Dictionary of Paranormal Terms - H

Halloween
October 31st. Our modern celebration of Halloween actually comes from the ancient Celtic festival 'Samhain', meaning 'Summer's End'. The Irish English dictionary defines 'Samhain' as "Samhain, All Hallowtide, the feast of the dead in Pagan and Christian times, signalizing the close of harvest and the initiation of the winter season, lasting till May." The end of summer was of particular significance to the Celts, since they were a pastoral people, and at that time their lives changed dramatically due to the onset of winter. Folk tradition tells of many different practices associated with Samhain, in particular divinations associated with marriage, involving the ducking for apples to decide who would be first to marry in the coming year. The practice of 'Trick or Treating' originally involved people immitating 'fairies' by going from house to house begging for treats. Practial jokes would be played on the owner of the house should the provision of treats be denied.

Highway of Death
One of the best recorded examples of strange phenomena concerning car crashes, occurred directly after the construction of a new motorway section in Germany in 1930. The section was a completely straight area of flat roadway, on the side of which was a small stone kilometer marker known as kilometer marker 239. During the first 12 months of the roadway's existence, over 100 cars crashed on the carriageway near the jinxed marker. An extreme example of this occurred on a very clear dry day in September 1930, when a total of 9 separate cars left the road right next to the accursed marker. It was only after the stone marker had been completely removed from the ground, and the area sprinkled with holy water did the accidents stop.

Hollow Moon
A theory that suggests that the moon is a large hollow sphere. Backed up by little evidence, but still regarded by some as a possibility, hollow moon theory originated during seismological tests on the moon following the Lunar landings.This occured most notably in November 1969 after seismometers were set up on the moons surface by the astronauts of Apollo XII. When the Lunar module had taken off, heading back to earth the astronauts discarded the ascent stage of the lunar module, dropping it on the moons surface, smashing the craft and creating a tremor that was picked up by the seismometers and when the NASA scientists heard the data stream, they couldn’t believe what they were hearing. The moon was ringing like a bell and continued to do so for around an hour.After they had had a chance to analyse the seismological information, NASA declared that the moon seemed to be a hollow sphere with a metallic layer around 34-40 metres deep.

Homeopathy
A centuries old form of medicine that is created by diluting a substance a huge number of times and then administering it to the patient. True homeopathic levels of dilution dilute the substance to such an extent that an equivalent level of dilution would be for 1 drop of the substance to be added to all the water in all the oceans on the planet. Homeopathics claim that with this level of dilution, the resulting medicine does actually work, curing a huge range of illnesses and conditions, that in many cases cannot be treated with conventional medicine. The trouble is, according to science, at such an extreme level of dilution, the resulting "medicine" will no longer contain even a single molecule of the original substance, therefore rendering it little more than plain water.

Human Magnetism
Phenomenon in which an individual can attach metal objects magnetically to their own skin. A recent event held in Bulgaria aimed to find out who was most 'magnetic', and managed to attract some 300 competitors who all shared this most peculiar affliction.

Hynek Classification System
A system commonly used to classify sightings of Unidentified Flying Objects. The system divides sightings up into three main categories, Close Encounters of the first, second and third kinds. See also: Close Encounters.