With Halloween right around the corner and having watched "The Secret of Parker House" last week, it got me to wondering how many of us believe in ghosts / spirits and how many of us believe as Mac does, that "There's no such thing as ghosts"?

I'll start this off by saying that I completely believe in ghosts / spirits and have seen at least one in my lifetime. I've also heard what I believed to be the voices of little kids, while I was at work, a location far enough isolated from any populated area that there wasn't any chance of little kids being in the area.

I'd have to say I'm the opposite. I've read enough stories over the years where there have been some pretty interesting scientific explanations to what have been some pretty strong ghost stories to believe that the Supernatural is just an easy way of explaining things we haven't found an explanation for yet.

One particular story which springs to mind is the haunted pub. Where, for years, they had been experiencing ghostly sounds of people chattering away in the middle of the night in the main bar area. Over the years they had psychics tell them which ex patrons were haunting the bar, they'd had ghost experts confirm the haunting and even priests try to exercise the ghost. Then along came the scientists who spent weeks investigating the place and eventually discovered that the wood in the walls would, at certain times of the evening, absorb the sounds of the bar and then again at certain times of night, which I think had something to do with temperature, would emit the sounds back again - effectively acting as a recording device. They were able to reproduce this in the lab to prove the theory.

SO in spite of the psychics, ghost experts and priests who had told them the place was haunted it was really nothing more than a rather obscure (and kind of interesting) bit of science.

I don't believe in them but I like movies about them. Though I do have to say that what I'm thinking about it, I get nightmares sometimes. Thinking about Parnormal Activity does that sometimes. Just imagine that someone you love, your wife/husband or your child gets up and starts staring at you for hours during the night.

No, I don't believe in 'ghosts' but I do believe that we are still in the infancy of our knowledge of science & the universe. Sooooo, there are many phenomena which we simply don't understand and/or categorize and some of these 'misunderstandings' are all too quick to be labelled as 'ghosts' because of the ability of that word to gain maximum attention.

Case in point - there was a local photographer who gained major exposure on NASA"s APOD website recently for their capture of an unusual green glow? What was it? It seems to have the top scientists stumped ..... What other happenings happen and that we just do not have the collective brain capacity to explain as of 2013?

@MacGyverGod - My sister and I just watched Paranormal Activity 3&4 the other day. So awesome.

I was raised to believe in the supernatural, but was also taught you don't mess with it... ever. Apparently after staying with some family who were playing with Ouija board (which my parents weren't happy about), both my parents found a woman in white floating over my crib as a baby... then it vanished. My mother believed it was a demon, my Dad thought it was my mother.

...creepy.

But, I never had any other experiences with the supernatural... and if it wasn't for that story, I would probably doubt their existence. It's like aliens... you can't help but wonder "what if"?

But I LOVE haunted house movies, scifi horror and horror themed video games about the supernatural. I tried playing the Silent Hill series, but got so creeped out, I threw away my copy of the game. It takes a LOT to get me creeped out.

The only thing that ever gave me nightmares was Alien, which I still have nightmares about sometimes.

Do I believe? Yes. But I don't tamper with it. Most of the time, anything creepy I have experienced has been nothing more then just my over-active imagination playing tricks on me. Still creepy though...

I also like to think about 'what ifs'.

I don't believe in ghosts of the Ghostbusters variety, but I have lived in a couple of old houses and had a few odd experiences.

One house very definitely had a female 'someone' who used to come up or down the stairs occasionally - just about visible in a long frock. Another had a 'someone' who could clearly be heard snoring in an otherwise empty bedroom.

And sometimes I can smell my Dad's cigarette smoke in my Mum's barn (Dad died some years before she moved here and Mum doesn't smoke), or just for a moment we can see our first horse (again, some years departed) in the field with our present two. When you look properly of course, you can't see him, but just at first glance, he's there

@Jediferret:
Man, that IS creepy!

