In the mid 1980s I worked at a Catholic Mission in Papua-New Guinea. What first caught my notice there was the rapping of an invisible someone who sounded angry and who showed his decisivness by wrapping on what sounded like wood, several times.
One night I saw a figure of a priest emerge from a small room opposite my own. The figure was clearly visible as it made its way, with determination, toward the medicine cupboard in the hallway. It was about 1:30 a.m.
The next morning I recalled all that I had seen, but I suddenly realized that my bedroom wall had separated us. However, I had seen him and in clear detail when the figure had appeared on the opposite side of that wall.
I let the incident pass for some time before I mentioned it. When I raised the subject, it was to ask a local indigenous teacher if there had ever been an angry priest on that Mission Station. In response he gave me the names of two priests who, in his experience, fitted that description. The first name I have forgotten but the second name, Father Gasser, I remember.
I asked the teacher who he thought this might be, and I described the details of the figure and appearance of the priest who I had seen and who seemed to require medicine. I was able to detail the figure, and as a result the teacher declared that it was Father Gasser.
I then said to him, "Father Gasser must be dead." He looked surprised and replied that Father Gasser had died three years previously in the Philippines, while at his desk. I thought about the priest's effort to get to the medicine cupboard and decided that it was a symbolic act. Father Gasser, I deduced, needs "medicine": He is dead, he needs medicine, he is a priest. I therefore decided that the best medicine possible for him was to offer Masses for him; for the repose of his soul.
I did this and the rappings stopped as did the scratchings on the wall behind my head as I tried to sleep. So did the bangings on the stairs, as if a small engine of some sort had been dropped on the staircase behind me.
I do believe in life after death and have come to the conclusion that many ghosts may not be able to talk to one who sees them, but can do things to impart a message as to their needs by acts with a sign value. This story is absolutely true in every respect mentioned.
