Photo: CNN.com
Citizens in Constitucion, Chile. have been reporting strange shadows and disembodied screams and cries throughout the nights near the devastated areas of the city. When a dozen people were camping near Orrego Island were killed by the tsunami that followed the earthquake, strange reports of “shadows [crossing] the Cardenal Raul Silva Henriquez Bridge”.
In the article, psychologists mention how the people in mourning can be more susceptible to these paranormal events:
“When there are deaths which were not pre-seen or states of affliction, it is normal that people have experiences which could be categorised as ‘supernatural,’” says Rodrigo Figueroa, a psychiatrist who is an expert in disasters at the Hospital Clinico of the Universidad Catolica. “It is a normal phenomenon that is magnified in catastrophes.”
It might explain some mass sightings for the strange shadows being reported, but what about auditory hallucinations? like the reports of crying children and wailing women coming from another water-devastated area? Can these be attributed to the displaced residents in make-shift camps?
Full source: Santiago Times
2 commentsPsychologists report that ghost sightings are a normal response to tragedies like this
In Constitucion people have reported seeing shadows cross the Cardenal Raul Silva Henriquez Bridge, where a dozen people who were camping nearby in Orrego Island where killed by the flooding of the Maule River after the February 27 earthquake.
Juan Morales Morales, who works nights repairing the bridge in Constitution, told El Mercurio that these shadows are “the people who died here, asking that we find them and that we bury them.”
And in Curanipe the crying of children as well as the wailing of women can be heard coming from the town’s camping ground, where some 30 people were killed.
Residents of both cities have reported the screens of their cellphones suddenly turning on, as if trying to make a phone call.
The appearance of ghosts after a great tragedy such as Chile’s recent tsunami is not an uncommon occurrence. After the tsunami hit Asia in 2004, taking the lives of locals and tourists alike, ghost sightings occurred frequently. Residents of the six worst hit provinces in the country’s south became so afraid of the noises that they could hear coming from the beach that they avoided going anywhere near it. In Patong, several taxi drivers spoke of picking up a foreign man and his Thai girlfriend going to the airport, along with their entire luggage, only to later discover that the back seat was empty.
“When there are deaths which were not pre-seen or states of affliction, it is normal that people have experiences which could be categorised as ‘supernatural,’” says Rodrigo Figueroa, a psychiatrist who is an expert in disasters at the Hospital Clinico of the Universidad Catolica. “It is a normal phenomenon that is magnified in catastrophes.”
The people of Chile have been psychologically affected by the tsunami (and the earthquake) in other ways as well. The demand for hypnotics, anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication grew by 4.6 percent in March, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE) (ST, April 14, 2010), apparently as a way to cope with the feelings which the natural disasters produced.
Hugo Zepeda, a Theology graduate university professor explained to El Mercurio why many people experience these “paranormal” happenings. “The people (who have been touched directly by the tsunami) remain psychologically damaged,” he says. “This has a collective projection, which means that they feel or see more or less the same things.”
Figueroa confirmed that more than half the people who lose family members feel their “presence” and insisted that in times of disaster it is completely normal for this feeling to be magnified.
SOURCES: EL MERCURIO, NEWS 24
By Alia Alhafny ( [email protected] )
