Anybody seen a ghost or had a paranormal experience?

[Saddleworth2]

I was involved in a house renovation years ago at an old cottage on Doctor Lane near Saddleworth Moors.The old lady who previously owned the property had just died in a house fire there. She did not smoke , there were no issues with gas or electrical faults however ,she burnt to death alone,in her armchair.

I had a guy who was redecorating the property who was admittedly, a self confessed spiritualist who convinced me that her presence was still around .
As we stood inside talking, a chill went through me and I could hear a sweeping brush noise outside . Went out , nothing there. Went back in , sweeping brush, back out nothing.

The decorator just shrugged his shoulders and laughed.

Very eerie.

There are many strange things emanating from Saddleworth.

 

[halfcenturyup]

There are many strange things emanating from Saddleworth.

At least two, apparently :)

 

[Bluesince1979]

I dont believe in any sort of after life, i believe when u go its just like switching a light off, gone. Just like when before you were born.

My sister lost her husband at quite a young age and spent a lot of time after trying to ‘contact him’ via mediums.
It used to wind me up how many cranks and nutters would take advantage of her , filling her head full of shit , all charging a pretty penny. Funny how non of these people did it for free , sharing their gift and goodwill.

Anyway… wheres as at first it pissed me off and would bristle when she told me about her latest ‘contact’ , i soon realised it gave her great comfort so accepted it for what it was and what it did for her.

In the same way, i dont believe in any sort of God but of people want to go to a church then thats absolutely fine with me.

Different strokes for different folks

 

[Sam Armstrong]

It’s been mentioned on here that animals, dogs particularly (and teenagers compared to us older folk), can hear frequencies not audible to most people, is it equally possible then that some people can see visible ones (eg light frequencies) that others can’t?

I don’t believe that ‘ghosts’ are conscious of their surroundings per se or that they are there to deliberately scare people but I do believe their images exist, possibly on a different plane to our own that are only accessible to people when conditions are right and that these are what we see.

Too many people, including celebrities, politicians and even royalty, have admitted to seeing something and have run the risk of losing serious credibility by confessing to having done so … but are still adamant that they did!!!

If, whilst on my own, I genuinely bump into someone in real life (say a celebrity) and then tell someone I did but cannot prove it (for whatever reason) does it mean that my encounter didn’t happen because I can’t get it verified?

Nobody is denying some instances of ‘ghostly’ encounters are, indeed, drug or alcohol related or even as a result of a mental disorder but when more than one person who doesn’t fall into any of the above categories sees the same thing at the same time and describes the exact same details how is that easily explained away??

 

[SkyBlueFlux]

It’s been mentioned on here that animals, dogs particularly (and teenagers compared to us older folk), can hear frequencies not audible to most people, is it equally possible then that some people can see visible ones (eg light frequencies) that others can’t?

I don’t believe that ‘ghosts’ are conscious of their surroundings per se or that they are there to deliberately scare people but I do believe their images exist, possibly on a different plane to our own that are only accessible to people when conditions are right and that these are what we see.

Too many people, including celebrities, politicians and even royalty, have admitted to seeing something and have run the risk of losing serious credibility by confessing to having done so … but are still adamant that they did!!!

If, whilst on my own, I genuinely bump into someone in real life (say a celebrity) and then tell someone I did but cannot prove it (for whatever reason) does it mean that my encounter didn’t happen because I can’t get it verified?

Nobody is denying some instances of ‘ghostly’ encounters are, indeed, drug or alcohol related or even as a result of a mental disorder but when more than one person who doesn’t fall into any of the above categories sees the same thing at the same time and describes the exact same details how is that easily explained away??

My answer to this is that I have no intention of explaining things away - in fact by suggesting alternative sources for the phenomena I’m trying to do the exact opposite. Because suggesting that a phenomena is explained by “ghosts” has no real explanatory power. It is a throwaway statement lacking in intellectual curiosity.

