators

—Quinn