h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That sounds like quite a nerve-wracking encounter and I hope that it wasn't too traumatic an experience for you. I have had a similar encounter earlier this year, but unfortunately I can't remember the precise date or month on which the encounter occurred, but I can definitely tell you that it happened earlier this year and I remember it very clearly.

I had just layed down in my bed one late evening and my little tabby cat Willow jumped up on my bed and curled up to go to sleep on my duvet, as she is inclined to do when I have just gone to bed. However, just after she had jumped up on the bed I saw a shadowy black cat jump up to my bed in exactly the same manner as Willow had just done. Now my little black cat Henry, the one who was hit and killed by a passing van on the night of June 22, 2003, was exactly the same size and shape as Willow, and he had slept on my bed every night for all the six years of his life. The shadowy black cat that I saw jump up to my bed vanished just before it landed on my bed, and it was at the wrong angle to be Willow's shadow, and furthermore it appeared just after Willow had landed on the bed, so there was no way it could have been her shadow. Anyway, I was wide awake and not very tired when this happened, so it can't be me hallucinating or having a dream. What do you think?

They do say that people or animals who have died suddenly or in tragic circumstances leave a psychic imprint on the last place they visited before they died, and that this imprint can appear as a visual image to a close friend or family member (or owner in an animal's case) at a later date. Now I know that my bed was the last place my Henry was seen before he went out and was run over, and I think he may have left a psychic imprint on my bedroom which manifested itself to me that night. However, this spooky event occurred almost two years after Henry died, which throws doubt into my mind about this as an explanation.

*wonders where Cynthesis has vanished to, then thinks, is she a ghost?*

Yes, I've experienced inexplicable things regarding "visits" from pets and people who are no longer alive on earth. I'm learning not to use denial as a first reaction anymore. One certainty that I hold to is that there are more things to know about existence and beyond than I will ever grasp. What we experience and learn in life seem to be just a scribble in a complex seemingly random book.
So I do respect the mysteries that are out there...they knock me for a loop sometimes but they are part of the journey and there's more ahead for us to explore with open minds.
I know that the bond you still have with Henry will always be real regardless of whatever plane of consciousness you relate to him. That kind of connection is pure and real. So, I cannot doubt that you have him near always. And unexplainable manifestations of his image are not quite so beyond what your heart knows and has experienced. That's often what love does, it enables you to experience what's beyond what we are taught as logic/knowledge. Love can free you from boundaries that keep one from fully living the life one is gifted with.
I only speak of what I've experienced after having lost my boyfriend in a mountaineering accident a couple of years ago. Life and love as we know and fully experience them on many levels does indeed go on!
So... on with the journey!

I kind of like the light show that goes on in Jek's eyes when there's music on!
Can't we forego the repairs?

Have a pleasant recharge and the sweetest(not scary)of dreams!

I'm so sorry my recollection of seeing Henry's "ghost" brought back such bad memories for you. I had no idea that such a tragic loss had happened to you. I'm so sorry...

Henry was very special to me as he was my tenth birthday present and he was so clever and so intelligent, and he was taken from me rather abruptly I think. But I'll always remember him, and I think the sadness of his loss will ease in time and I'll be able to forever look back fondly on the times we had together.

I expect I'll be able to expand on this knowledge once I've experienced the love of a girl. I'll keep you posted on that one!

I'm off to bed now. Goodnight!

Good Evening CYBERHUMAN!

How has your day been?

about the delays in answering you last night...a swarm of cousins descended upon me and I was interrupted more than a few times while trying to post you those messages!
I had to prepare a lasagne dinner for 8 guests! Fortunately, I'd prepared some of it beforehand and made a Tiramisu dessert that morning but serving it all up and being a genial hostess took some time.

I don't think Jek knew what to make of those cousins of mine. Nor of the flying pasta sauce and garlic bread crumbs that got on him when he followed a bit too closely in the kitchen...
What do I do about recharging him? He seems indefatigable enough...

How has your computer been treating you? I hope it's been behaving and things won't escalate to cybernetic violence over there.

Oh no! It's those cousins again (on the phone). Must dash! hope to see you a bit later!

