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Ghosts and other unexplained phenomena

J

JordanC

TS Member
A subject which comes up time and time again but feel free to share your spooky experiences here!

I was a skeptic, but I'm now convinced that there's some sort of paranormal entity in my house. We've experienced a whole handful of unexplained events.

Lights turning off and on by themselves - even leaving the house to come home to every light being on, voices replying to you when you're the only person in the house, objects going missing and then turning back up randomly, heavy breathing noises as if someone was sat behind your shoulder, the kettle and radio turning themselves on and just generally a horrible feeling can suddenly engulf a room.

I know I sound like a looney, but all of these happenings are genuine! I have no doubt some are just my mind playing tricks or can be explained, but for others, there is no rational explanation. (Cheeky blivvy quote ;) )

I think the tip of the iceberg is that it's not just me, family and friends have picked up and noted similar situations and experiences whilst in the house aswell..

Spooky!
 
Just tell them to go away.

Mrs King (previous owner of our house) is often around. Wife used to think I was nuts when I said she walked from Kitchen to the dining room a lot until my son (then 3) offered the lady some of his drink.
 
The amount of guitar plectrums that have quite honestly de-materialised I begin to wonder... I mean I will drop it on the floor and then its gone! BOOM! Vanished!

Same sorta thing seems to happen with phone chargers too, but isn't it funny, no-one ever looses money? Hmm, ghosts must be under some kind of law...
 
A friend at work has just bought a new house, and moved in a few days ago. Upon entering the kitchen, he found a spread of newspaper articles left on the counter. Several years ago, skeletons were discovered in the basement, an investigation revealed that his new dream home is built on top of a Quaker graveyard! On top of the articles was a note from the previous owner, saying simply,
"Enjoy the house."

He couldn't care less, and rightly so. If anything he finds it rather cool.... Though he has said he won't be telling his kids. :p

Ghosts do not exist. It's aliens you should be worried about.
 
Now I'm not really one to be superstitious, but there's something about the bathroom in my current house that gets my back up.

We live in an old Victorian semi, and the bathroom and kitchen are a single level extension out the back (I get the impression that they were perhaps once an outhouse and coal store, or similar). But whenever I'm in the bathroom, which is at the far end of the house, I always feel rather uneasy. It's a strange feeling. Just like someone is watching you all the while. It doesn't help either that it never ever gets warm in there, even with the radiator on full bore.

If I need to pay a visit in the night, or I'm taking a shower I always carry my phone with me and will leave some music playing, or a program streaming to it. It just makes me feel a little easier about it. Especially if I'm in the shower, even though I can't hear what's actually going on, it's just comforting having that little bit of background noise. Sort of reassuring :p

It is strange though, because as I said I'm not really one to be superstitious of easily spooked, and I've never known anything like it anywhere I've been. It's just a really horrible feeling.

That said though, we used to have a really fun one with our neighbours. Before they moved there a lovely old lady used to live there called Mrs Fisher. She passed away when I was very young (About 4-5ish), but I do have some fond memories of her. Anyway, when they moved in they had a hi-fi unit in the living room with a CD changer on it (Before the days of iPod docking ;) Pah, I bet some of our younger members find the idea of dual tape decks, and CD changers quite novel :p). At least once a week (We never really figured out if there was any pattern to it. It just seemed to be at random. I.E. It didn't happen every other Wednesday and alternating Sundays :p ), around about 9 o'clock, the hi-fi used to come out of standby, and no matter which slot it was loaded in it used to always go to Queen Greatest Hits and play Bohemian Rhapsody! Then, once the track finished, it'd switch itself back off. Like I say, even if you shuffled the CDs around in the magazine it would still always go straight to that song when it started! Move the hi-fi to another room, or take the CD out and it wouldn't even wake up though. It sort of became our running joke that when it did it Mrs Fisher was letting us know she'd popped in for a visit :p
 
If I was a ghost who had passed over from the 'spirit world' (or which other fantasy you subscribe to) then I'd dare say that I would do something a lot more significant than turning lights off, making people feel uneasy, breathing heavy, and making small easily lost items go missing.

Just on a practical sense, why would a ghost do that? If they wanted to communicate... Rather than communicate in a cryptic and spooky way, they would be much more straight forward. If they wanted you out of the house, they wouldn't make stuff disappear, they'd pick up a knife and chase you!

But that aside... Ghosts don't exist. There is no reliable peer-reviewed evidence despite significant research over the 19th and 20th century. Weird happenings in your houses are just your brain trying to rationalise something that you don't have the appropriate information to fully understand. It's the whole reason all myths are believed, including Religion.
 
