All Points North

BHEJAPADAR, India (Reuters) - The corpse of an Indian man was exhumed by his family in a remote eastern village in the belief that a witch doctor could bring him back to life, three days after he died.

Arun Majhi, 21, died after he was bitten by a snake while scouring the jungle near his home for firewood last Thursday and his grieving family buried him the same day.

But two days later, Majhi’s mother dreamt that her son could come back to life. On Sunday, they dug his grave, exhumed the corpse and hired Natabara Sahu, a local witch doctor, who promised to do his best.

“I am sitting beside my son waiting for him to come back to life,” Bibhisan Majhi, Arun’s father, told Reuters Television as he fanned Arun’s corpse, which was covered with a mosquito net.

But with Arun still dead two days after the witch doctor was hired, the family gave up and reburied him in Bhejapadar village in the eastern state of Orissa.

Superstitions are widespread in India, especially in rural areas where an ineffectual schooling system has left millions illiterate and uneducated.

That last line really annoyed me. It’s like saying don’t worry they’re all stupid and we’ll be along to bring democracy and a great school system to those fuzzy wozzies anytime soon.

Anyhow this leads me to

MIDDLETOWN, Ohio — An Ohio couple said they are baffled by a strange image captured in a photograph.

“We noticed something on the picture and couldn’t explain it,” said Beverly Johnson, who snapped the picture last month during a fundraiser for Paul Clifford, a Middletown man who was dying of cancer.

Although friends had hoped Clifford would make it to the April 29 fundraiser, he was too sick to attend. But Johnson and her husband, Ron, said their friend was there in spirit — and they believe they may have photographic proof.

An image in a snapshot taken at the fundraiser appears to rise out of Ron’s water bottle and float above his head.

“Ron was saying he thought it was his friend with him, because we know in spirit he wanted to be there so bad,” said Johnson.Skeptics have laughed at the notion, but one local spiritual advisor said that the cloudy, white image represents a good spirit. And when the photo is turned sideways, explained the advisor, the image resembles the form of a dove.

“That’s why I say he was right with us,” said Ron Johnson. “His spirit came out of a bottle.”

The Johnsons claim a strong faith, but even so, they checked the negative of the photograph and said nothing had been spilled on it, and the mysterious image does not appear in any of the other pictures on the roll.

Clifford died May 17 after a long battle with liver cancer, but the Johnsons said his spirit still intrigues people.

They have had a number of requests for copies of the mysterious photo.

Perhaps an ineffectual schooling system and millions of illiterate people are to blame?

I can tell you now with absolute certainty that someone, or thing, has touched the print before it was dried properly and that’s what left the mark. It appears to be part of the photo because it’s been through the drier after it’s been touched. Or it’s an imperfection on the paper roll. Trust me I’m a witch doctor.