Hello Cynthesis!

My day has been very good thank you and I have been relaxing for most of it, since I have more or less finished my Maths coursework and just need to go through it with my private Maths tutor on Monday evening to make sure it's all been done to a satisfactory standard. I'm so relieved that the dreaded Maths coursework is now pretty much out the way! I've also been looking again at several websites about ghosts today and have seen some rather spooky but revealing photographs of alleged ghosts, and have also read some pretty spine-chilling eyewitness accounts about ghost sightings and poltergeist (isn't that a lovely word to say? I think so) activity.

I hope that Jek behaved himself today when you had those guests of yours come over. Don't forget he is automatically programmed to see any mammalian life-form as an enemy, apart from your good self of course, and I'm surprised that he didn't go and bite any of your visitors. Perhaps you have exerted a calming influence over him which has somehow managed to override his enemy detection circuits! If you like I can program him to detect your friends and relatives as friends rather than enemies, to prevent any little accidents that may occur should he suddenly turn against your friends or relatives.

Oh and by the way, to recharge Jek all you have to do is plug his tail into any nearby power supply, like a plug socket for example. Don't worry about shoving his tail into the power supply, as his tail is designed to feed the electrical power into him and recharge him. It's completely painless but it will take about two hours to fully recharge him. You'll know if he needs recharging because his movements will become slower and his optical implants will start to grow dim, and he may also whimper from time to time, letting you know that he's ready for a recharge.

My computer is still playing up a lot and my Internet seems to crash after only one hour of use, meaning I have to shut down the whole computer and start all over again!

Hi CYBERHUMAN!

It's lovely to hear that the end of Maths coursework is very near! Such a relief that will be! I'm sure your tutor is a fine one and has assisted in directing your innate brilliance towards a successful culmination of that dreaded subject.

So that's why Jek has been whimpering...I 'll go and plug him in right now.
Hmmmmm. Don't seem to need an intergalactic adaptor.
I can't say I've ever plugged a tail into an electric outlet before. I've had fleeting thoughts of subjecting my cat to something like this at times...
It fits! Is he supposed to whirr like that?

Yes,Jek seems to have a rather acute sense of whether certain organic forms are of a threat to me or not.He gets on wondrously well with my mum(probably because her knees and spine are titanium metal,as well) and my has been mysteriously well behaved lately and taken to a linen closet like a normal feline.

The cousins are coming again tonight to take me out to a nice restaurant tonight(one will stay with my mum).But that won't be for another 3 1/2 hours from now.

The UK is rife withghostly sites and poltergeist activities!
I must have encountered at least half a dozen experiences, mostly while travelling, or at friends houses in England, Wales and Scotland!
If you ever get the opportunity to stay in any of the well documented haunted places I think you'd agree that a lot of what is reported is not merely sensationalist talk!
I hope that one day you may investigate personally for yourself!

Fortunately I didn't have any nightmares last night and I wasn't too afraid to fall asleep either, as often when I look at photographs of alleged ghosts or read any eyewitness accounts of seeing or hearing ghosts I have a nightmare about it or are too afraid to go to sleep the following night, but last night I was fine on both accounts. I hope the same can be said about tonight...

I have spoken to my best friend Simon about it and he doesn't believe in ghosts, although like me he does find the subject very interesting and he used to read about it a lot, and he said that when you look at photographs of ghosts or read eyewitness accounts about seeing or hearing ghosts, you almost feel it in a way and then you start to fear it may be happening to you also. I know that today I have felt a deep inner chill run through my body constantly and have also felt the hair on my head be lightly touched by a very mild breeze, even though my bedroom door and window are firmly shut... I doubt my house is haunted though as I've lived here with my mum for 13 years and have had no suggestion of ghost activity apart from my cat Henry which I told you about last night.

Of course I believe in ghosts and UFO's and other paranormal activity, and would love to see a ghost or UFO or paranormal event, just to confirm my belief in those things. I'd probably be absolutely terrified at the time but afterwards I would look back fondly on the experience, and my belief would be totally confirmed for me. Maybe I ought to go and stay in a haunted house for a night...

