Ghost stories anyone?

[mycrabface]

Does anyone around here have any ghost stories to share? I'm talking about real life ones.. Feel free to type it out, or if you have any ghostly footage just construct a link so we can watch.. Thanks

[jas]

This happened a couple of years ago:
https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3336299.stm

It was all over the news, but Henry VIII was enormous so I fail to see how it could be him even if it isn't some bloke in a dressing gown.

And this:
https://heritage.scotsman.com/diagrams.cfm?cid=1&id=39982005

I've been in this Black Mausoleum and nothing happened. I was very disappointed, especially since that was the first time I'd been on one of Edinburgh's ghost tours and actually wanted something to happen. (The other times I was terrified because we were in the underground vaults. Scary.) If anyone ever comes to Edinburgh, go on one of the tours, they're great if you're not too easily scared.

Jas

[henrah]

Once I was walking down my drive returning from a late night party, and I saw a big white sheet hanging off of my laundry umbrella (you know the kind of thing that spins around and lets you dry clothes off of). Turned out that when I got down to the back door, where the laundry thing is with the white sheet I saw on it, there was nothing on it at all.


Maybe I was just trippin....

[jas]

Once I was walking down my drive returning from a late night party, and I saw a big white sheet hanging off of my laundry umbrella (you know the kind of thing that spins around and lets you dry clothes off of). Turned out that when I got down to the back door, where the laundry thing is with the white sheet I saw on it, there was nothing on it at all.


Maybe I was just trippin....

You want to watch out for those white sheets.

Wooooooooooohhhh!

[prometheus]

Last night I saw Sinnui Yauwan. Very fun movie.

[gilad]

i was home alone one time,i was around 17. i had just gotten out the bath. i was walking to my bedroom when suddenly their was a fooul smell, like the smell of death.
i saw a female figure in a wedding sort of dress glide down the passage way in front of me. i went into my room and closed the door, i was all alone and quite scared, did this thing have to arrive while i was in my bath towel damit?  still doubted whether i had seen anything at all!!! maybe i was dizzy or lightheaded? but then how do i explain that horrible smell?
my mother got home 5 minutes later, as she walked into the house i ran downstairs to tell her what happened. Before i could the phone started ringing.
my mother answered, spoke briefly and then hung up. she said " A good friend of mine just died"
I told her what i saw, i was petrified, i dont know what happened, it was weird.
at the same time i was having dreams that were materialising. it was driving me crazy, especially after the first one. i then started telling people my dreams as i woke up, and sure enough they'd manifest in real life in an almost simlar fashion to how they did in my dreams. i dont believe in all thi funny stuff, i dont know why it happened to me. it doesnt happen anymore and im glad!
the only world i want to see is the one i live in, right her, right now.]
ill make an exception ito be able to see the numbers for upcoming lotteries etc.
that would be nice.

[nanabush]

The thing about king henry is spooky... imagine that thing chasing you.

[mycrabface]

Okie my turn!!! 

My mum is a teacher and she's also teacher-in-charge for the girls' brigade.. one night they were having a camp in their school, so around 8pm or so, there were two girls roaming about the school grounds. Both of them saw a floating head floating around.. One of the girls screamed. the head turned and stared at them, so they ran back to their group (the girl who screamed started crying and couldn't stop).

On another camp, a headless ghost was spotted in the school at night, at about 11pm..

On a much earlier camp, mymum decided to bring me along to sleep overnight with her in the staff room since she was the only teacher staying through the night. That time i was only about..... i dunno.. i guess around 11 years old maybe.. On that day, it was also hungry ghost festival, and there was this festival function not far from the school. so around 12pm, i was waiting at the stairs and watching my mum lock the staff room (because we were gonna go downstairs to the canteen) then i saw this thing behind her.. it was transparentish.. sort of fuzzy-looking.. drifting right past her head.. i thought i was seeing things so i just kept quiet..... The stairs had floor to ceiling windows, so when we were walking down the stairs, i heard this LOUD sound, like someone threw a rock at the window. i looked back at the area, but there was no crack. furthermore, there was no one else around besides us and some students who were in the canteen at that time, and anyway, what would anyone get out of throwing a rock at the window at that hour?.... Ok so much later on, when we were back at the staff room shifting the sofas so we could lie on them and watch the tv at the same time, i saw that same transparentish thing float by right outside that window!!

