Has anyone encountered a ghost?

Brown · 9th September 2003, 10:17 AM

Previously, I posted a thread in which I asked whether anyone had seen a UFO... and what the UFO turned out to be.

Now I ask whether anyone has encountered a ghost, and if so, what was the explanation for the ghost (if known). As I reported in this thread, I have seen something in my neighborhood that looks very ghost-like. I saw it again last night.

As I was driving home in the dark, my headlights illuminated a silver, shimmering figure crossing the road in front of me. This figure appeared to be a person walking upright. Actually, it resembled a person walking with a sheet covering him. Whatever it was, however, it was not solid, because I could see through it. The appearance of this thing was quite startling. When I encountered it last night, I was startled by it even though I knew right away what it was.

And what was it?

The "ghost" has a perfectly ordinary explanation. One of my neighbors uses an automatic lawn-watering system, and his system waters his lawn at night. One of the sprinklers is adjusted so that it shoots a little arch-like spray of water out into the street. As the sprinkler sweeps the spray toward the lawn, the spray appears to cross the street at about the same speed as a man would cross the street. The result is an apparently ghostly entity, crossing the street in front of my car.

I have also seen "ghosts" in the windows of houses. One "ghost" in a particular window had a spooky human-like form. It turned out that the glass in the window was not perfectly flat, and the reflection of a distant street light created the illusion of a ghostly figure in the window.

JesFine · 9th September 2003, 01:14 PM

I once woke up to the spooky site of a ghost hovering at the foot of my bed. It was a ghostly shape to be sure, but it had a "wispy" human form, and it was clearly beckoning me to come to it. I remember being way more rational than I would think most people would be and thought "Wow, that really looks like a ghost... hm... I wonder what it really is?" I stared at it for a while as it continued to gesture for me to follow it. I had a thought about what it might be, and to test my hypothesis looked to my left. Sure enough, the ghost was over there too. Looked to my right, same ghost. Then I blinked a couple of times and it disappeared completely.

The "ghost" was just some kind of gunk floating in my eye. It was incredibly life-like (death-like?) though. It did give me a better insight as to why people believe in this stuff. If I hear someone say "Listen, I know what I saw and I saw a ghost!" I usually tell this story. Of course they say "Whatever, that is completely different, anyone can tell the difference between an eye booger and a ghost." But I guarantee if they were in my situation, they would have thought it was a ghost too.

PinkRabbit · 9th September 2003, 02:41 PM

When I was still working tech in theater, I was working late one night. The only other person there was the stage manager when we saw someone in the sound booth (it had a glass overlook onto the house). Assuming the sound designer had returned to fix a cue or something, we went up together to say hi.

There was a window in the door to the sound room, and no other available exit. We could both see what looked like a person's shadow moving inside the sound booth, but on opening the door, saw a hint of something and then nothing. Just a dark room.

We never did figure out what we saw though it scared the hell out of both of us, as much because the theater had had problems with transients getting in and until we checked things out we were both scared there had been someone in there and they'd just ducked down or something. But no, the room was definitely empty, and like I said, there was no other way out.

And no, I'm not saying it was a ghost, just that we never figured it out (I'm very neutral on ghosts---ironic given that I supposedly grew up in a haunted house and every theater out there is supposedly haunted). Possibilities include, but are not limited to some weird lighting thing that was disturbed when we opened the door, an evil prank of some kind (theater people after all), sleeplessness and poor lighting playing tricks on the mind, etc.