I do believe (also in not messing with it, Jedi! ) because I've also had some strange experiences happen, as have my parents. We flip houses (or used, we're getting out of it because it's getting hard on my dad, who btw, is a preacher). And there have been two houses that I can remember that were just downright weird.

For instance, there was one house years ago where my family and I moved into. Since we flip houses, it's not uncommon to find the house in shambles or things left behind. This particular house had what my mom said, "Is that a grill?" in the basement. I think she said that so as not to frighten my sisters and I. We believe it was an altar of some kind. There were a few small charred bones (no way of identifying what they were. Because my sisters and I were still present my mom said it was probably chicken), pieces of old newspaper, and some photographs. Needless to say we tore it out. I mean who grills in their basement anyway, for Petes sake? XD And with no ventilation?
Lots of unexplained things happened in that house. My mom was doing dishes and had our Christian worship music playing on the stereo. It turned off by itself. She called us and asked if our dad had done it, but he was still outside working.
My mom also awoke one night to see a young Hispanic girl standing at the foot of my parents bed. Mom said she just stood there and stared before walking out of the room and disappearing.
And this has nothing to do with it, but that place was infested with snakes. O.o There were baby king snakes covering my dad's two wheeler one morning, and I was checking on my sunflower (they were those really huge varieties. I loved em X3) and there was the biggest snake I'd ever seen right behind them. Scared the crap out of me.

In the house we're currently working on and living in, there are times when it feels like there's someone right behind you but there's not. Our dogs follow nothing with their eyes and growl at nothing. (Which is very unusual for my dog because she's always been extremely quiet). The parrot freaks out for no apparent reason. And there's this constant heavy feeling as soon as you walk in. It feels so depressing. Everyone has noticed it. The man who lived here before us was apparently a real nutjob according to neighbors. He died of a stroke in what is now my parent's bedroom.

I tend to sit on the fence a bit with this stuff. I'm generally of the idea that most things are explainable and everything you see on TV about it (psychics, ghost investigators, etc) are all fakes which only confuse the issue further. And the so-called documentaries or reality TV are biased and only show the stuff which will make you believe what the producer wants you to believe. But I'm not 100% convinced that ghosts or supernatural aren't real.



I do, however, think our experiences are heavily influenced by our beliefs and expectations. By which I mean. If you believe your house is haunted, you will attribute any unusual happenings to the ghost rather than finding the real source. And over time these things build up until you have completely and utterly convinced yourself that the place is haunted with a bucket full of "unexplainable" ghostly experiences as proof. Even though if you think about it, most of your "proof" will be one off experiences, most of which will have many possible logical explanations - if they were ghost related wouldn't they be happening on a regular basis?





Here's a personal example:

A few years ago my son (who was about 11 or 12) told me that he keeps seeing a little person walking towards his room at night. So that night I went into his room and he showed me what he meant. Sure enough when looking out of his bedroom door and into my office there was a blue glowing person walking towards us - not moving but walking in place.
I knew immediately what it was, but he had no idea because he believes in ghosts so for him this confirmed his belief and didn't need any further investigation. SO..I got my son out of bed and walked him with me towards the "walking blue man". As we got closer to the light the walking man stopped walking, then it stopped being a man and once we were right in front of it he could see that it was in fact the blue power light on my PC shining through the air grill slots on the front of the computer. At the right distance the light wave interaction (created from the light shining through the grill) made the light appear to walk and the non-focus of the blue light (humans can't focus on blue light) made the shape look human and so the optical illusion was created of a small person walking.



The blue man was quite a cool illusion actually. We spent a few minutes walking backwards and forwards away from and back to the light to watch it changing forms. It only worked if you were at the right angle though, which coincidentally was right in line with my sons head when he laid on his bed. So a book leaning against the computer solved the problem and my son learned a valuable lesson of not accepting things at face value just because they fit your belief.

I think I'm on the fence with this too. I don't particularly believe that there are ghosts, but I don't discount the possibility either. I am not willing to mess with them either Jedi (no quija!!).

