More Accounts of "Crisis Apparitions"

Increasing recognition is being given to “crisis apparitions,” the term for the spirit of a recently deceased person who visits someone, usually to say goodbye.

According to CNN.com:

Reports of these eerie encounters are materializing in online discussion groups, books such as "Messages" ~ which features stories of people making contact with loved ones lost on September 11 ~ and local ghost hunting groups that have sprung up across the country amid a surge of interest in the paranormal.  

Although such encounters are chilling, they can also be comforting, witnesses and paranormal investigators say. These encounters suggest the bond that exists between loved ones is not erased by death.  

"We don't know what to do with these stories. Some people say that they are proof that there's life after death," said Steve Volk, author of Fringe-ology, a book on paranormal experiences such as telepathy, psychics and house hauntings.

Scientific research on crisis apparitions is scant, but one theory is that a person in crisis ~ someone who is critically ill or dying ~ telepathically transmits an image of themselves to someone they have a close relationship with, but they're usually unaware they're sending a message.

Another theory is that crisis apparitions are guardian angels sent to comfort the grieving. Of course skeptics say it's all a trick of the brain ~ that people in mourning unconsciously produce apparitions to console themselves after losing a loved one.

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