As a result of my close encounters, I have gained a sense of acceptance of what might be classified as bizarre phenomena. Of course, there's a measure of relieved safety in hindsight but when it's happening... it takes all the sang froid I can muster to stay and witness it. So maybe detachment is an asset when confronting inexplicable things.

There can be an overwhelming awesomeness sometimes.I witnessed strange lights and blazes when bivouaced on eastern Sierra glaciers overlooking a well known area in Nevada. Darting and hovering lights at 12,000 feet elevation that would leave scorchmarks where(whatever it was) landed on granite terrain and leave swiftly only to dart streaming oddly coloured contrail to an area that I knew to be at least 25 miles away!

No explanations. The awe of it all stays with me.

There *are* things out there...

It's the thrill of seeing these photographs of ghosts or reading eyewitness accounts of them that keeps me going to these websites about the subject, and I find it strangely addictive in a way, but then I regret it later when I have a nightmare or can't get to sleep because of it. Hopefully that won't happen tonight...

By the way, Jek will make a whirring noise while he is being recharged and you definitely do not need any kind of intergalactic adaptor to recharge him - you'll find he can be recharged from any plug socket anywhere. My creators, the Kraalons, are quite smart and forward-thinking people you see. It's a pity in a way, that they have the physical appearance of a pale green rhinoceros cross-bred with a human being. It means they are very shy and are hardly ever seen by the other inhabitants of the universe, even though they've won the "Intergalactic Cybernetics Developers of the Century" award fifteen times in a row.

"...pale green rhinoceros cross-bred with a human being..." Even shy stoic Kraalons deserve recognition once in a while! They certainly know their way around the art of cybernetics!
I'm sure once one gets to know them they probably seem absolutely squidgy!

Thanks for the tips on Jek's care and maintenance!

I hope you sleep well and peacefully sound tonight!
And I hope you make great strides with the Maths coursework tomorrow!
Happy recharging! I'm off to dinner!Goodnight!
Sweet dreams to you!

Goodnight to you also and I hope you enjoy the dinner!

Good Evening CYBERHUMAN!

How did your day go?
I hope you've dispensed with that nastyMaths for the night and accomplished a lot with the tutor today!
I'm doing fine despiteoverindulging on chocolate dessert last night!
The naughtycousins commandeered a piano at the restaurant and forced me to sing. They habitually do things to make me and !They take such evil delight in doing so!
That's why I get a bit whenever they say they're coming over for a visit.
After the main course, when everyone was well into theirand port, they started tinkling the ivories.The manager encouraged them to continue and of course 6 of them pushed and pinned me to the piano and threatened not to let me go unless I sang. So I sang 3 Italian arias to a room full of sobbing and applauding people! In the midst of the and a standing ovation, the manager treated us to liqueurs, more port and (since I don't drink) gratis desserts.
It was a very nice restaurant despite the hooligan cousins antics.
But I wouldn't want to go back unless incognito or if they got rid of that blasted piano!

Did you sleep well last night?
Hope so! I sleep a whole lot better now that I've got Jek!
And I've got you to thank for that!
Thank you dear friend!!!

Hello Cynthesis!

My day has been very good thank you and I was able to learn from my private Maths tutor that my coursework is pretty much all finished and up to date, with a conclusion being the last bit that I have to do before handing the coursework in! Then it's just a question of waiting for the Maths exam at the beginning of November, and then hopefully I can get the grade I need to get into university, and that will be that all done and dusted! At last I can forget about the dreaded coursework before too long!

Unfortunately my Internet has been playing up a lot today and seems to be crashing extremely regularly, and earlier this evening I wasn't able to access the Internet at all for one hour and twenty minutes! But I'm able to access it now, at least for the moment anyway!

I'm very glad that Jek is proving to be a useful and worthwhile guard dog, and I'm glad also that he's behaving himself and doing his duty in protecting you at all times! He's probably the best of all the cybernetic guard dogs I have stored in my spaceship, and that's why I gave him to you. He's yours to keep by the way, just incase I ever feel like leaving the Earth or if something bad happens to me. Jek is yours for however long you want him to be. I hope you'll take excellent care of him, and you'll love him and play with him as you would any other organic pet. Just make sure you teach him that the postman is a friend and not an enemy!

