This may be a long read…so please bear with me…it DOES have a moral and purpose.
Recently, I purchased a small, used 2014 KIA Rio for the gas mileage as I commute an hour to work every morning.The first few days, things went well, and without incident. The third day, however, I had an experience that sent chills down my spine. See, I go to work at about 2:30 am every day, and travel a highway with lots of hills and curves, no lioghting, and very few structures. This particular morning, I had been driving about ten minutes when I saw something in my mirror…someone in my back seat raised up their head, then lowered it again. It was so clear and so convincing that I actually pulled over, turned on my Dome light and looked. I thought that maybe one of my Daughter's friends had decided to crash in my back seat and was fully prepared to tell him/her that they would have to just go to work with me, because i wasn't going to be late for work. But when I searched the back seat…it was empty…no one there. Nothing else happened for a few days, and I had just about convinced myself that it was all in my head…when I saw it again. This time I just hit the dome lights and looked…still no one there. This happened about five times on different days, and I was starting to get a bit creeped out by it, actually entertaining the idea that my car might be haunted. And then it changed.
By about the second week, I was subconsciously checking my mirror more often than usual. It was then that I saw someone sitting in the back seat on the passenger side, only to disappear when I turned to look. Those who know me, know that I am a skeptic…so my uneasy feeling driving to work each day was really bothering me…and I decided to do some careful observations if I saw this again. The very next time I saw someone sitting in the back seat…I payed close attention to my surroundings…and I noticed something that had not dawned on me before. Every time I had seen the person sitting in the back seat, I had been passing an Oil Well job site…which was very well lit. My windows are tinted, and the light reflecting through the tint off my light tan interior just happened to hit the very spot I kept seeing someone sitting. Experience debunked. As for the head bobbing up and down…I watched as I drove and noticed that, in a specific circumstance…as I traveled around a left curve while heading uphill..and there was oncoming traffic..their headlights would run across the center of my back seat and create the illusion of someone raising their head and lowering it. Experience debunked.
The lesson here is: even our own personal experiences need to be investigated fully before declaring something as Paranormal in origin. Too many people are quick to label something as Paranormal, simply because they can't explain it immediately. Myth building stems from experiences such as these. People tell their tale, others tell it, and before you know it, a simple light refraction becomes a full bodied apparition. It is for this reason that we must always consider the source, and try and interview the actual witness to an event before making any judgments as to the nature of the experience. Hope I didn't bore you guys too much..I just wanted to share this because even Skeptics can mistake a rare fluke as something paranormal in nature.