Weird huh...

[henrah]

it doesnt happen anymore and im glad!

I thought you were gilad?


Hahahaha, haha....ha.......yeaaaaahh

[gilad]

I thought you were gilad?


Hahahaha, haha....ha.......yeaaaaahh

haha yeah, put  the I here and I am glad.

But i am Glad! anyway, ironically my name means happiness in hebrew, the Gil. part anyway. ad means forever. so i am eternally glad.

[thorn]

real life ghost stories?

well... there is a ghost in my house... a child who was trapped in what's now my bedroom when it was on fire. my room is always warmer than any other room in the house, and when im not in it, i often hear something jumping on my bed. i have also seen it once out of the corner of my eye. my sister has directly seen it and my mum hears it all the time.... not really much of a ghost story, but yeah.

as for an actual ghost story, i read about someone in the south of england who was plagued by evil spirits; clown faces coming through the corners of the rooms *(n.b. clown faces are always associated with evil, and apparently the corner of a room is the only way in which a spirit can enter a building)* and basically it got so bad they went to a priest and got the house exorcised.. the priest came and expelled them, and at the exact same moment the exorcism took place, the priest's wife saw clown faces coming from the corner of the room she was in.

[mycrabface]

There's another one..
In malaysia, there's this haunted house with many many many many many angry ghosts in it.. So there's this TV show where they get normal people from the public to go inside and see how long they stay inside.. Anyway most of them just run out after a few minutes.. I dunno.. I don't watch it but my aunt does.. 

[elspeth]

I work in a wonderful 19th century theatre, and of course it's riddled with ghosts. There is supposed to be one on each floor of the auditorium - there is an invisible one that grabs people from behind in stalls, a man in a dark suit and top hat on upper circle and a woman in a long grey dress who smells of lavendar on the balcony. There is also one that follows you round the building - you can spend a whole shift being constantly followed by footsteps. There are also things like doors opening and closing, things moving or vanishing, odd smells and changes in temperature.

I've had a few brushes with them - one in particular that stands out. One night I was letting the audience out after the show, and among them was a lady in a wheelchair and her daughter, both adults. I'd been talking to them earlier in the evening and the reason this lady was in a chair was bad arthritis in her hips, they were both perfectly normal sensible women. After the show I saw them struggling with a door so I went to hold it open for them. By this time the rest of the audience had gone and I was the only member of staff left.

The lady in the chair looked up at her daughter and said, 'Who's this?'

The daughter read my name badge and said, 'This is Elspeth, she works here, you remember we talked to her earlier? She's just being nice and holding the door for us.'

The mother looked back at me, back at her daughter, and said, 'No, the lady standing behind her.'

There was nobody there, but the mother gave us an accurate description of the woman she'd seen standing directly behind me, and it tallies with other accounts of her. That evening I'd had footsteps following me all evening as well.

[lilypiano]

I don't know if this was a ghost, but something  flew across the room once. I was taking a nap and  opened my eyes right as it was flying. It hit a wooden piece of furniture, and the only thing I could find around it was a penny. It was weird. It was  strange that it woke me up too.  It didn't make any noise until it hit.  My little miniature pinscher didn't know what to make of it either.  He was pretty spooked. He got up to try to find it and curled back up with me.

[pianowolfi]

Dunno if it was a ghost but anyway: a few days ago I practised on my e-piano with headphones. Suddenly there were coming notes out of it that I hadn't played actually. Very fast and high arpeggios. Very creepy. Perhaps an electric dysfunktion?

[timothy42b]

Does anyone around here have any ghost stories to share? I'm talking about real life ones.. Feel free to type it out, or if you have any ghostly footage just construct a link so we can watch.. Thanks

No, because there are none.  It's all stuff that "happened to a friend of my aunt's neighbor" or it's stuff that was obviously misinterpreted by people who want desperately to believe. 

There's no tooth fairy, no Easter bunny, no Santa Claus, and no ghosts. 

