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Ghost In The Computer

 

About four years ago my closest childhood friend died. He was living a little over 200 miles away at the time. For reasons only known to her, his wife notified none of his friends or her relatives. She had no open funeral or memorial service. He had been a successful corporate attorney and remained active in the community so a memorial service would have been appropriate and well attended. About 30 days after his death, his wife's cousin called me as he had just been notified and knew we were friends. I sent his wife a letter and tried to phone but never made contact. I then contacted many of his childhood friends to notify them. None were aware of his death.

About three months later I was working on a financial program on my computer to determine if I had enough money to purchase a new car. In a field that was supposed to indicate the amount of the payment, his name appeared. I asked my daughter to look at it to confirm what I was seeing. Which she did. I did not have his name or email, phone number or address anywhere in my computer at the time so a computer glitch is unlikely. I have contacted computer experts who looked at me like I was crazy but would not try to come up with a reason for a computer to do this on its own. His name is not a common one and would not be accidentally entered. He has made no further contact with me and to my knowledge he has contacted no one else.

To this day the only explanation I can come up with is a ghostly contact from my good, but deceased, friend.

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Comments about this paranormal experience

The following comments are submitted by users of this site and are not official positions by yourghoststories.com. Please read our guidelines and the previous posts before posting. The author, Granpa, has the following expectation about your feedback: I will read the comments and participate in the discussion.

seshadme (6 posts)
 
11 years ago (2014-01-15)
she needs to tell you some thing...
I got chills when I read your real story
sds (14 stories) (1436 posts)
 
11 years ago (2014-01-13)
Hi Granpa, welcome to YGS. Perhaps I feel that your friend might have come to say good bye to you. I feel that you were informed about his demise some time later and were thinking about him as he was your close friend in your childhood. He might have felt the same towards you and that he did come back to say good bye. Love, affection, friendship, all go beyond the realm of life and death.

Nice story and thanks for sharing.

Regards and respects to you.

SDS
aussiedaz (19 stories) (1566 posts)
 
11 years ago (2014-01-12)
Grandpa, I'm with you on this, your friend deserved a better send of then what he got, I won't speculate about the reasons why his wife kept his funeral so private... But I feel the fact that his death affected you the way it did and prompted you to contact his relations with that concern suggest to me, your friend found a way to communicate and express his appreciation to you via the computer... I wouldn't doubt your instinct on this, I would just like to make this point,it's not easy for them to come through to us at the best of times, your friend was able to type his name for you to read and was limited to just doing that,it's how you interpret that message is what will give him the satisfaction of knowing he came through, in my opinion it was his way of saying thanks mate for caring and being a true friend!

Regards Daz
H2olily (5 stories) (158 posts)
+1
11 years ago (2014-01-12)
Could have been that you were thinking of him and typed in his name, except it's probably not possible to enter letters where numbers usually go on most forms. More suspicious to me is his wife's behavior. Either she's one of these super-hermit, my-privacy-is-paramount and to heck with honoring the deceased people or maybe she is hiding something fishy!
notjustme (20 stories) (854 posts)
 
11 years ago (2014-01-09)
Granpa - Nice story. I believe your friend knows you've been concluding his death and wanted to also let you know that he is still there with you. They say spirits can use technology to communicate due to frequencies and whatnot. There has been many stories posted on here that is similar. I'm sorry for your loss, but we will see them again when our own personal lesson is over. 😳 ❤
gamerx (1 stories) (6 posts)
 
11 years ago (2014-01-09)
nice story grandpa 😊 looking forward to your other experiences.
ladydarke (115 posts)
 
11 years ago (2014-01-08)
Sorry, Granpa, for this break in programming...

MandyyNicole, thank you for the warning. Security was indeed my first thought, and I turned the laptop over to my husband who is a programmer. I do have security on the laptop, and he has never been able to find any trace of a breach. If it is a hack, it is someone very very good. All the same, I make a point of not keeping card numbers and such on it. I do appreciate your concern!

Back to Granpa's regular channel now, sorry about that!
MandyyNicole (7 stories) (183 posts)
+1
11 years ago (2014-01-08)
Ladydarke, your comment sent up a red flag for me in regards to your laptop. If I were you, I would look in to protecting your laptop with some firewalls/anti-malware software or something of the sort. My dad is somewhat of a computer genius and is able to do exactly what you described happening on your laptop. For example, as a joke/lesson to my uncle, he was able to access my uncles home computer (from accross the state and with no personal information). He then proceeded to find his sound system settings and blast polka music throughout his house. In the middle of the night. Multiple times. I think you may have a security breach, so please be careful!

