Mr.Bungle and Virtual Voodoo

Julian Dibbell's 1993 Village Voice article A Rape in Cyberspace is I think a great example of Forteana 2.0.

Describing a 'rape' which took place in LambdaMOO, it is strange, spooky and, if I asked in the previous post if a remote experience can be as involving and immersive as a real world one, this story would seem to prove that it definitely can.

Featuring elements of posession, 'voodoo', a malevolent spirit somewhere between Freddie Krueger and Pennywise the Clown, wizards, and even Bewitched's Dr. Bombay, it is a genuine piece of cyber-gothic.

An interesting development from this original article is the idea that people visit the actual room online - a kind of virtual ghost walk. From Wikipedia:

creative writing instructor Cynthia Brantley Johnson of the University of Texas writes that after a discussion of the Dibbell article and Sherry Turkle's book Life on the Screen, which also mentions LambdaMOO, she has her classes log on to LambdaMOO en masse and congregate "in the 'room' where the virtual rape occurred" before sending them off to explore on their own.

Paranormal Underworld

Just found this link to a virtual (or at least live cam) ghost hunt -

Paranormal Underworld

The collaborative software element looks interesting - I wonder if it's possible through a remote window to build up the tension, intimacy and fear that a live seance/ouija board/ghost stories round a campfire does. I guess if not, might it be considered a more effective (at least from a skeptic/scientific analysis point of view) form of investigation as it doesn't offer the same opportunity for (however unwitting) collusion - the kind that we see between the team on Most Haunted? Or, at the very least, the elements are recorded, so evidences can be analysed later objectively.

I can imagine Derek Acorah typing in furiously -

Derek says: "Uhh! Uhh! I'm a little witchy!!!!"

Derek says: "Ooh, what happened? I think I just got possessed"

Sam says: " :-( "

Derek says: "Thank you Sam"