Are ghosts real? -Genuine evidence from a sceptic

I hope there is something in it cosreally fancy being one when the time is right

When I lived in Kent we experienced 'something' seeing shadows, hearing voices (not going mad - yet) when no one about, kids battery toys starting up with on one else in the house. Neighbour had similar experiences with someone unlocking her patio door.

When we looked into it we found out that it was previously a brick yard and some poor sod was murdered by being chucked into a huge water container. A medium character (actually she was quite tall) said that the 'ghost' was the murdered chaps brother looking for him. we were advised to burn lavendar oil and a church candle in our hallway and ask the spirit to leave as we left the house to go to work. Felt a right prat but did it anyway.

Real ghost or psychowotsit, we didn't have anymore situations!!

Originally Posted by sinbad

Totally unprovable (without double checking everything you see is real and not "ghostly") and incredibly implausible, but not disprovable either so sure, why not hey?
In your position I would have made the lads I worked with tell me everything they knew about this "ghost" from your story. How often will you find yourself in that position again?

For the record, I'm not completely closed-minded about weird stuff, I'm not even really a cynic. It would be a brilliant experience to witness something genuinely incredible or paranormal, and I believe I would be able to spot something like that if it happened. I haven't, and I don't really believe anyone else has, because I've never been convinced by their accounts or evidence. Everything has an explanation, it's just that "ghost" can be convenient, exciting and something to make a story out of. Maybe all the tall-tale-tellers, exploiters, tricksters, money-grabbers and band-wagon-riders have spoilt things for the few that speak the truth.

Ha ha. So, just for the record I am not saying that this is what I believe. I am just saying that people may have preconceptions, and that this can lead you to believe something, ie that "ghosts" look "ghostly". When, in fact this might not be so.
There might be just ghosts everywhere, if you rule out this preconception.

The truth tellers vrs the others... I mean... the thing with me, was I would genuinely prefer that I had not seen that guy. Or that a normal explanation could have been found for him.

I went down there later that day, and scrutinized the place for some way that a guy could vanish like that. There was no p!ss taking with the lads. No one "didnt want to talk about it", but equally no one was interested in talking about it. It was completely uninteresting, and I suppose the matter of factness of it all made me ignore it to an extent.

Everything has an explanation.

Right. I suppose.
But, the explanation might not always sit in your comfort zone.

This is slightly by the by, but here goes:
I was with a girl, first serious gf, and we were very very close.
She was in uni every day, I was out in the mountains running every day. There was no real change in the pattern, I would be out all day, and I would be back at around the same time. This was pre mobile phone era, and I would be a fair way out in the hills.
One day I just randomly changed my route, and got into difficulties. I wont bore you with details but I ended up in a bad spot, and was utterly convinced I was going to die or get badly hurt for about 15 mins. I wasnt scared per se, but I was very sad for my sisters, and my parents and my gf who would have to deal with me dying.
I managed not to die.
I came home, normal time.
My gf was out, at a friends, and she had left a note for me, but the note made no sense. I managed to find her in the end, but first I found a couple of her friends. They told me that half way through a lecture, she got up, and just left. She had gone to a toilet and thrown up, and she had skipped out of college for the rest of the day. Now, she was pretty dedicated, and she was doing a Masters at the time I think, so she didnt normally do this. She was a mess all day from that point on, I think she was crying and things. None of her friends knew what the story was.
When I met her, she looked at me, and she knew. She looked amazed to see me, we talked for about 30 mins about it. She did not know the details, but she knew that something very bad had (*not* as it turns out) happened.

It was very strange. She left the lecture at the time of my incident. And she was so disturbed that the rest of the day was a write off.

Now, I cant explain that either. But, that also happened. There is no argument about this.
But, the interesting thing is, neither of us ever talked about that again, because it scared us. I am not even sure if she ever thinks about it any more.
My point is, that we did not like this memory, not because I almost bought it, I think it is because we have no idea at all as to how that could happen. Its easier to sort of pretend it didnt happen.
I feel like a bit of a muppet talking about it, and the bike shop event, because of all the rubbish that goes along with this stuff, its sort of embarrassing.