That is the first time I have 100% agreed with one of MeatPie's posts :)

I would have once as a child said "I Have seen a ghost," but soon realized that there was no evidence of this at all. I though I had seen someone walk through a wall, but I hand't , infact I had seen a person, then when I looked again not seen the person. This does not mean he/she was a ghost, this means I did not see where the person had gone. As the above post explains, the fact that I could not see/think where the person had gone made no sense to me and this is where my mind 'decided' it was a "ghost."

If it wasn't for the bible (or other religious book of beliefs), word of mouth (reliable, it is not yoda), TV programmes, media and other forms of entertainment, what even is a ghost? or religion for that matter? BELIEFS. Nothing more.

That is the beauty of science - It's true weather you believe it or not. (not my words, I can't remember who I'm loosely quoting.)
 
Ian said:
But whenever I'm in the bathroom I always feel rather uneasy. Just like someone is watching you all the while.
Click to expand...

Dunno, some people are in to that.

DiogoJ42 said:
Ghosts do not exist. It's aliens you should be worried about.
Click to expand...
Specifically the Reptilians.
 
I used to feel uneasy in the bathroom of my last flat. Always felt like something was watching me. And they were... giant frickin' spiders. *shudders*
 
Meat Pie said:
But that aside... Ghosts don't exist. There is no reliable peer-reviewed evidence despite significant research over the 19th and 20th century.
Click to expand...

That is a very certain statement. Head on over here and earn yourself a cool $1m from an American lawyer who would disagree with you.
http://www.victorzammit.com/skeptics/challenge.html

I'll take some commission though MP. About 10% sounds thoroughly reasonable.
 
TheMan said:
Meat Pie said:
But that aside... Ghosts don't exist. There is no reliable peer-reviewed evidence despite significant research over the 19th and 20th century.
Click to expand...

That is a very certain statement. Head on over here and earn yourself a cool $1m from an American lawyer who would disagree with you.
http://www.victorzammit.com/skeptics/challenge.html

I'll take some commission though MP. About 10% sounds thoroughly reasonable.
Click to expand...

It almost had me up to...
"genuine mediums"
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No.
 
There are two types of 'psychics' out there - many are simply entertainers/liars (delete as appropriate) whilst there are others who genuinely believe they are capable of some form of communication with the dead. I've never been a believer, but I'd still say there's a clear difference between a liar and someone's who's simply misguided.

I've been watching a few of Derren Brown's shows recently, and if there's one thing we can take from them it's that people can very easily be subconsciously manipulated into acting in certain ways and thinking or believing certain things without them realising they're being manipulated. It's pretty scary to watch in a way, but at the same time it's absolutely fascinating to see just how much we can be influenced.
 
Does the phenomena of "ghost" exist... Yes I would say so (having seen one), is the cause of said ghost the spirit of a dead person... Probably not.

Best guess is the brain misinterpreting some information (not unlikely considering a lot of our apparent vision is assumed by the brain rather than actual stimulation of the retina). But no one has disproved spirit causes... Yet!

It's funny because people who go GHOSTS ARE NOT REAL think they are often being very modern and in tune with science. But a true scientist would at least be open minded to possibilities if they believed in the scientific method (though obviously with a deep level of scepticism) until proof is obtained.

As said I'm very skeptical but not prohibitively closed-minded. As for my "ghost" experiences:

- parents house people (including myself) regularly see a figure at the top of the stairs. (Most likely some naturally forming odd pattern of shadows) though footsteps often heard on landing.

- once when staying over at Badgers, was reading a book in bed... Wide awake when it suddenly felt like someone had pushed the book trying to knock it out of my hand (maybe a muscle spasm).
 
As someone who often has sleep paralysis, and the halucinations of terror that come with it, I can say first hand that seeing is not believing. I've "seen" all kinds of demons, shadow people, murderers, ghosts, aliens, even evil teddy bears... you name it They are all very real at the time, but once I've snapped out of it, I know it's all in my mind.

I wouldn't trust my brain to tell the difference between night and day! :p
 
The brain is very easily fooled, one theory about seeing a ghostly figure I'm the corner of your eye is your peripheral vision is quite poor. So some shadows or objects create a basic pattern of a person... A person is a potential threat so your brain takes the most dangerous assumption and fills in the blanks to create a figure... This forces you to turn and look directly in that direction to further assess the situation.
 
There is as much evidence for ghosts as there are fairies.

Is it impossible? No. But when you weigh up the lack of evidence compared to the many, many, many scientific attempts to attain it, it becomes abundtly clear that ghosts, like God, and like fairies, have no basis as they have no verifiable evidence that stands up to peer-reviewed science - the process that has proven itself in that it brought us most modern technological developments.

On that basis, it is absurd to believe in ghosts. Or fairies. Or God.
 
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