Witching Hour
Does Solar Radiation effect glimpsing the other?
I don’t think I need to define “The Witching Hour,” but for completeness, folklore tells us that it is between 3:00 AM and 4:00 AM and associated with supernatural events.
'Tis " the witching time of night",
Orbed is the moon and bright,
And the stars they glisten, glisten,
Seeming with bright eyes to listen —
For what listen they?
For a song and for a charm,
See they glisten in alarm,
And the moon is waxing warm…John Keats — “'Tis the Witching Time of Night”
I’ve pondered this a few times: what would be substantially different in that period and any others in the cycle? Here’s what I think:
The human observer’s brain state/sleepiness: for instance, at night, more L-tryptophan is released into the brain, which is transformed into DMT in the body to maybe induce visionary states.
The dominant position of the moon and the interplay of gravities: if the moon affects the oceans, it affects the water in our bodies and might prime the brain for the experiences.
Possibly the most obvious and erudite difference between day and night? Solar irradiance: the amount of radiation from the sun onto the surface of the earth.
The last option is interesting to me. I’m not a electrical engineer, so forgive if the following example is not technically correct, I’m just trying to give a visual to the idea in my head. With that convenient escape hatch fashioned, if we think of all the each of the sun’s radiating particles as a white dot on a screen, then the screen is filled with white during noon. As the planet turns away, that white value becomes fainter and/or more spread out among the black of the screen. If the paranormal (i.e., ghosts, for instance) is a lower level of radiant energy (not very strong if we consider that it’s rare to have them interact physically with anything), then even if they are showing up at noon, we can’t discern that faint energy out in the blinding white of the sun’s radiation. It’s blotted out.
For example, here’s a chart showing the levels of solar irradiance over 24 hours for each month in Athens. I’m sure there are minor variances based on distance from the equator, but I think it’s valid to assume the same pattern is everywhere.
You’ll notice the 3-4 range is at the bottom of the graph in any season. I admit, it’s not a smoking gun as 22-6 range is all at the bottom. but it does land in the middle of that period, with about 4 hours before 3:00 AM being bottomed out, and about 4 hours from 4:00 AM until the graph gets to a noticeable incline.
Food for thought, and I’m trying to locate data showing the average of supernatural / paranormal incident hour of appearance. No luck on that front so far. I can’t seem to locate a substantial paranormal data set out there that includes ghost encounters along with UFOs.
Perhaps it’s worth someone building a scraping tool / survey that compiles all paranormal events. An AI could be unleashed on liminal.earth reports to estimate times based on the language in the report.
What do you think? Does this idea hold any water?
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