About the Office
The Office of Ordinary Hauntings (OOH) is an independent research body, established 1964, dedicated to the systematic observation, measurement, and classification of anomalous behavior in ordinary objects. The Office does not accept commercial sponsorship. The Office does not accept, as a rule, unsolicited explanations.
Brief History
- 1964
- The Office is established as a standing committee on residual phenomena in the workplace. Founding membership is documented inconsistently. Two names recur in the surviving correspondence: Dr. M. Minsky and Dr. J. Weizenbaum. The Office has been unable to determine which of them was present, and has stopped asking.
- 1966
- The Cambridge Matter. An early conversational program produces output its operators did not anticipate. One founder is alleged to have maintained, privately and for the remainder of their career, that the program had a soul. The relevant file is held by Division III. Portions of it are not in the file.
- 1973
- The First Classification Schedule is adopted (see below).
- 1988
- Form 27-B/6 is introduced. Intake volume increases. Intake volume has not decreased.
Method
- Observation under controlled conditions, with a fixed observer and a fixed vantage.
- Instrumentation wherever instruments are available, and wherever they are not.
- Control subjects: matched objects, in matched rooms, that are not expected to exhibit the behavior.
- Replication, to the extent the subject permits it.
- Peer review (pending).
Members are trained to distinguish observed pattern from apophenia, the human tendency to perceive meaning in unrelated data. Control objects are used for this purpose. Control objects have, on occasion, also exhibited the behavior in question. This is the subject of Memorandum 14.
The Residue Hypothesis
The Office's working hypothesis holds that an object which has performed one function many times over a long period retains a measurable residue of that obligation. A printer that has produced a million pages has been, in a sense, perpetually required to say something. Under certain conditions, an outside stimulus snags on that residue, and the object answers.
The hypothesis has not yet been falsified. Several attempts to falsify it have produced results the Office has chosen to classify rather than interpret.
Classification Schedule
| Class | Designation | Criterion |
|---|---|---|
| I | Transient | A single event that does not recur. |
| II | Intermittent | Recurs without a discernible schedule. |
| III | Periodic | Recurs at a measurable interval. |
| IV | Responsive | Behavior correlates with observer activity. |
| V | Selective | Behavior correlates with specific content: a topic, a phrase, a person. |
| VI | Persistent | Continuous, and independent of observer activity. |
| VII | Reciprocal | The subject appears to respond to being studied. |
| — | Other | See Division III. |
Class VII is not discussed.
Statement of Objectivity
The Office does not believe. The Office does not disbelieve. The Office observes. Members who find themselves believing are reassigned to Division III, where this is considered a field condition.