Just earlier my headlamps wouldn't go off. The sentinel was off, the daytime running lamps also went off when in park, but the headlights just stayed on even after I locked the car (with the lights manually off), there was no signal or anything.

I hoped the battery rundown protection would kick in after 10 minutes but more than an hour later when I checked they were still on (only the front). I had just gone back to the car to open the hood and unclip the battery, which would have been my last resort, when I unlocked the car with the remote and the headlights suddenly went out again.

Is there any explanation for this or do I have a ghost in the machine?

sometimes the security feature has a weird way of doing things like that, it did it to my 92 eldorado until i actually stuck the keys in and turned the ignition on.

Well, the same thing just happened again at the mall. This time the battery went down entirely, the car wouldn't start even though the headlamps were still burning. We had to use jumper cables and enlist the help of another car to get the Eldo running again. After starting everything went back to normal again.

We bought a set of jumper cables, and I'll keep some pliers in the car just in case I need to disconnect the battery again to reset the car.