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I shall now give a report of a very remarkable phenomenon - a real ghost that has lately taken place in my own home.

In 1925 my wife and I moved into a flat in the top storey of a very old wooden house in Oslo. We didn't know anything special about the house. On 23rd February, 1926, in the middle of the night my wife awoke by hearing three loud knocks on the entrance door. As the family below had guests that evening, she thought that one of them had mistaken the flat and she fell asleep again. Soon afterwards she was again awakened by the same knocking at the door of the sitting-room. She got up and went into the room, but saw nobody. From there she went out into the entrance-hall and here she saw a tall man in evening-dress with a rather sad expression. He said there was something she must help him with. Then he asked her to remember the date:

"It was the 23rd of February yesterday," he said, after which to her great surprise he completely disappeared. The electric light was full on and the doors were closed. After this first appearance the man was seen three times, and he always went in the direction of a small room in the corner of the flat, where he disappeared.

Next year, on the date mentioned, I was awakened in the middle of the night by some noise in the room and looking up I found my wife sitting upright in bed in a trance, holding a loud conversation with an invisible person. It soon became obvious that the invisible person was the ghost from a year ago. I could not hear what the invisible person said but in most cases I could conclude what he was saying from what my wife answered and the rest of the conversation I obtained by cross-questioning my wife while she was still in a trance.

The conversation lasted at least half an hour. After it was over my wife fell back in bed and slept till the morning, without knowing anything of what had happened. I wrote down the contents of the conversation immediately afterwards. From the communication I will only mention that the ghost claimed to be a person who had lived in the house. He was dead, he said, but not really dead. "I cannot get into contact with other people who are dead," he said "and you are the only living person who has seen me although I have been here."

As I told my wife about it the next day she inclined to think it might be a dream or a hallucination. We resolved, however, to make an experiment with Mrs. Ingeborg, to see if she also saw the ghost. Without telling her about our experience we invited her to spend an evening with us in the autumn of 1928. Mrs. lngeborg went into awakened trance and the control Ludvig immediately presented the same gentleman whom my wife had seen. Mrs. Ingeborg was impressed by his elegance and noble manners. "Have we two been to a ball together?" she asked. "Can I help you in any way?" she asked. It was then arranged by the control that on a certain day the medium should sit down in her home with paper and pencil. She did so, but nobody knows what happened. On awakening there was nothing written except a name.

On 29th May, 1929, we resolved to make another attempt to solve the mystery. Mrs. Ingeborg, who even now had no idea of the ghost, was once more invited to give a séance in our home and this time there came a solution of the mystery. As soon as the medium had awakened in trance, the mysterious gentleman was at once presented to her. After some conversation he said that there was something in the house which must be destroyed, and that she must help him to do it. She was then invited to take his hand and follow him, but this she energetically resisted. As the control promised to follow her she at last consented, she got up and apparently grasped the hand of an invisible person. My wife and I were invited to follow her, which we did.

From the entrance-hall the doors stood open into the small room into which the ghost used to disappear and the light was turned on, but this way she would not go. This detail is rather interesting, because one of the doors was made after I came into the house. Formerly there was no door. Mrs. Ingeborg went into the bedroom and placed herself before the door to the small room where the ghost used to disappear. The door was opened and she went in, and now we stood all three close together in the middle of the room.

 "Is it a hindrance that the light comes from two sides?" she said. The light was indeed shining into the room from two sides, namely from the lamp in the adjacent room and from the street through the window. After this remark I closed the door to the other room, so that light came in only from the window. The medium was now standing between us in the middle of the room. After some moments she stretched out her hand with palm upwards and said: "Was it here?"

A slight tap was then heard and at the same moment there appeared in her hand two old letters, tied together with a red ribbon. After this she went back into the bedroom and placed herself in front of the stove, insisting that the letters should be burnt. We hesitated a minute, we looked carefully at the paper and the writing. The paper was yellow with age and the ink had become so pale that it looked almost like pencil. As the medium insisted that the letters should be burnt and as we could not communicate with her while she was in a trance, there was nothing for us to do. My wife lit the fire and Mrs. Ingeborg put the letters in the stove, watching carefully until they were burnt up.

"Now I have reached what I have tried to do all this time," the man said through the medium. "I understand very well that you were eager to have the letters, but then all my work would have been done in vain. The letters concern a lady who has lived in the house, and her honour was threatened as long as the letters were there. It was my fault." After giving his compliments to the medium and us for the help, the man disappeared and nobody has seen him since.

In connection with this phenomenon I will only make one remark. Formerly I used to say that I accept all the psychic phenomena except the apports, and my wife has always spoken of ghosts as dead forms without intelligence.

After this happening we cannot say that we are of the same opinion.