We do hear some odd sounds in our new work building, though I have not experienced them much. Occurs mostly in the lab areas after hours and not in my office area. I did find a motion activated light on yesterday morning at 0300 when there was absolutely no other person in the building. Two of those motion activated lights were on in there this morning when a co-worker got here.

I do remember going out to visit the Joplin Spook Light when I was in high school. We went as a group and it was down this long straight dirt road. I remember we saw the light, which appeared to be a small round light in the center of the road about 2-3 small hills away. So we began walking towards it. We walked over about 4 of those hills and it was still about 2-3 hill away. We walked over about 4 more and it was still 2-3 hills away. We finally gave up and began heading back. A couple of the boys strayed behind and wanted to watch it just a little longer and would catch up. After we got over the next hill and out of sight of it next thing we know those two boys are sprinting towards us at top speed!! They stopped and told us the light flew straight at them and came within a few feet! I don't remember what they said the light did after that, but I do recall we picked up our pace walking back away from the area after that. LOL

Happy Halloween Everyone! Looks like I'll be making a plan to fit in Parker House ep tonight.

As for the supernatural, never been a firm believer mostly due to how many people deceive so many with trickery. That aside, it makes no logical sense for the fantastic to exist to me.

Still, makes for a great movie or a TV show.

I do not really believe in ghosts. However, I enjoy reading your ghost stories. Keep them coming!

I saw something very strange last night.

At about 11:50pm, just before the bewitching hour on All Hallow's Eve, I started down the driveway to take some garbage down to the receptacles which are located at the end and near the sidewalk. My house is situated on the top of a hill and has a 100 meter driveway that winds it's way through a wooded area to the street below. Light is at a premium because of the coniferous trees surrounding the lot.


There's a massive storm happening in North America right now that extends throughout much of the continent. The rain had already started and the wind was hallowing like a pack of angry wolves trapped in a rocky canyon. The leaves were swirling around in mini tornadoes and making it near impossible to hear anything - in fact there could have been a bear growling right in my ear and I don't think I would have realized it with all the weather happening. I felt a small chill that ran down the back of my neck .... and continued on.

Bammmm! All off sudden there was a clap of thunder and then a large shard of light that seemed to come out (not strike down on) of the front lawn. I got a bit spooked and started to turn back .... and then my inner voice said come on you wimp, get the heck down that driveway and finish what you started. And so I did without incident or spiritual abduction.


This morning, I was trying to figure out what may have happened and so I retraced my steps. The lights were all out in the front of the house, so the light source I witnessed was either a lightening bolt or something else. I did find an aluminum pie plate in the vicinity of where the shard came from and so it possibly could have been a reflection of some sort.

Perhaps it was a lightening flash or ..... there is a street light about 200 meters away through the woods that could have cast a ray of light suddenly into the yard. But in order for that to happen, several trees blocking the path would have had to have been blown hard (by the wind) all together and at once to allow the light to momentarily reach the portion of the yard that I was passing. I think the latter is what happened, the strong wind swayed the trees enough to tunnel the street light's beam and it reflected off the pie plate as the thunder clapped.

Lightning does actually strike upwards from the ground. According to this site about lightning, it's more common for lightning to go up towards the clouds than for it to come down towards the ground.

After reading some more about lighting, it seems to be a surprisingly complex event which allows for 2 way discharges depending on the type of charge being equalized.

So after all that, you could well have seen an upward lightning strike going from the ground to the air.

That could have been it, Kiwi. I've never seen anything like it and for it to happen at 10 minutes to midnight on Halloween was more than (ermmm) timely. It scared the hell out of me to be honest. Electrical storms are rare in this region in late October .,... but they do happen and sometimes in the middle of winter. Having said the - the conditions were more than right last night for the strange and unusual to happen.