Barb

voidx · 9th September 2003, 03:31 PM

All my childhood experiences are discounted because of over-active imagination and fear. Heh most would fall under the category of shifting shadows, or coats hanging on a door in a dark room kind of scenario's. The only thing I remember recently is a year or so ago I was in the basement with some friends watching a movie, and we had one of those tall skinny flourescent lamp things that have the small metal circle and dim and the like. Well I turned the metal knob all the way down to dim the light and turn it off. At one point during the movie, with all of us sitting down, the light turned on. We all laughed and joked about ghosts, most of us inclined to believe it was just a goofy electrical glitch, which I'm sure it was. The only thing that was odd is that the metal circle was turned all the way up to on again. I would have expected that if it was an electrical glitch the light would have gone on, leaving the switch still in the off position but who knows, and I may be mis-remembering what exact position I'd left the dimmer switch in. An odd occurance, one I'm sure many people would take as a ghostly one.

dingler44 · 9th September 2003, 04:13 PM

Never thought I saw a ghost... although I've had a few scary dreams about them.

Ratman_tf · 9th September 2003, 06:21 PM

I had one of those sleep terror things when I was waking up in my grandparent's house when I was visiting. While waking up, I was siezed with a feeling of terror and dread, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see the rocking chair by the bed rocking back and forth with no one in it.
After the event passed, I got up and smoked a cigarette. On returning to the room, I noticed the chair was not a rocking chair.

I never had another experience like that again. I'm sure if I were less skeptical I would be writing of this as some kind of true ghost story.

Checkmite · 9th September 2003, 06:49 PM

Some years ago, when I read up on hallucinations and their causes, I was a bit incredulous when I read that lack of sleep can actually cause them - until my junior year in high school when I experienced a very vivid and somewhat disturbing exhaustion-induced hallucination...which I remember relating in some thread here long ago.

I also had night terrors when I was a kid, though those are brought on mostly by dreams and can't fairly be called "ghost" encounters. I don't remember the majority of them; but God, who would want to?

Instig8R · 9th September 2003, 09:37 PM

I don't know if they are ghosts or not, but I've seen "Shadow People" ever since my childhood.

Shadow People article

Hexxenhammer · 10th September 2003, 08:36 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Instig8R
I don't know if they are ghosts or not, but I've seen "Shadow People" ever since my childhood.

Shadow People article

I don't know about shadow people, but just yesterday I saw shadow bugs.

I was working (surfing the JREF probably) when a tiny dark shape darted from behind my Simpsons desk calender and then under my keyboard. This took a split second but it made me jump. I then looked all over my very cluttered desk to see if I could find a bug. A few minutes later it happened again.

Weird, and I'm sure just my eyes playing tricks on me (I only saw them out of the corner of my eye). But this had never happened before.

UKBoy1977 · 10th September 2003, 09:41 AM

I have very vivid hypnagogic hallucinations every night. I see people, rats, spiders all kinds of things when I am in the 'in-between' state (not awake, not fully asleep). So these days I just refuse to open my eyes as I know I will see something stupid and I know it's not really there.

Silicon · 10th September 2003, 09:42 AM

Just after my daughter was born I started to see shadow people often out of the corner of my eye.

Sleep deprivation can be tricksy!

Yahweh · 10th September 2003, 01:59 PM

Once at an old abandoned amusement park, there were reports of a ghost haunting. Myself, 2 chicks, a stoner, and large dog went to check it out. We formulated a plan to catch the ghost, the plan didnt go quite as planned (because the stoner and the dog were distracted by a lone sandwich they found)...

To make a long story short, we caught the ghost, but it was really Old Man Smithers. Apparently the amusement park was built an a Uranium mine, and he was trying to scare people away so he could claim the mine to himself.

Wooo, I'm glad it was no ghost...

Silicon · 10th September 2003, 02:06 PM

And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!

Sundog · 10th September 2003, 02:13 PM

I think all of you might agree that I'm, if not exactly level-headed, at least not prone to woo-wooism. But a very odd thing happened to me once that gave me some insight into what might be going on in these cases.

This was about eight years ago when I had serious clinical depression and was trying one antidepressant after another. I had just switched to yet another one - wish I remembered what it was - and was out in my computer room alone in the house about two in the morning.