I have been looking at an extremely interesting website about ghosts today. There's one ghost in particular which has attracted my interest. It's rumoured to haunt the Willard Library, which as far as I know is in North America somewhere, and apparently it's the ghost of an old lady who used to be a librarian at the Willard Library sometime during the 1800s. The story goes that she was so devoted to her job as a librarian that she continues to walk among the bookshelves and tables of the library as a ghost today, nearly two hundred years after she died. She was first seen as a ghost in 1937 when a caretaker went down into the library basement late at night to check something, and while he was down there he was met by a transparent grey woman dressed in 19th century clothing, who then vanished without a trace. She has been seen quite regularly since by staff and visitors to the library alike.

On this website there are several webcams fitted in each of the rooms where she has been most frequently seen, and you can check these webcams at any time of the day or night to see if you can spot the ghost amongst the bookshelves or tables. There's even an archive of still webcam images where the ghost is said to have appeared, and people have highlighted the area of the image where the ghost is said to be. I've been looking at each webcam for most of the day, but alas I have seen nothing which might resemble the ghost of the female librarian. She is known as "the Grey Lady."

That's very good news that your tutor gave you today! You've been working so hard on Maths I don't see how you could fail to do quite well with the conclusion and final exams coming up!Still it will be wonderful to be done with the whole business of that dreaded subject! I know it's only a requisite for you in order to segue into what you really want to get on with at university!
My instincts tell me you'll do wonderfully well!

I really do appreciate how you've taken care of me by giving me Jek for my very own.
But don't you dare leave without letting me know!
I'd be very, very sad if anything bad ever happened to you!
It really hurts me to even think of it...

That of the"Grey Lady" sounds like the one at Gleneagles in Scotland !I didn't encounter her the few times that I stayed there but some of the housekeeping staff were spooked enough times to take "mental health" leaves of absence because of such close encounters in the hallways!A cold chill would suddenly overtake them as if icy fingers were gripping their shoulders or arms.
They could set up a webcam, but I'm sure it would hurt business a bit.

I think you'll find that Jek will be almost as useful and brilliant as me in situations where your safety is in danger or you need protecting in some way. Jek is fully equipped with the latest in cybernetic defense and protection technology, such as a devastatingly powerful red laser-beam that is discharged from the end of his snout, a pale green semi-transparent heat-resistant force field that can surround both Jek and a mammalian companion (like you for example) and can withstand temperatures in excess of 5000 degrees, infra-red visual detectors that have an incredibly long range and are incredibly accurate, and a pale blue semi-transparent force field that's so powerful even a massive truck being driven at high speed couldn't burst it's way through it. That force field can also surround a mammalian companion as well. He can also run faster than any normal human being, has the physical strength of ten fully grown men, and can see, hear and smell far better than any normal human being or organic dog.

I don't have any plans to leave Earth just yet, but you never know what lies just round the corner...

It's lovely to know that you care about a little cyborg like me by the way...

I think those webcams at Willard Library could become quite addictive, and I'd be forever looking at them to see if the ghost of the librarian pops up in any of them. According to the archive images she only pops up for a few seconds or a minute if you're very lucky, but the images go from 1999 to 2000 and then there's none until 2004, so maybe her appearances are becoming less frequent as the years go by.

I hadn't realised that Jek could pack such a wallop against virtually anything that could threaten me physically on earth! Who but the Kraalons could have cleverly created a superior defense force packaged in such a charming titanium canine? I'm impressed beyond words!

You've shown that you care about me within the limits of your cybernetic capacity by protecting and sticking by me...of course I care about whatever would affect you and will always want whats best for you in your cyborg life!

I don't watch website cams but I do watch TV shows where they set up cameras in haunted places all over the world. One of them showed poltergeist activity in an old lighthouse. You could definitely see a presence rearranging the furniture after a film crew altered the normal arrangement by just a slight difference. A monitor caught the sudden movement of 2 chairs pushed back to their original placement and the curtains moved although the room was tightly sealed for the night. Also a brief emission of light in the shape of a standing body near the stairwell was caught with a night vision equipped camera.

