TLDR:
What we do not know, we attribute to the supernatural
God, Ghost, or whatever magic fills the gaps of what we do not know.
What Really Happened?
I live in an apartment populated by people of different faiths. And it just so happens that I am the only atheist (or at least openly atheist) in the entire building. I also happened to be the only one who rented the room where somebody died a few years before I rented it.
I made a few acquaintances there, including the landlord. One is a neopagan who believes she’s a witch, another believes that Allah will keep her business from failing, and another loves Trump and God so much that he probably thinks they’re the same guy.
Now here’s the “supernatural” part.
Everyone believes that my room, particularly the balcony, is haunted.
At random points in time, the lights would turn on and off on their own. And sometimes, it flickers at a certain pattern. My landlord has tried replacing the bulb, fixing the wiring, and doing everything in his power so the tenants wouldn’t be scared. But no matter what the landlord does, the bulb still flickers.
Somebody thought that the bulbs meant something. Maybe the flickering is Morse code. Maybe the guy who died in my room must be trying to say something. So some of them decided to “decode” the flickers.
And lo! it wrote down a message:
(.) dots mean short flickers.
(-) Dash means long flickers.
…- …- …- …- --.- — --.- --.- — --.- — ..-. -.- .-
Random letters and absolute nonsense!
But this didn’t stop anyone; they all had their own meanings to what this nonsense said.
You know what I did? I called in an actual electrician.
You know what caused the bulb to flicker? It ain’t the bulb or the wiring.
It’s the FUCKING LIGHTSWITCH.
The light switch was old and messed with the wires. The electrician replaced the switch and voila! No more flickering.
You wanna know what happens next?
Everyone I know in the apartment is now making claims that they see shadowy figures or strange noises at night.
My Witch neighbor claims that the ghost is lost because “he doesn’t have a purpose anymore,” and shows up to her in her dreams.
Are you fucking kidding me?
Well, at least my room is cheap despite being surrounded by superstitious people.
Faulty lighting, water interruptions, broken AC, don’t care. It’s affordable.
yeah, it looks like the ghost only showed up when the lights stopped flickering but the story of the dead guy in my room became popular enough.
He’s conveniently “haunting” the entire apartment now, after the flickering was gone.
The story itself has already taken on a life of its own. once the narrative spreads, it doesn’t need facts anymore. it just needs repetition and social buy-in. now people are primed to reinterpret every creak, shadow, and half-dream as confirmation.