But, I try to be an honest person, and an honest person should simply ignore things that dont fit into their reality.
Believe me though... the fact that we reached this silent agreement to never talk about it again just shows how difficult it is.

Hmm, I'm not sure, still waiting to be convinced but not ruling it out. Certainly hope that there is something after life as we know it. I think that it's a collection of energy of some sort, not necessary in the shape of bodies.
I know that my friend's daughter is 'experiencing' some strange phenonema at the moment, but she is 16 and falls into that adoloscent theory.
Mind you, I do fancy visiting St Marys in Edinburgh - it's supposed to be an old town that has been re-opened after being sealed off because of plague (i think) and then built over. Still has some of the shops in pretty much the same state . Heard stories about weird happenings there, and they now do tours !

Originally Posted by Lionheart

Hmm, I'm not sure, still waiting to be convinced

Me too. And I have a feeling this will probably never occur.
Who knows though eh?

And therefore as a stranger give it welcome...
there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.... and all that.


Ahem.
I'll get me coat on the way out.

Originally Posted by Spiderman

Erm i'm sure you could filnd a misslie that would do far less dmamage as well as one that could do far more. C'mon dude your a military boy so you must know about the yanks MOAB (mother of all bombs) and how big and powefull that was/is. Now that would have taken out half the building if it hit it in the right place. the lack of any substantial airplane parts as well as the lack of a black box leave me sceptical.

And i have no idea where that other plane is. Do you know for a fact it took of and didnt land elsewhere? have you seen flight logs for it or is your question based on "them" saying there was a plane?




.

yeah i know there are really big bombs. but the lack of parts, vaporisation on impact?? black box destroyed?? the scatter pattern is consistant wit ha plane hiting the building, are there eye witnesees to say they saw aplane or missile??

and whay about the 4th plane that never made it United 93, doccumented evidence of a hijak!

Originally Posted by philipMac

Right. I suppose.
But, the explanation might not always sit in your comfort zone.

I'm fully prepared to accept that if it happens, as long as it is a genuine explanation, not just an idea.
What I don't accept is that if something can not be explained then it must therefore be paranormal. There is no solid evidence of any of this paranormal stuff being real, so if you're realistic then the very very last thing it would be is paranormal. All I'm saying is eliminate every possibility, however unlikely, before even considering that it could be x-file worthy- and even then the idea that you're simply not smart enough to figure it out is much more plausible. (The royal "you" not you specifically of course, not an insult ).

[Spiderman]

Originally Posted by sinbad

I'm fully prepared to accept that if it happens, as long as it is a genuine explanation, not just an idea.
What I don't accept is that if something can not be explained then it must therefore be paranormal. There is no solid evidence of any of this paranormal stuff being real, so if you're realistic then the very very last thing it would be is paranormal. All I'm saying is eliminate every possibility, however unlikely, before even considering that it could be x-file worthy- and even then the idea that you're simply not smart enough to figure it out is much more plausible. (The royal "you" not you specifically of course, not an insult ).

I accept what youre saying here and i have the same view tbh.
I'm sure our friend Phil (being a research scientist) does too.

The phone ringing thing i experienced....as soon as i hung the phone up i did the 1471 thing and the last call recieved had not been that one but one from earlier in the day.
At another friends house he used to be able to make his fone ring seemingly at will.....until he admited that he had run the phone line into the room himslef and been realy clever (read lazy) about it and run it under the carpet across the room.
His justifcation was it saved all the fiddly nailing it to the skirtings stuff.
The upshot was that where it rubbed under the carpet it shorted and if you knew where that was all you did was stand on that bit of the carpet and hey presto phone rings!