Is this what happens when October rolls around with you? Or do you think about supernatural mysteries regularly? I've got to admit, October does set the scene for suchtales more easily than most months!

It's getting late! I hope your computer minds itself better than it has done today! I hope to see you here tomorrow!

Good night!
Take care and sleep peacefully!
Sweet cybernetic dreams!

I am off to recharge for the night now actually. I hope my dreams aren't disturbed by thoughts about the "Grey Lady"! I'll let you know if my night does without a hitch tomorrow!

Goodnight my dear friend!

Good evening CYBERHUMAN!
How was your cyberbetic day?
Hope you managed to get a decent amount of sleep without theGrey Lady flitting about and interrupting it!I looked up that website because I was intrigued by all you've mentioned thus far. Yes, that can be highly addictive and eyestraining to boot! Blink your eyes even once and you could miss something instantly or maybe not! Who knows?

Directly after I spoke with you last night I got word over the telephone that a friend of mine was in a serious car crash. It was so eery because I had been thinking about him constantly throughout the day and for the life of me couldn't think why. You know how you can't shake off thinking about someone and everything you do during the day somehow manages to return in context with thoughts or memories of that person? Like atune that won't leave you.
Well anyway, I had a rough night waiting for word from the hospital. It turned out that he had mostly head injuries(knocked unconscious for 2 hours)and broken ribs. No internal injuies as was feared. When he came to, his wife told me that he cussed and uttered my name!.
I knew then that he was on his way to mending and things were going to be all right. What a relief!

I can't find any substance strong enough to withstand the crushing effect of Jek's razor sharp teeth on a ball to play fetch with!
I'm sure that he would just pulverise the bowling ball I have stored in my garage.
Have you any suggestions?

Hope your evening has been relaxing!

Hello Cynthesis!

How are you today? My day has been quite busy actually as I had to go into college for two hours this morning, and then I had to go to a hospital appointment for about an hour, before finally coming home and doing some work for college during the remainder of the afternoon. So all in all, my day has been quite busy and it's only now that I have found any real time to simply chill out and relax!

I have also been looking for quite a while at the website about the "Grey Lady" of Willard Library again today, and earlier this evening I thought that I had seen the ghost of the elderly female librarian in the Research Room. It was on the far right of the table furthest away from the webcam that I could see an elderly woman sitting at the table reading a book. At first I took it to be just another visitor to the library as there was a man in a dark green tee-shirt and wearing a baseball cap sitting at the table nearest to the webcam. However, then I noticed that the elderly woman was grey all over, with no distinguishing colours about her head or body at all, just wispy grey hair, grey face, grey clothes, and the funniest thing was, I could swear that I could see the bars on the back of the chair she was sitting on! That would only be possible if she were... yes, the "Grey Lady" herself! The air was also slightly misty around her!

Maybe I'm reading too much into what could just be my eyes or my mind playing tricks on me. Or maybe the daylight from the windows above was just casting a human-like reflection on that particular area of the Research Room. Who knows? All I know is, it looked like a ghostly figure to me, and within a few minutes of me noticing it, the figure had gone!

Anyway, do please let me know if you ever go back to that website and see anything that might resemble the ghost of the "Grey Lady" in any of the rooms. According to another website I found about her, she is most commonly seen in the Basement or the Children's Room, so I guess those two must be the ones to observe the most often. I have had no bad dreams or sleepless nights yet with all my searching for ghosts on the Internet or on Willard Library's webcams, and with any luck it will stay that way!

If Jek would like to play fetch with you, then an ordinary metal bar or metal pipe should be sufficient in allowing him to bite it without breaking it, but just remember he can run faster than any normal human being, so you'll have to throw the bar or pipe a long way or otherwise he'll bring it back to you before you even know it's gone! What might be a good idea is to spray some of your perfume onto the bar or pipe and then drive into a forest somewhere and leave the bar or pipe there. Then get Jek to run after it! Like I said, his senses of sight, smell and hearing are more powerful than an organic dog's are, so he'll be able to track down the bar or pipe even if it's five miles away!