There is an amazing natural world out there that you can never fully explore and appreciate, but there is no supernatural world. 

[jas]

No, because there are none.  It's all stuff that "happened to a friend of my aunt's neighbor" or it's stuff that was obviously misinterpreted by people who want desperately to believe. 

There's no tooth fairy, no Easter bunny, no Santa Claus, and no ghosts. 

There is an amazing natural world out there that you can never fully explore and appreciate, but there is no supernatural world. 

I take it from this that you're an atheist, then? I don't know how you can say that so definitively. You might not believe in them but you can't state categorically that there isn't a supernatural world, and nor can anyone else.
There have been hoaxes, but are you saying that every single person who claims to have seen/heard something "supernatural" is lying? It sounds like you have quite a black-and-white outlook on things. I don't see why people expect that we as humans should be able to understand absolutely everything, and that if we can't it doesn't exist.

Jas

[prometheus]

People fool themselves. It happens all the time. People are highly superstitious. They see patterns that are pure coincidential or they imagine patterns. Same with ghosts are the like. I mean, if you see a strange light flash then assuming it is a ghost is a very big step indeed.

People explain unexplainable things with nonsense all the time.

People can be made to believe anything.

And I also agree with Timothy's last comment. It is so strange that people imagine all these things when the 'real' world has so many amazing things many people just choose to ignore. Also, it is very easy to take the natural world for granted. Actually, that is what happens automatically and something you need to guard against.
I mean, it is spring now. Trees are amazingly rich and green these days, they dominate. But normally you just take them for granted, you just pass them without giving them any attention. But lets not treat them as trees. Just 'delete' the concept 'tree' from your mind and try to observe and phantom what you are actually seeing. Instead of looking and, automatically, marking it as a tree and then switching your thoughts to something else try to reexperience what a tree is every time you see one. Same with all kinds of birds and other animals.

[henrah]

I think it's time for some tree hugging, don't you?

[jas]

People fool themselves. It happens all the time. People are highly superstitious. They see patterns that are pure coincidential or they imagine patterns. Same with ghosts are the like. I mean, if you see a strange light flash then assuming it is a ghost is a very big step indeed.

People explain unexplainable things with nonsense all the time.

People can be made to believe anything.

Not all people. I am by nature a bit of a sceptic, so I don't make the giant leaps to erroneous conclusions that you mention above. You and timothy seem to have this image of people who believe in the supernatural as gullible and naïve, and completely lacking in healthy scepticism. This isn't always the case. In fact, it rarely is.

And I also agree with Timothy's last comment. It is so strange that people imagine all these things when the 'real' world has so many amazing things many people just choose to ignore. Also, it is very easy to take the natural world for granted. Actually, that is what happens automatically and something you need to guard against.

I never take the natural world for granted. I've always been a great lover of nature, and as it becomes more and more trampled over by the industrial world, the more I appreciate it. That's completely unrelated to my belief in the supernatural. I believe in the supernatural because I don't see any reason why it shouldn't exist. Like I said in my last post, just because it's beyond the realm of human understanding (or our scientific instruments), that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. We aren't all-knowing, much as we like to think we are. It's arrogance to assume that anything that we haven't verified and accepted can't be real.

Jas

[Bob]

These.... these are not "just trees." 


I wonder if there are ghosts on this site?   oooOOOOOooo

[timothy42b]

You might not believe in them but you can't state categorically that there isn't a supernatural world, and nor can anyone else.

Jas

You have a point, and much of the confusion is due to my sloppy terminology. 

Certainly there are things we don't know yet.  There are still things to look for.  Natural vs supernatural may not be a good distinction to make. 

But there are some things we DO know.  Leprechauns, dragons, trolls, goblins, and ghosts are some of them.  If they were out there we could find them.  We cannot.  They are undetectable. 

While it is difficult to prove a negative, we certainly know enough about ghosts to rule out any real existence.  Anything else is just wishful thinking. 

[henrah]

While it is difficult to prove a negative, we certainly know enough about ghosts to rule out any real existence. Anything else is just wishful thinking.

Might you explain what it is that we know that can rule out ghosts existing? I'd like to know.

