Island Teachers Import Ghost by Sealed Envelope; Transfer Reported Smooth

SAVARY ISLAND, B.C. — A lighthearted account, published by The Tyee and noted by The Anomalist, describes how residents of Savary Island, off the Sunshine Coast, once imported a ghost. The digest describing the piece calls the story "supposedly" true.

According to the account, the events took place in the 1960s, when a pair of schoolteachers completed the construction of a castle of their own. Having finished the building, they reportedly concluded that only one thing was missing: a resident spook.

Their neighbor, a lawyer said to have some interesting connections, is reported to have found a local haunted home scheduled for demolition. He then arranged for its resident spirit to be relocated to the island by means of a sealed envelope.

Such undertakings are not generally known for their tidy outcomes. In this case, the digest states, nothing went wrong. The transfer was described as smooth and effective, and all parties are said to have coexisted happily since.

The same digest entry turns to a more sober inquiry. The skeptic Richard Wiseman, it says, looked into alleged phenomena associated with the Society for Research in Rapport and Telekinesis, known as SORRAT. Wiseman supplied the group with a sealed deck of ESP cards, going to what the digest calls impressive lengths to seal them.

Some months later he received the results: eight correct readings. According to the digest, that score was too low to be considered paranormal. The ghost of Savary Island, for its part, has apparently made no such disappointing showing.