"I got this girl!!" i thought to myself and jumped up to follow the phone wire to the socket. Sadly for me it was attached to the skirtings to a proper junction box that didnt ring when i banged it. No matter how many times. And anyway she was on the other side of the room to that.

The fact that she was just watching telly while i investigated this and was so uninterested in me doing it also made me aware of her not playing with me.

I rang the phone from my mobile and answered it myself and it worked properly.

Short of surrounding the house in a Farraday Cage until something happended again there was nothing else i didnt attempt to find an answer as to why the fone rang when i dared it to.

So what do i put it down to?

A dodgy phone, its broken and rings randomly and my daring it to was just coincedental timing.

The second time it happens....hmmm? Another coincidence of timing?

Couple that with the footsteps at the top of the stairs on the landing. Footsteps that i heard go right across from the left side of that landing to the right while i stood watched that same space with the lights fully on and saw not a damn thing??

I dont rush to say "OOH I SAW A GHOST" cos i didnt and never have but hearing that and watching but seeing nothing???? WTF is it?

Brings us back to much eye-rolling and "Oh its just the ghost, ignore him he wont bother you" from all the family (including a very no nonsense Dubliner of a dad) and it leaves me with little else but agree with them.

Trust me if i read this and it hadn't happened to me there would still be a part of me that says "maybe hes making it all up" but i aint.

I've lived an interesting enough life without having to add to it with made up stuff, lol.

Originally Posted by Spiderman

Brings us back to much eye-rolling and "Oh its just the ghost, ignore him he wont bother you" from all the family (including a very no nonsense Dubliner of a dad) and it leaves me with little else but agree with them.

Trust me if i read this and it hadn't happened to me there would still be a part of me that says "maybe hes making it all up" but i aint.

Yup. Exactly.
In fact it did happen to me, I think, and I still am not convinced at all. It only happened once. That I know of ... There is a huge part of me that just wants to put that away and not think about it, this is resulting from social pressure basically. I feel that this is dishonest though somehow.

I suppose I should not have said I saw a "ghost", because that in some way is an explanation to what I saw. I have no clue what I saw.

I should say that I, and independently other people, saw something that none of us could explain at the time, or subsequently.

I would suspect that what I "saw" wasnt really there though.

[Spiderman]

That story about your g/f back in uni sounds very much like other things ive heard of and something that happened to me btw.

Originally Posted by Spiderman

That story about your g/f back in uni sounds very much like other things ive heard of and something that happened to me btw.

Right.

This is why I am thinking that "ghosts" are hallucinations that are a result of other people, who are alive.
That there can be communication between people in some odd way, which can be voluntary or none voluntary at both parties, and can manifest itself as actually seeing something, hearing something, or feeling something.

This means that one... sort of leap... you explain multiple things.

If you go the "its dead people" route, then you have to add all sort of other things to the equation. I quite firmly believe when you die, that's it.

Just... from the way I think I suppose, I like the meanest, the cheapest or most parsimonious explanation for anything.

Once you can explain that communication, which granted is really wierd, but its only one thing, then it is totally possible that once the message is in your head, your brain interprets the message in any number of ways.

What is "seeing" anyway? Its just an interpretation of EM radiation bouncing off cells in your eyes, being turned into little pulses and fired into your brain.
Or hearing. Or any sense really.

You brain is the thing that makes what you believe to be real.

One funny example:
I saw an Owl once, high in the Andes. Very beautiful... it just flew right past me when I was getting water for breakfast.
I was completely alone, so no one else saw it. And it was completely silent.

But this is the interesting part.
My brain somehow borked. As far as it was concerned, there was no way that something that size, moving that closely to me, could make no sound at all. So... what did it do? I thought I was imagining the owl. My brain just said, nahh, hallucination mate.

But, I know that owls move silently. From books and things. So, I over rode my brain, and said, no, its an owl.

My point is... that your brain just makes best guesses, resulting from experience. And it can get things wrong, or mixed up very easily I think.