Ghosts

My only experience was in my house growing up, sometimes while in the bathroom (which had a slat/vented door) you could hear the unmistakeable sound of a Zippo opening in the living room. I didn't think anything of it for a while, because my dad smoked and used a zippo, until I heard it when he wasn't home. I heard that noise for years after my parents divorced and he moved out.

Interesting... non-physical phenomena...

Do I believe in ghosts? I have no disproof of them. I have no proof of them. I don't have strong feelings about them.

I can think of several possible explanations from my point of view:
1. They're odd physical phenomena interpreted as ghosts.
2. They're souls in purgatory or hell. It seems unlikely that they'd be souls in heaven.
3. They're demons or some other spiritual being.

Like I said, I haven't personally experienced them, but there have been enough reports by varied enough reporters that it seems highly unlikely that what was experienced is purely psychological in nature.

N Sperlo wrote: In reply to ultraclyde: Reminds me of stone photographs I took in an Alton Illinois cemetery. I was catching colored balls streaking randomly in such a way no breeze would blow dust. It was calm that day anyway. In the same cemetery I was following a cat around and when he stopped to lie down next to a grave stone. At that moment I wanted to take a picture of the stone due to the belief that animals are more sensitive to paranormal events. My camera stopped working. Once I left the area it worked fine. I haven't had a problem with the camera since.

I've got a friend from Alton, apparently there are ghosts all around the town. While she would be one that you would take this with a grain of salt (and she would say the same), her friend from the same place--an atheist working on a Masters in some science field--has said the same thing.

Not to flounder this, OK, whatever... How many of you "atheist" science worshipers have seen something like this that you can't explain or measure? How does that fit with your philosophy? Never forget the quote in McBeth about more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy.

Now, it's my observation that there are a couple types of these events. If you study the reports, there seems to be a bunch that go: this (fill in the blank, girl, man, woman, etc.) dressed like this shows up here in this hall and goes down these stairs... And that is what is observed again and again over the years. Usually, this is associated with some type of terrible event. MY THEORY on these is that, as the universe actually exists in the frequency domain but our perceptions are in the time domain, a very large event like from something terrible will have a huge spike in the frequency domain (large amplitude). I think this can leave echos, and that's what people observe with these repeated things.

The other type seems to be where there's a visitor, like someone you know visits, only it's someone that has passed on. If your religion has you ceasing to exist in a few years, then that won't fit, will it?

I was a sceptic but open to the idea of the paranormal until I started working at a bar in Denver that was haunted. Way too many unexplainable things happened there for me to be in doubt anymore. Everyone who had been there for any considerable amount of time had weird things happen:

a few examples

** I was making coffee in the wait-station near the kitchen one morning when a cold blast of air came through me. I though for sure there was a hole in the roof, or a window open----no windows in that part of the building, and the roof was fine. I told the manager and he just gave me a knowing look and smiled.

** The manager's office was in the basement directly below where the pool table was. When customers were playing pool and a ball dropped it would sound like the pool balls were falling into your lap. There was no mistaking the sound. Occasionally you'd hear the someone break and pool balls drop---- after hours when no one was in the bar. More than once I'd run upstairs to see who had snuck in, only to find the place empty and the pool table untouched.

** After closing occasionally we'd see heavy doors close by themselves, hear footsteps, and every now an again I'd get a serious dose of the heebee jeebees like someone else was there with me. This happened frequently.

Too many strange things happened with no other rational explanation. You may not believe / agree with me, but I'm no longer in doubt that there is something going on within the building on Downing and Evans. (old Fagan's bar / restaurant)

One of those "I'll believe it when I see it myself" issues.

Since I don't believe in an afterlife, it's going to be hard to convince me that ghosts exist and why they even would.

If there were ghosts, tortured souls who died before their time and all, that battlefields would be so dense with them you wouldn't be able to walk through one. I dunno. Hain't seen or heard one myself.

Jay_W wrote: Hain't

On purpose?

Joey

It's also possible that some people are more "in tune" with things like this. Stonehenge gave me the heebie-jeebies....and so did quite a few standing stones and the areas between them. I found out about Lay Lines after I got back to the states.