Suddenly I got this incredibly creepy feeling that there was someone in the room with me. I can't describe how real it felt, even after I looked all around me. It persisted and got even stronger - a definite feeling of "hauntedness" and menace that I couldn't ignore. I of course realized immediately that it was some sort of side effect of the antidepressants but I'm telling you it was weird. Even remembering it gives me the creeps.

It never happened again, but it made me think about stories like this and how the brain can fool itself.

Explorer · 11th September 2003, 11:42 PM

Sundog said:

"Suddenly I got this incredibly creepy feeling that there was someone in the room with me. I can't describe how real it felt, even after I looked all around me. It persisted and got even stronger - a definite feeling of "hauntedness" and menace that I couldn't ignore. I of course realized immediately that it was some sort of side effect of the antidepressants but I'm telling you it was weird. Even remembering it gives me the creeps."

That feeling was explained away by research this week by the effects of "Infra-sound", according to some scientists. Are you sure that an organ wasn't playing close by at the time, hitting some very low notes? Or perhaps there was some machinery switching on in a nearby factory with low frequencies creating a similar effect. Or perhaps it was indeed your antidepressants. How the hell can you explain this scientifically or rationally when there are new supposedly, scientific explanations published every week in the media.

I once was strolling through a street market in Worksop, Notts with my wife a few years ago, enjoying the day and looking at the myriad of items for sale on the stalls, when I was suddenly struck by a terrible feeling of apprehension and dread, as if some tragedy or misfortune was about to happen (or had just happened). In fact, the feeling passed quite quickly and nothing terrible did happen.

On an earlier occasion, my wife had a similar feeling one morning. She was working in her office in Nottinghamshire, and for no apparent reason had this terrible feeling of dread and apprehension. Later in the morning she had a phone call from her mother to say that her father had been knocked down by a car that same morning in London, and was in hospital. He died a few days later.

If these personal emotional and creepy trips mean anything at all, they are not going to be easily and scientifically explained, by virtue of their inconsistency, and the possibility of random chance coincidence. We will have to be content with rational speculation for the time being, until our brains have been properly mapped and understood by medical science. That has to be many years away at the moment.

SFB · 12th September 2003, 11:29 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Yahweh
Once at an old abandoned amusement park, there were reports of a ghost haunting. Myself, 2 chicks, a stoner, and large dog went to check it out. We formulated a plan to catch the ghost, the plan didnt go quite as planned (because the stoner and the dog were distracted by a lone sandwich they found)...

To make a long story short, we caught the ghost, but it was really Old Man Smithers. Apparently the amusement park was built an a Uranium mine, and he was trying to scare people away so he could claim the mine to himself.

Wooo, I'm glad it was no ghost...

9th September 2003, 10:17 AM	#1
Brown Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Twin Cities, Canada Posts: 12,293	Has anyone encountered a ghost? Previously, I posted a thread in which I asked whether anyone had seen a UFO... and what the UFO turned out to be. Now I ask whether anyone has encountered a ghost, and if so, what was the explanation for the ghost (if known). As I reported in this thread, I have seen something in my neighborhood that looks very ghost-like. I saw it again last night. As I was driving home in the dark, my headlights illuminated a silver, shimmering figure crossing the road in front of me. This figure appeared to be a person walking upright. Actually, it resembled a person walking with a sheet covering him. Whatever it was, however, it was not solid, because I could see through it. The appearance of this thing was quite startling. When I encountered it last night, I was startled by it even though I knew right away what it was. And what was it? The "ghost" has a perfectly ordinary explanation. One of my neighbors uses an automatic lawn-watering system, and his system waters his lawn at night. One of the sprinklers is adjusted so that it shoots a little arch-like spray of water out into the street. As the sprinkler sweeps the spray toward the lawn, the spray appears to cross the street at about the same speed as a man would cross the street. The result is an apparently ghostly entity, crossing the street in front of my car. I have also seen "ghosts" in the windows of houses. One "ghost" in a particular window had a spooky human-like form. It turned out that the glass in the window was not perfectly flat, and the reflection of a distant street light created the illusion of a ghostly figure in the window.
	__________________ Klaatu: I'm impatient with stupidity. My people have learned to live without it. Mr. Harley: I'm afraid my people haven't. I am very sorry. I wish it were otherwise. -- The Day The Earth Stood Still, screenplay by Edmund H. North "Don't you get me wrong. I only want to know." -- Judas in Jesus Christ Superstar, lyrics by Tim Rice

