Tag Archives: mummy congress

the closet mystery continues

this and the previous post were both updated/corrected tonight at 11 p.m.

The physicists have studied my closet. Round objects placed in the center of the room (pencils, marbles, liquor bottles) roll toward the closet. Ergo, there’s no reason for that door to swing out, let alone swing out slowly and creepily.

None of us really believe it’s haunted, of course, but it’s providing us much amusement. And no small amount of puzzlement.

[3 hours later]

I returned from dinner to find that the chair holding the closet door shut (seen in the previous post) was now in the closet. This was deeply weird until I realized that the summer conference housing has housekeeping service and I also had fresh towels.

Or, I have a poltergeist who can’t abide dingy linens.

The entomologists want to go find some martinis. We could consume gin and debate the possibilities, or I could just go to sleep and dream of all of the new and exciting mummy research I learned about today.

I’m voting for sleep.

even ghosts need to come out of the closet

My haunted closet door opens too slowly for me to stand there and shoot video, but I happened to be standing nearby when it started creaking tonight so I took some pictures. It opens a bit, waits a minutes, then opens some more. It’s creepy. The sequence of photos below were taken between 45 seconds and one minute apart.

I know, that’s only 6 minutes. I could stand there and shoot the video, but I’m lazy, ok? Lazy and tired. Who starts a 5 day archaeology conference at 8 a.m. every day?

I put a knitting needle through the hasp on the door earlier and when I returned to my room it was gone. I have a single room. Nothing else was touched that I noticed so I’m hoping I was just too tired and didn’t really “lock” it like I thought I did.

photo 1
photo 1.JPG

photo 2
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photo 3
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photo 4
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photo 5
photo 5

photo 6
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photo 7 (problem resolution)
Chair, photo 7

Show me the mummy

University of San Diego

The first day of the 7th World Congress of Mummy Science (being hosted here at the University of San Diego) was super-excellent. I’m also super-exhausted because I spent about 9 hours traveling to get here, dumped my stuff in my dorm room, and dashed over for the afternoon sessions, a plenary speech and a reception. I’m deliriously tired and actually slogged back to my room by 9. I wasn’t the only one since there are plenty of east coasters and plenty more participants from Europe.

I’m determined to stay up until 11 local time so I don’t wake up at 4 a.m. every day and then run out of steam before the parties start each night.

I chose to stay on campus because a) it’s crazy-cheap, b) the hall we’re all staying in is about 50 yards from the conference center, c) it’s crazy-cheap, d) I can sneak back to my room for (very necessary) naps and e) crazy-cheap.

The campus is beautiful, but with all this dark wood paneling and dark ornate furniture, this place would be my first-choice location if I ever decided to make a horror movie and set it on a college campus.

I My room is meant to be a triple, and has 2 big closets and a wardrobe. The closet doors like to slowly and ominously creep open, but I swear they stop moving if you look directly at them.

Haunted closet

Come to think of it, there are a lot of statues on this campus. I better not blink….

And on that note, it’s 11 PST. Stick a fork in my, I’m done.