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the study of the paranormal, “White ladies, green ladies, blue la-
dies, headless horsemen, as well as coachmen, drummer-boys,
underground pipers, marching soldiers, fighting armies, phantom
coaches, ghost trains, spectral pets—all these and more are the
sorts of spirits that people believe have come back from the dead
or the past to haunt us.”
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Apparitions
Regardless of whether the ghost appears as a green lady or head-
less horseman, all the images described by Ruickbie are known
as apparitions. An apparition is an appearance of the actual em-
bodiment of the deceased person—although, as Ruickbie sug-
gests, the apparition may or may not be accompanied by a head.
A typical apparition was discovered by a young woman named
Donna as she walked along the beach in the New Jersey resort
community of Cape May. The apparition seen by Donna was not
green, and it did have its head, but she discovered other quirky
behaviors as she observed the ghost:
All I remember is that there was this old-looking man up
ahead, maybe twenty feet, standing at the crest of a little
rise, looking right toward me, but somehow right past me.
It was as if he didn’t know I was there. I stared right at the
figure and could make out certain details. The sun was just
coming up, and you could start to see the colors of the
day and whatnot, but this man, this figure, was a little un-
usual. It didn’t seem to have any color. It was a pale gray,
and almost glowing. It seemed to have the light that you
get when you put one of those phosphorescent keychains
or whatever under a bright light and then watch it glow-in-
the-dark. It wasn’t bright but it was very noticeable.
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Donna says she took a few steps closer to the apparition and
noticed his unusual clothes: His pants were tattered, and instead of
a belt he wore a sash. He also wore a T-shirt that Donna observed