9th September 2003, 01:14 PM	#2
JesFine Critical Thinker Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: San Francisco Posts: 449	I once woke up to the spooky site of a ghost hovering at the foot of my bed. It was a ghostly shape to be sure, but it had a "wispy" human form, and it was clearly beckoning me to come to it. I remember being way more rational than I would think most people would be and thought "Wow, that really looks like a ghost... hm... I wonder what it really is?" I stared at it for a while as it continued to gesture for me to follow it. I had a thought about what it might be, and to test my hypothesis looked to my left. Sure enough, the ghost was over there too. Looked to my right, same ghost. Then I blinked a couple of times and it disappeared completely. The "ghost" was just some kind of gunk floating in my eye. It was incredibly life-like (death-like?) though. It did give me a better insight as to why people believe in this stuff. If I hear someone say "Listen, I know what I saw and I saw a ghost!" I usually tell this story. Of course they say "Whatever, that is completely different, anyone can tell the difference between an eye booger and a ghost." But I guarantee if they were in my situation, they would have thought it was a ghost too.
	__________________ If this isn't making sense, it doesn't make it lies. -- Chris Cornell

9th September 2003, 03:31 PM	#4
voidx Graduate Poster Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Calgary, Alberta, Canuckistan Posts: 1,480	All my childhood experiences are discounted because of over-active imagination and fear. Heh most would fall under the category of shifting shadows, or coats hanging on a door in a dark room kind of scenario's. The only thing I remember recently is a year or so ago I was in the basement with some friends watching a movie, and we had one of those tall skinny flourescent lamp things that have the small metal circle and dim and the like. Well I turned the metal knob all the way down to dim the light and turn it off. At one point during the movie, with all of us sitting down, the light turned on. We all laughed and joked about ghosts, most of us inclined to believe it was just a goofy electrical glitch, which I'm sure it was. The only thing that was odd is that the metal circle was turned all the way up to on again. I would have expected that if it was an electrical glitch the light would have gone on, leaving the switch still in the off position but who knows, and I may be mis-remembering what exact position I'd left the dimmer switch in. An odd occurance, one I'm sure many people would take as a ghostly one.
	__________________ V O I D X ' S S I G N A T U R E

9th September 2003, 06:21 PM	#6
Ratman_tf Graduate Poster Join Date: Aug 2001 Posts: 1,002	I had one of those sleep terror things when I was waking up in my grandparent's house when I was visiting. While waking up, I was siezed with a feeling of terror and dread, and out of the corner of my eye, I could see the rocking chair by the bed rocking back and forth with no one in it. After the event passed, I got up and smoked a cigarette. On returning to the room, I noticed the chair was not a rocking chair. I never had another experience like that again. I'm sure if I were less skeptical I would be writing of this as some kind of true ghost story.
	__________________ "In the end, I was so decent, I stopped being a Christian altogether!" -Ruby --- "God is an invention of Man. So the nature of God is only a shallow mystery. The deep mystery is the nature of Man." -Nanrei Kobori

9th September 2003, 06:49 PM	#7
Checkmite Skepticifimisticalationist Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Third in line Posts: 14,976	Some years ago, when I read up on hallucinations and their causes, I was a bit incredulous when I read that lack of sleep can actually cause them - until my junior year in high school when I experienced a very vivid and somewhat disturbing exhaustion-induced hallucination...which I remember relating in some thread here long ago. I also had night terrors when I was a kid, though those are brought on mostly by dreams and can't fairly be called "ghost" encounters. I don't remember the majority of them; but God, who would want to?
	__________________ "¿WHAT KIND OF BIRD? ¿A PARANORMAL BIRD?" --- Carlos S., 2002