[soliloquy]

I had sex with a ghost once.  He gave me ghost crabs =(


Oh, and I saw ghosts this other time in this movie called "Poltergeist".  Or maybe they were poltergeists, but they looked more like ghosts to me.  Does that count?

[prometheus]

I think it's time for some tree hugging, don't you?

There are some trees with very thick ivy on them around here. They are very nice to hug.

You and timothy seem to have this image of people who believe in the supernatural as gullible and naïve, and completely lacking in healthy scepticism. This isn't always the case. In fact, it rarely is.

Hmm, not really. It is very hard to be a rational person. I don't really blame people for believing ghosts or fairies. I don't think these people are unintelligent. Also, naiveness is a virtue.

You might not believe in them but you can't state categorically that there isn't a supernatural world, and nor can anyone else.

This doesn't really matter if you apply logic. Like I said many times before, you can't prove something doesn't exist. So this fact is totally irrelevant. It is no evidence at all, it is meaningless. The thing that matters is if this supernatural world is part of our world. If it is it influences our world and we can make observations. If we can't make observations then it is not part of our world. Then its existence is irrelevant to ours. One would never be able to say something about the supernatural world.

So when you are going to say something about the supernatural world then it is either falsifiable or not. If it is falsifiable then you can do an experiment. Either the theory is false or the theory matches the obervations. In the last case it is clearly part of the natural world. If it is false the theory is false. If the theory is unfalsifiable it is irrelevant. One will never be able to know something about the supernatural world.

About taking the world around you for granted. I mean it in a different way then you assume. It goes automatically. It has to do with the way the brain works. I mean, I do it all the time. When one sees a tree the brain labels it with the concept 'tree' and you stop thinking about it. This is just the way the brain works. But, instead, one could stop and ponder about what a tree is every time you observe one. Reexperience what a tree is every time you see one, like you never saw a tree before.

And then you have another level which is coscious. The more you know about nature the more spectacular it becomes. I do think some monotheists talk down nature since they reject science and the biblical interpretation of nature is pretty simple. A lesser creation just to serve man.

Might you explain what it is that we know that can rule out ghosts existing? I'd like to know.

This depends on how you define your ghost theory. If you only use the world 'ghost' then it is totally empty. There is absolutely nothing to falsify ghosts. But the more you add to the definition of 'ghosts' the easier it becomes to falsify it. For it to become science you need to define 'ghost' in such a way so that it is both falsifiable and so that it explains something about reality. If most be a model of reality, it must make predictions about reality.

The fact that "Leprechauns, dragons, trolls, goblins, and ghosts are some of them. " are not yet discovered is not a very strong argument. But none is needed. The argument is not strong because it cannot be strong because of the weakness of the concepts of all these theories.

[timothy42b]

If ghosts were purely spiritual with no material component I could neither prove nor disprove them.

How then would we know they exist?

If they interact at all with the material world we can detect that interaction.  If they appear to our eyes, they will appear to a camera.  If we can hear them, we can record them.  If they can possess us, we can detect possession that does not qualify as mental illness.  It is not possible to exist, interact with the material world, and not leave traces.

Those traces can be very small.  They can be below the level of our ability to detect.  In that case, all we can say is "they do not exist above a certain level."  For example, is there a marble in the sandbox?  If I have a sieve with a one inch mesh, I can never tell.  I can absolutely rule out bowling balls, because the mesh would catch them.  But marbles and peas are possible.  What I can say is, "there exist no objects above 1 inch size."

Same for ghosts.  There are no detectable ghosts when you take the care to get the story correct - document, verify, etc.  That doesn't rule out undetectable ghosts, but it limits how much we ought to worry about them. 

[henrah]

Hehehe great analogy

[prometheus]

In theory it would be very hard for a ghost to be undetectable. Most definitions of ghosts claim they can do some amazing things. Those things require a lot of energy. And a lot of energy means 'very big marble'.

If ghosts are 'very tiny marbles' then they cannot be very intelligent because that requires a lot of energy.


But I agree, a nonmaterial or supernatural ghost would not be part of our reality. Its existance would be irrelevant.