Some people think that they have a peculiar energy about them, an energy that causes street lights to go out. This is not so; street lights are arc lights, and when the gas gets cool enough and sparse enough (street lights, like other tube technology before them, are subject to gas entrapment in metal that condenses out of the arc onto the cool solid portions of the light, ergo, the gas is slowly “lost” from the tube. A metal that is deliberately introduced into the tube and evaporates with pressure so as to entrap gas leaking into the tube so as to maintain a vacuum is known as a “getter”.), the arc goes out. At that point, the arc light is subject to the full applied voltage and restarts as if it had just been turned on, thus the arc lights are intermittent but with a very long period.
Sometimes, when they are leaving, people will be looking back at their house and see one of the incandescent lights they had left on as a burglar deterrent turn off and then turn on again. They think they have a haunted house, that grandma and grandpa are visiting them. Again, this is wrong. What happened is that the filament just burned out and, as it rapidly cooled, went from a soft hot sloppy lead-like heavy wire of tungsten into a much cooler much more springy coil of tungsten which, as it vibrated, spot welded itself together when the ends at the break made contact again.
Some old houses and hotels have a reputation as being haunted by ghosts who turn on the faucets late at night. Again, this is not so. What happens is that the water pressure goes down during the day due to heavy usage. As usage drops off during the evening, the water pressure rises and at a certain point, the old cracked leaky rubber washer in the faucet valve begins leaking. Depending on the relative leakiness and the increase in pressure, the flow of water can be quite substantial. Thus, there is no ghost turning on the faucet, just a cracked valve and high city water pressure.