It’s a type of god of the gaps argument. Ancient cultures didn’t understand how weather worked so they would say “must be the gods”. Similarly, people see some apparition they can’t explain and say “must be ghosts”. For me this is a form of “explaining away” activity we don’t understand in a somewhat unhelpful way.

Talking about ghosts just leaves more questions than answers. What is the nature of the ghosts? How do we define them? What are the conditions which lead them to appear?

The fact that I am unwilling to believe in ghosts as an explanation isn’t an admission that I’m close minded. It’s an admission that we don’t understand everything and that I will wait for suitable theories and evidence to appear before trying to fill my knowledge gaps in with an abstract concept that really explains absolutely nothing and consider it case closed.

And for the record, I’m not as militant about it as some folks on here because I really love studying paranormal phenomena. I find it fascinating. I think and hope some day we might find something out there that really surprises us. But until then we shouldn’t be so quick to be satisfied with simple answers to complicated questions.

 

[Big Swifty]

And why is it that ghosts can supposedly pass throgh walls in upper floors of buildings, say bedrooms for example, but they don't fall through the floorboartds?

 

[halfcenturyup]

And why is it that ghosts can supposedly pass throgh walls in upper floors of buildings, say bedrooms for example, but they don't fall through the floorboartds?

I suppose that depends on what you think ghosts are.

 

[M18CTID]

My answer to this is that I have no intention of explaining things away - in fact by suggesting alternative sources for the phenomena I’m trying to do the exact opposite. Because suggesting that a phenomena is explained by “ghosts” has no real explanatory power. It is a throwaway statement lacking in intellectual curiosity.

It’s a type of god of the gaps argument. Ancient cultures didn’t understand how weather worked so they would say “must be the gods”. Similarly, people see some apparition they can’t explain and say “must be ghosts”. For me this is a form of “explaining away” activity we don’t understand in a somewhat unhelpful way.

Talking about ghosts just leaves more questions than answers. What is the nature of the ghosts? How do we define them? What are the conditions which lead them to appear?

The fact that I am unwilling to believe in ghosts as an explanation isn’t an admission that I’m close minded. It’s an admission that we don’t understand everything and that I will wait for suitable theories and evidence to appear before trying to fill my knowledge gaps in with an abstract concept that really explains absolutely nothing and consider it case closed.

And for the record, I’m not as militant about it as some folks on here because I really love studying paranormal phenomena. I find it fascinating. I think and hope some day we might find something out there that really surprises us. But until then we shouldn’t be so quick to be satisfied with simple answers to complicated questions.

Yep, it's always been a fascinating topic for me ever since I was at school. That said, I've never "seen" a ghost myself but it's estimated that nearly 1 in 5 people claim to have. That's an awful lot of people to all be wrong IMO. No doubt many of those sightings can be explained away and there have been plenty of fake sightings/pics down the years too but I think there are simply too many people in the world who have claimed to have seen one for them definitely not to exist. For me the most compelling testimonies are those from non-believers. We even have a non-believer on this thread who says they've seen a ghost (yet still doesn't believe they exist!). My boss at work was always a non-believer as well - that was until he was in Gibraltar a few years back when he says he saw 3 ghosts one night in his hotel room!

 

[SWP's back]

We do now, but we didn't 200 years ago, so we didn't understand about the sounds at that point. As science developed our understanding of the sounds developed. I thought that was his point, about developments in science explaining things that weren't previously explainable. Maybe I misunderstood it.

I thought he was saying you can’t rule ghosts out because dogs can hear things we can’t and maybe science hasn’t yet figured out the wave lengths for ghosts.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Always Victorian and you never get a ghost called Dave or Brittany, this whole ghost thing doesn't sound very inclusive

Generally seen when pissed/high, or filmed on a potato.

Similarly with the sound recordings. How so many people have 19th Century microphones is beyond me. They should sell them. They must be worth a fortune!