Does "Coke Add Life"? Inquiring Ghosts Want to Know.

 

Not all ghosts exhibit conventional ghostly behavior such as turning lights on and off, making sounds at night, or putting in translucent appearances. One such anomalous ghost inhabited the Chicago house once occupied the family of Sara, an executive secretary for a big Twin Cities corporation.

Not long after Sara and her husband moved into a 1920's bungalow with their three children, the first unexplainable event occurred. One Sunday morning the whole family left for church together, and, according to custom, they let out the cat and locked up the house. When they returned a few hours later, the house was still locked, but the cat was inside. They had thought they had left the cat outside, but perhaps they were mistaken.

The family promptly forgot about this incident, but recalled it with a jolt a couple of weeks later when it happened again: they left the house together with the cat outside. When they returned, the cat was inside. Nothing was disturbed, not even the cat, which seemed completely normal.

For a few weeks the family was left to puzzle over the cat's mysterious space transfers. Then an even more curious incident occurred. Because they don't drink much soda, they usually kept only one large bottle of Coca-Cola, from which portions could be poured into glasses. This bottle was stored capped under the kitchen sink.

                                                          A Coke print ad from 1976.

One day the parents and kids once again left the house, returning after a short while. When they entered the kitchen, lo and behold, the pop bottle stood on the table, empty. The parents accused the kids of polishing off the Coke and leaving the drained bottle, but each of the children indignantly denied doing any such thing. The more the parents pressed for a confession, the more irate the kids became. In the end, the subject was dropped, although each member of the family secretly assumed that one of them had done it as a prank.

Several weeks later an even more astounding variation of this incident took place. Again, as a group the family left the house for several hours. This time, when they came home, an empty Coke bottle sat on the coffee table in the living room--with an empty glass beside it.

                                     A 1960's ad. You can't beat the Real Thing if you're unreal. 

Recriminations flew. Someone had to be tricking the rest. But each member of the family denied it in turn. After all, one of the kids pointed out, since they had all left together at the same time, when would they have had the opportunity to drain the bottle, move it, and set out the glass? Moreover, why would they want to? Sara and her husband had to agree that the incident certainly was odd.

Unfortunately, there is no denouement to this story. Over the half dozen years they lived in this house, the strange transferences of cat and bottles happened several times each. After the first incidents, Sara and her husband started to refer to the unseen mover as their "ghost", although Sara (even though she told me this story) still hesitates to apply that label. She feels more comfortable thinking about it as an unsolved mystery. 

Sara brought up a tantalizing question: If a disembodied ghost did indeed drink the Coke, where did the liquid go? And then again, how can a ghost unlock, open, let in a cat, and relock the door?

I propose an answer to this mystery: In their 1976 ad campaign, the Coca Cola Company chose "Coke adds life" as their new advertising slogan. The ghost took this ad to heart, and consumed this presumed elixir of life. As for letting in the cat, you can puzzle that one out for yourself.

                                                        Creepy "Sprite Boy" from the 1940s.