For all the many elements that constitute the paranormal, there are a few things quite

as evocative as the ghost.

Equally capable of scaring as senseless as they are of inflicting us with the deepest

of men and colleagues, the ghost holds a unique place in the world of the supernatural.

There are, of course, the ghosts that we carry with us in our daily lives, memories of

those we have loved and lost, or perhaps even wronged, thoughts that sit in the deepest

part of the psyche, straining to become manifest.

Perhaps the most famous of all ghosts is that of Shakespeare's Banquo as he appears to

the tormented mind of Macbeth.

We know him not as an actual spirit, but rather he is the consequence of Macbeth's mental

capitulation.

But what of the apparitions that seem not to have been brought forth from the psyche, those

that have no connection to the observer, but instead seem for all the world to be reaching

out to us from a seemingly timeless space?

You are listening to unexplained and I'm Richard McLean Smith.

For some, to witness a ghost, particularly that of a relative, might bring a certain comfort,

the reassuring sense of a life beyond death, but for the cultures of the ancient world,

there was little doubting the portentuous nature of such a sighting.

If by chance you ever find yourself walking along the banks of the Tigris around the year

4,000 BC and happen to come across the spirit of a recently deceased family member, it

could surely mean only one thing.

For the Sumerians, death was an act from which there was no return.

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