9th September 2003, 02:41 PM	#3
PinkRabbit Critical Thinker Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 329	When I was still working tech in theater, I was working late one night. The only other person there was the stage manager when we saw someone in the sound booth (it had a glass overlook onto the house). Assuming the sound designer had returned to fix a cue or something, we went up together to say hi. There was a window in the door to the sound room, and no other available exit. We could both see what looked like a person's shadow moving inside the sound booth, but on opening the door, saw a hint of something and then nothing. Just a dark room. We never did figure out what we saw though it scared the hell out of both of us, as much because the theater had had problems with transients getting in and until we checked things out we were both scared there had been someone in there and they'd just ducked down or something. But no, the room was definitely empty, and like I said, there was no other way out. And no, I'm not saying it was a ghost, just that we never figured it out (I'm very neutral on ghosts---ironic given that I supposedly grew up in a haunted house and every theater out there is supposedly haunted). Possibilities include, but are not limited to some weird lighting thing that was disturbed when we opened the door, an evil prank of some kind (theater people after all), sleeplessness and poor lighting playing tricks on the mind, etc. Barb

9th September 2003, 04:13 PM	#5
dingler44 Critical Thinker Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 264	Never thought I saw a ghost... although I've had a few scary dreams about them.

9th September 2003, 09:37 PM	#8
Instig8R Thinker Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 195	I don't know if they are ghosts or not, but I've seen "Shadow People" ever since my childhood. Shadow People article
Instig8R Thinker Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 195

10th September 2003, 08:36 AM	#9
Hexxenhammer Malleus Malefactorum Join Date: Jul 2003 Posts: 2,124	Quote: Originally posted by Instig8R I don't know if they are ghosts or not, but I've seen "Shadow People" ever since my childhood. Shadow People article I don't know about shadow people, but just yesterday I saw shadow bugs. I was working (surfing the JREF probably) when a tiny dark shape darted from behind my Simpsons desk calender and then under my keyboard. This took a split second but it made me jump. I then looked all over my very cluttered desk to see if I could find a bug. A few minutes later it happened again. Weird, and I'm sure just my eyes playing tricks on me (I only saw them out of the corner of my eye). But this had never happened before.
	__________________ Georgia's board of education approved the plan that allows teachers to keep using the word 'Evolution' when teaching biology. Though, as a compromise, dinosaurs are now called 'Jesus Horses.'--Jimmy Fallon on Weekend Update "I mean, if you buy into a religion, you're pretty much kissing good by(sic) critical thinking, aren't you?" --Riddick. Amen to that, brother. Gamers! Ultimate RPG Thread has a new home at skepticalcommunity! Check it out!

10th September 2003, 09:41 AM	#10
UKBoy1977 Thinker Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 193	I have very vivid hypnagogic hallucinations every night. I see people, rats, spiders all kinds of things when I am in the 'in-between' state (not awake, not fully asleep). So these days I just refuse to open my eyes as I know I will see something stupid and I know it's not really there.
UKBoy1977 Thinker Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 193

10th September 2003, 09:42 AM	#11
Silicon Graduate Poster Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 1,644	Just after my daughter was born I started to see shadow people often out of the corner of my eye. Sleep deprivation can be tricksy!
Silicon Graduate Poster Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 1,644

10th September 2003, 01:59 PM	#12
Yahweh Ayay ashay ayay Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 9,029	Once at an old abandoned amusement park, there were reports of a ghost haunting. Myself, 2 chicks, a stoner, and large dog went to check it out. We formulated a plan to catch the ghost, the plan didnt go quite as planned (because the stoner and the dog were distracted by a lone sandwich they found)... To make a long story short, we caught the ghost, but it was really Old Man Smithers. Apparently the amusement park was built an a Uranium mine, and he was trying to scare people away so he could claim the mine to himself. Wooo, I'm glad it was no ghost...
Yahweh Ayay ashay ayay Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 9,029

