Artifacts and apparitions

As I mentioned last week in my piece on our overnight trip to Corregidor, Beng and I took pictures of the sites we visited, just like any other pair of tourists out for a weekend of exploration and reflection on an island drenched in history.

The rugged beauty of many corners of Corregidor — its serenity even — stands in sharp, ironic contrast to the savage fighting that went on there, albeit for a noble cause. Inescapably, death and suffering pervade the place, their pallor relieved only by the sterling courage and endurance of those who lived and died there.

There’s something more than vaguely disquieting about the notion of looking for thrills and spills in a hallowed graveyard, and the tours do try their best to preserve the sanctity of the place with constant reminders — as if they needed to be said — of what happened in those fire-blackened bunkers and ammunition depots. “The Japanese refused to evacuate these tunnels,” noted a guide, “and the Americans who were retaking the island poured gasoline through these vents and set them on fire.”

But also because of such horrific stories, visitors who believe in ghosts can’t help looking for them, and even those who don’t sometimes come away from the island with their skepticism somewhat shaken. I belong to the latter category of staunch “rationalists,” as I think they call them in India, where debunking and demystifying the tricks of swamis and spiritualists have become nearly as fascinating as the tricks themselves.

Unfortunately (or otherwise), I married a believer, a practicing Theosophist who believes in souls, reincarnation, third eyes, and the virtues of vegetarianism, so we’ve had a philosophical truce of sorts around the house going on 36 years, enabling me to eat my medium-rare steak in peace, and her to commune — telepathically or astrally — with my chief rival for her affections, a long-dead (but presumably since reincarnated) fellow by the name of Paramahansa Yogananda.

As you can imagine, this has led to some interesting differences in our lifestyles and expectations. Her lifelong dream is to spend a week of abstinence and meditation in Tibet; I’d like to spend that week playing poker, guzzling free beer, and ogling half-clad women in Las Vegas. When we get up in the morning, she mumbles mantras for a solid half-hour; I grab my bedside laptop to check my overnight e-mail and my eBay standings.

So it was that we went to Corregidor in search of different experiences. I wanted to see big guns; she wanted to discover (or be discovered by) ghosts. I can now report that we found both, although the artillery was a tangible certainty, seen by everybody else; the apparitions played favorites, who included Beng but excluded me.

(This wouldn’t have been the first time for me to have been studiously ignored by the dear departed. Many years ago, I went on a writing fellowship to Hawthornden Castle in Scotland, a 16th-century structure on a cliffside near the Rosslyn Chapel made famous by The Da Vinci Code. A couple of other Pinoy fellows who preceded me at the castle swore that they’d been visited in their rooms by ghosts — one of them seizing the poet by his ankles — but the only thing that seized me there over the four weeks was an acute longing for Nissin’s Ramen and Ligo Sardines.)

Beng’s alleged (that’s the objective journalist talking) encounter came when our tour bus swung by Battery Geary, a shrapnel-studded gun emplacement behind which stood a bunker that had been carved into the hillside. There — said our tour guide Stella — three comfort women had been kept and probably killed by the Japanese. Stella also told us even before we entered the bunker that many previous visitors had reported capturing “orbs” with their cameras in that particular place — whitish circles that seemed to float in the air, suggesting ethereal presences.

Our group of about 15 tourists filed into the bunker, which was dark and clammy but not, for me, necessarily spooky, my courage bolstered by all the warm bodies around. I, of course, was on the trail of artifacts, not apparitions, and clicked away with my Nikon at the military hardware, like the rusted hooks lining the concrete wall. Beng, with her Lumix, was taking pictures of the darkness itself.

When we all stepped out back into the light and reviewed our shots, a great cry came up around Beng and her viewfinder. “Orbs!” she exclaimed to the huddle. “I found orbs!” She pressed the magnification knob and an even bigger gasp arose. “I can see a face! Look, there’s a face in this orb!” Instantly the crowd swelled around Beng like traffic around a U-turn.

Naturally, this skeptic stayed away from the oohs and aahs, stubbornly refusing to be suckered into a sighting; I knew that I’d get a private viewing afterward, anyway, whether I liked it or not. Sure enough, as soon as we got back on the bus, Beng thrust her images into my face, silently but pointedly demanding that I confirm that I was looking at a cluster of orbs, floating in the darkness like talahib blossoms in the wind. Yes — I reluctantly agreed — I could see a lot of cloudy round things. But did I see the face — the two eyes, the nose, the mouth? Well… if I were a ghost, why would I want to return as a blur?

Now, the Panasonic Lumix is a nifty little camera, a virtual copy of my other camera, a Leica D-Lux, whose exact same lens it has, minus the hefty price tag and the trademark red dot (Panasonic makes these digital Leicas as well as their own Lumixes, those “like a Leicas”). I knew I could trust Beng’s camera; heck, it used to be mine (a tip for husbands: upgrade yours, pass the old one on to the missus). But could I trust my eyes?

I’ve since Googled all I can about “orbs + Corregidor + ghosts” and all the search terms to go with them, and have turned up a pile of predictable, even plausible explanations for them — atmospheric conditions, the curvature of lenses, static electricity, etc. But after all that, all I can say for sure is, I can’t be sure, which is as scientific a conclusion as they come. Unfortunately for comparison’s sake, I was using the Nikon instead of the Leica inside the bunker, where my shots of the dark remained just that. I suspect, though, that even if I’d grabbed the Lumix from Beng’s hands and taken the next shot, mine would’ve turned up a complete blank in the orb department. Like I said, these spirits — if they exist — don’t only play tricks; they play favorites.

Meanwhile, if you want to see what Beng saw, you can click on this link to my Flickr page, where I’ve put up Beng’s shot (for non-commercial use only; all prospective royalties—whether from Scientific American or The Fortean Times—go to me): http://www.flickr.com/photos/penmanila/4310429481/.

* * *

E-mail me at penmanila@yahoo.com, and visit my blog at www.penmanila.net.