As an aside and on topic - I can't help but think that if I were a believer in the supernatural, somehow - that I may not have have been so inclined to delve so deeply into examining(a la MacGyver) the logic, sequence of events and/or aftermath detective work .... because ,,,,,,, I just want or might a need for chocking up a ghostly experience onto my resume.

Exactly.

Most ghostly events really aren't that ghostly once you brake them down into their individual steps and see what really happened.

That's what I was referring to in my earlier post and also what MacGyver means when he says "the supernatural is just a convenient way of explaining what we don't understand."

I think of Supernatural events as a good old scientific mystery to be solved and a darn good excuse to dig around and find out some interesting facts for my never-ending Quest for Knowledge.

I'm pretty much on the fence as well, but I take the usual precautions... because you never know. If something doesn't feel right, I NEVER mess with it.

When I was staying at my sister's house, I was sleeping in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Because the house is older, there's all kinds of weird stuff around the house. One night, I woke up and saw a "face" on the brick fireplace on the other side of the bedroom. At first, I freaked out because... well... who wouldn't? I found out that it was actually the light shining through the grating on the floor from the bedroom under me (which the light was on). The light shined through to the fireplace and made it appear as if there was "face". I tested the theory by using my hand over the "face", and could see it disappear when I moved it around... and I was like... "creepy old house". LOL

I have since moved out and currently live in an apartment. Nothing really creepy except I found a "freezer prayer" in the back of my freezer. It was more of a hex though. I was like... really? There's a hex in my freezer?

People are strange...

My sister thought it was creepy and suggested that I burn it... just to be on the safe side. lol

Nice work Scooby Doo. They would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn't have been for your pesky snooping.

Excellent example of there being a logical explanation for things if people just want to take the time to find it instead of resorting to the more easy "hunted" explanation.

Speaking of Silent Hill, that Pyramid Head guy with the big sword from Silent Hill 2 has got to be one of the creepiest villains ever, haha. Not so much because his appearance is scary (although it is a little bit lol), but because one has to wonder why he looks like that and how someone thought of the idea for him. When I first saw a picture I couldn't stop thinking about how eerie and creepy he was for a few days

I actually never finished Silent Hill 2. I got pretty far in it too, but I think I got lost in some tunnels? I eventually got frustrated and moved to Silent Hill 3, which I liked better. I'm a sucker for creepy amusement parks, so that was right up my ally.

Entertainment wise, the only thing that has ever given me nightmares (and consistent nightmares) was the first Alien movie.

Yeah, I actually didn't finish it either lol. Funny I still remember that character so well though haha. As far as the first Alien movie, I'd say that's understandable. When I first saw it I was really really young and it scared me good enough to close my eyes at some parts.

I watched Alien the other night and it still scares me after all these years. I heard that the original movie was MUCH longer and they had to cut it because the movie was too frightening. I was like... that I would love to see. They don't know how to make good horror movies anymore.

I mentioned in another thread, but if you're an Alien fan, they're coming out with a new Alien game this year. I'm rather excited about because I do love the first movie.

Yup. The new game is called Alien: Isolation. Takes place after the first movie where Ripley's daughter sets out to find her mother not realising what has happened. She also happens to work For the Weyland-Yutani Corporation.

As for Silent Hill 2, still remeber that. I loved it. Finished the game twice. Has two different endings too depending on how good or bad you play. Loved the story.

Chalk me up as another person who's on the fence.

I'm generally scientifically minded when it comes to this stuff- I think most of it has a rational explanation. When I was in college, one of the dorms was said to be haunted. I didn't live in that particular part of the building, and never saw or heard anything, but I did hear stories from other students. No rational explanations have been made yet, as far as I know.

I do like ghost stories, but as folklore, the same way I enjoy mythology.

On the other hand, I do think we're still in the infancy of scientific discovery, and one day, we may well find that the things that seem "supernatural" do indeed have perfectly reasonable explanations.

Totally agree. We are way too quick to jump the gun on unexplained phenomena.

Although believing in the fantastic comforts most, the truth is usually more rational.