10th September 2003, 02:06 PM	#13
Silicon Graduate Poster Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 1,644	And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling kids!
Silicon Graduate Poster Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 1,644

10th September 2003, 02:13 PM	#14
Sundog Master Poster Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 2,071	I think all of you might agree that I'm, if not exactly level-headed, at least not prone to woo-wooism. But a very odd thing happened to me once that gave me some insight into what might be going on in these cases. This was about eight years ago when I had serious clinical depression and was trying one antidepressant after another. I had just switched to yet another one - wish I remembered what it was - and was out in my computer room alone in the house about two in the morning. Suddenly I got this incredibly creepy feeling that there was someone in the room with me. I can't describe how real it felt, even after I looked all around me. It persisted and got even stronger - a definite feeling of "hauntedness" and menace that I couldn't ignore. I of course realized immediately that it was some sort of side effect of the antidepressants but I'm telling you it was weird. Even remembering it gives me the creeps. It never happened again, but it made me think about stories like this and how the brain can fool itself.
Sundog Master Poster Join Date: Apr 2003 Posts: 2,071	__________________ I come not to bring peace, but a sword. -- Jesus H. Christ

11th September 2003, 11:42 PM	#15
Explorer Muse Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 959	Sundog said: "Suddenly I got this incredibly creepy feeling that there was someone in the room with me. I can't describe how real it felt, even after I looked all around me. It persisted and got even stronger - a definite feeling of "hauntedness" and menace that I couldn't ignore. I of course realized immediately that it was some sort of side effect of the antidepressants but I'm telling you it was weird. Even remembering it gives me the creeps." That feeling was explained away by research this week by the effects of "Infra-sound", according to some scientists. Are you sure that an organ wasn't playing close by at the time, hitting some very low notes? Or perhaps there was some machinery switching on in a nearby factory with low frequencies creating a similar effect. Or perhaps it was indeed your antidepressants. How the hell can you explain this scientifically or rationally when there are new supposedly, scientific explanations published every week in the media. I once was strolling through a street market in Worksop, Notts with my wife a few years ago, enjoying the day and looking at the myriad of items for sale on the stalls, when I was suddenly struck by a terrible feeling of apprehension and dread, as if some tragedy or misfortune was about to happen (or had just happened). In fact, the feeling passed quite quickly and nothing terrible did happen. On an earlier occasion, my wife had a similar feeling one morning. She was working in her office in Nottinghamshire, and for no apparent reason had this terrible feeling of dread and apprehension. Later in the morning she had a phone call from her mother to say that her father had been knocked down by a car that same morning in London, and was in hospital. He died a few days later. If these personal emotional and creepy trips mean anything at all, they are not going to be easily and scientifically explained, by virtue of their inconsistency, and the possibility of random chance coincidence. We will have to be content with rational speculation for the time being, until our brains have been properly mapped and understood by medical science. That has to be many years away at the moment.
Explorer Muse Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 959

12th September 2003, 11:29 AM	#16
SFB Critical Thinker Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 288	Quote: Originally posted by Yahweh Once at an old abandoned amusement park, there were reports of a ghost haunting. Myself, 2 chicks, a stoner, and large dog went to check it out. We formulated a plan to catch the ghost, the plan didnt go quite as planned (because the stoner and the dog were distracted by a lone sandwich they found)... To make a long story short, we caught the ghost, but it was really Old Man Smithers. Apparently the amusement park was built an a Uranium mine, and he was trying to scare people away so he could claim the mine to himself. Wooo, I'm glad it was no ghost...
SFB Critical Thinker Join Date: Dec 2001 Posts: 288