The Blob

by Rachael Silvers

I often wondered why ghosts in Halloween decorations or costumes look like a white blob. You see this everywhere: typical Halloween iconography. Kids know they can dress as a ghost by putting a white sheet over their head.

When you think about most people's sightings of ghosts, this is not what they describe. Most describe a glowing creature, a transparent blur, or a being of light. So where does the sheet come from?

It's like an abstraction of the idea of the ghost, and it's probably meant to represent the white glow that the spirit may have had, whether they look like a transparent person or just an ambiguous white blob.

So the white amorphous blob has become the cipher for the ghost, since we can't decorate ourselves with white light.