As for the story, I do apologize for my off-the-point comment to ladydarke. I agree with the idea that it was your friend stopping to say hello/goodbye.
Granpa (1 stories) (2 posts)
 
11 years ago (2014-01-08)
I'd like to thank everyone again for taking the time to read my story & respond. I feel that my friends contact was a sign of his continued friendship & I would like to believe gratitude for my effort to notify his childhoood friends.
In 2013 our high school class of 1953 held its 60 year class reunion. I entered his contact with me into the minutes & assurred everyone that he was probably present as he enjoyed previous reunions so much. People have responded quite positive to this.
Ladydark
He was a generous person as every Christmas season he would treat his local relatives (& his wifes cousin that lived here) to a restaraunt dinner. I don't anticipate a windfall as his death occurred over four years ago. His wife who has distanced herself from his childhood friends now controls their money & is not known for generosity.
The financial program was on my credit union web site. The amount of the payment would automatically be placed by the computer program on the line where his name appeared. My friend was not a member of this credit union & had never co-signed a loan for me. His name would not be associated with mine at this credit union.
infiltrating_sun (1 stories) (15 posts)
 
11 years ago (2014-01-07)
What a touching story. Your friend popped up to say goodbye, now that is true friendship.
Arwen1957 (7 stories) (47 posts)
+1
11 years ago (2014-01-07)
Just your friend letting you know he is fine and that he knows of your concern of how his death was not announced to his friends. Perhaps you and a few of his other friends could hold a simple gathering in is honor. No need to involve his widow, just do it among yourselves
ladydarke (115 posts)
 
11 years ago (2014-01-07)
Granpa, that is pretty weird about the name appearing. Good thinking to get a second party to confirm that it was really there! Was the field where the name appeared in a program like Excel, where a sum or number can be automatically filled in by the program? Or was it a field where you were manually typing?

If the former, that's pretty inexplicable. If the latter, there is a possibility that if you were thinking about your friend, it could have been a Freudian slip where you subconsciously typed what was on your mind instead of the number.

I've had something computer-related happen too, in that when my touchscreen laptop is left alone, it will often go browsing on its own. It generally follows links on a page left open or from the menu bar, or switches between browser tabs. It often turns on music. Once it almost made a purchase, choosing an item and going two or three clicks deep on a website I had left open, ending on the screen where the credit card number needed to be input. My husband is in IT with an MA in computer science and can't explain it. He says that, although it has a touchscreen, it shouldn't have been affected without touch, say by air currents or such, and we've both been on the other side of the room and observed it start playing music and whatnot without people or pets in the vicinity. So, yes, not the same as yours but I feel you on the computer weirdness!

Not sure if I should go on to say this, but in life was your friend prone to helping out with money, expecting nothing in return except perhaps gratitude and a reputation for generosity? I mean, of course, as the adult he had become by the end of his life, not as the child you grew up with. I have a strong sense that you can expect a windfall in the amount needed to help with the purchase of the car; perhaps the amount that should have been in that field.

Since I went ahead and said that, I would go on to advise you, should this windfall appear, to donate it to charity in the name of your friend. My sense is that this spirit carries a burden, and relief offered within the bounds of your faith/belief structure would be a gift. I might suggest Reiki as a form of energy healing unattached to religion which can be applied to the dead as well as the living. However, I would not recommend encouraging or communicating with the spirit of your friend beyond praying/lighting a candle/offering libation/whatever your belief structure includes, or the Reiki, as it seems he needs to be released of worldly cares rather than strengthen his attachments. Keeping any windfall or spirit-gift feels like it would be offering an invitation or providing an anchor for him rather than enabling him to move on. Whereas, donating the amount as if it were his seems that it could contribute toward alleviation and release of his spirit.

But, yeah, hey, wait and see if the windfall actually occurs before you put any validation on anything else I said. This is just my sense, and if I'm wrong about the windfall you can probably disregard everything. I apologize if I sound like a flake or if I worried or upset you.

Thank you for sharing your story. You write very well.
Granpa (1 stories) (2 posts)
 
11 years ago (2014-01-07)
Thank you for your comments. While I have had other strange occurances in my life I have tried to find non paranormal answers for them. Eg... Lights on that should be off, doors that seem to open by themselves & a clear figure observed upon waking (I now assume was a hypnopompic experience). This computer experience is the only one I cannot disregard. I appreciate the opportunity of sharing it with people who can accept the reality of the experience and look at it objectivly.
ghosthunter9876 (67 posts)
 
11 years ago (2014-01-07)
He probably said goodbye to you one last time. I lost my childhood best friend to suicide even I had dreams of him when his name was not even mentioned for a long time and I mean more than 1 year and 6 months or so.
lady-glow (16 stories) (3190 posts)
+2
11 years ago (2014-01-07)
Granpa: welcome to YGS.
Your story is fascinating, I believe you are right thinking that your friend contacted you through the computer, perhaps to say good bye and to let you know that he, too, thinks about you after his passing... Friendship is forever...

Thanks for sharing such a touching experience with us.

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