Ghostly observer?

Photo taken from Obama’s victory speech in Ohio: See the ghostly face in front of the new President’s?  …Spooky!…

Fascination

Yesterday I referred to two articles I had found on the web, both Google ‘sightings’ – one of a ghost in Cardiff, one of an ET-like alien in New Jersey.  When I saw both articles in tandem I had begun to smell a rat and according to website ‘Switched’ the ghost was one of several pranks perpetrated by Google itself in order to promote its new street mapping service.  (Sorry to disappoint you there).

The reason I’ve come back to this today is two-fold:

Firstly, did you know that the mere mention of ‘ghost’ and ‘alien’ in your web page or tags vastly increases web traffic?  (Yes, I’m guessing you probably did – I’m pretty slow with this web stuff).  Yesterday this humble little blog was all ablaze with activity.  Of course, I can’t recommend this method of increasing web traffic because if you don’t deliver with actual content on those two subjects then people will probably be quite miffed with you and never cross your threshold again.

Secondly, I’m intrigued as to why so many of us are fascinated with ghosts and aliens. With all the technology that surrounds us you’d think that we’d all be on the side of the cynical scientists, yet we still crave that frisson of fear that comes with stories of the unknown.  I’m no different – I had rather hoped that the Cardiff ghost was for real and admit that despite my misgivings about the story, I was still  disappointed yesterday to find that it was a scam.  Naughty Google-peeps!