Correlation

Sarah slid her chair back from the cubicle desk, flexed her cramped fingers and took a deep breath. After months of data collection, cleansing and software development, she was ready. A mouse click away from the conclusion to a year of her life. She leant forwards, left hand extended over the mouse. Her breathing was short, shallow. Blood thumped in her ears, deafening in the deserted office. A faint rustle made her jump, things that go bump in the night had taken on new meaning since starting this project. Focus. It was nothing.

Click

Deep in the bowels of the Actuarial Sciences building, a server farm sprang to life. Billions of records were fetched from seven carefully prepared databases and distributed to hundreds of processors for analysis. Debug messages scrolled across her screen at blistering speed. Then...

Analysis completed in 12.768 seconds, click OK to continue

It was done. The results were in. Location and cause of all insurance claim and police records from the last 10 years, correlated against a consolidated database of coroners reports for violent deaths. Statistical proof of ghosts? Maybe. A ripple of nausea swept up from her stomach. Teeth clenched, she closed her eyes, delaying the inevitable. Drawing a ragged breath, she reached out once more.

Click

Biting her lip, she opened her eyes to look at the summary report. "Holy shit! They're real!", she read the numbers again in disbelief. Shock, then relief swept through her, followed by a rush of exhilaration. Leaping to her feet she punched the air, danced around her chair and collapsed back, suddenly exhausted.

Grabbing the phone, she dialed the one person she could count on to hear the news...

"Kate, it's Sarah... it worked, they're real!"

"What? No! You're kidding right?"

"No... 462 cases of greater than 90% certainty"

"Fucking hell!...462!!! how many total?"

"16,711 over 5%"

"Fuck me... that's a lot of ghosts! ...any near me?"

Epilogue
If violent deaths lead to haunted locations and a haunted location influences future events, a statistical correlation will provide scientific proof of ghosts. In today's world, we have available vast databases containing every news article, insurance claim, police report or coroners report ever written. It wouldn't take much to draw a ground breaking conclusion.