How much of the average human brain is used? Makes you wonder what the rest of it's up to sometimes. Or the capacity/abilities we've lost as we have progressed.

I'm an athiest and a skeptic.

What I've seen and noticed makes me curious and a bit puzzled but it's not a "hallelujah I'm SAVED!!!" kind of moment.

Paranormal stuff doesn't prove the existence of God anymore than it disproves it.

There's a whole lot (huge amounts, so much you simply can't fathom it all) that we don't know about how life, the universe and everything works. I'm sure there is a reason for it all, what that reason is? who knows?

Shawn

My younger brother took his life 23 years ago, this month. He was 18.

Mom and I have experienced unusual events:

Mom had a cat. She had a cat ornament on the Christmas tree. She was sitting in the living room, alone, one afternoon and when the cat walked past the tree, the cat ornament jiggled. It was 5 feet up on the tree, and the cat was a good 3 feet away. There was no breeze in the house. It was the only ornament that moved.

16vCorey wrote: My only experience was in my house growing up, sometimes while in the bathroom (which had a slat/vented door) you could hear the unmistakeable sound of a Zippo opening in the living room. I didn't think anything of it for a while, because my dad smoked and used a zippo, until I heard it when he wasn't home. I heard that noise for years after my parents divorced and he moved out.

Brother was a smoker and had a Zippo. It's one of his things I have kept, over the years, but I don't smoke (neither does my wife). Occassionally, I have had a need for some sort of flame - lightning birthday candles, heat-shrink tubing, etc. I'll spend twenty minutes searching for Mark's Zippo, fill it, use it and then put it my junk drawer. The next time I need a flame, I spend twenty minutes looking for it, because it's NOT in the damn junk drawer, where I left it!

I see ghosts everytimes I go back home.

Yeah, cause I'm gonna click on a link in a post by someone named Spambot2000. Right. Good choice on the avatar though.

I've had a few.... thousand

We had a leathery woman with a lime green tube top and tan shorts that lived in our hallway and would appear from time to time. We had a grey and white tabby living in our rafters in our loft. My Pappy comes to see me probably once a week.

But the single biggest one (only time I've felt being physically touched) was when my wife's grandmother walked up beside the bed, put her hand on my arm, gently shook it side to side, and said "time to get up." I blinked and she was gone. I just smiled and said, "thanks grandma."

Dr. Hess wrote: Now, it's my observation that there are a couple types of these events. If you study the reports, there seems to be a bunch that go: this (fill in the blank, girl, man, woman, etc.) dressed like this shows up here in this hall and goes down these stairs... And that is what is observed again and again over the years. Usually, this is associated with some type of terrible event. MY THEORY on these is that, as the universe actually exists in the frequency domain but our perceptions are in the time domain, a very large event like from something terrible will have a huge spike in the frequency domain (large amplitude). I think this can leave echos, and that's what people observe with these repeated things. The other type seems to be where there's a visitor, like someone you know visits, only it's someone that has passed on. If your religion has you ceasing to exist in a few years, then that won't fit, will it?

I am a skeptic, but not quite an atheist, and certainly not prescribing to any religion. The short answer is: just because we don't have an answer yet, doesn't mean that there isn't one. There is the distinction between the paranormal and ghosts. I certainly believe there are phenomena that occur outside our normal understanding. I am not inclined to attribute most of them to ghosts, in the sense of disembodied entities. I like your multi-dimensional theory, and think that does a pretty decent job of explaining what most of these would be. I think that can also explain a lot of the objects getting moved, doors opening/closing, etc. type of events.

Visitations by entities with specific identities that are able to actually interact with conscious people are tougher. They seem to tend to visit individuals, or not do things to leave independently verifiable evidence that they were there.

Now, if there are such things (which I think there likely are, but remain skeptical about), it does strike me as tending to indicate some continuation of who we are after death. I do not think it favors any particular religion's or mysticism's views of what the afterlife is.

Dr. Hess wrote: Not to flounder this, OK, whatever... How many of you "atheist" science worshipers have seen something like this that you can't explain or measure? How does that fit with your philosophy? Never forget the quote in McBeth about more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy. Now, it's my observation that there are a couple types of these events. If you study the reports, there seems to be a bunch that go: this (fill in the blank, girl, man, woman, etc.) dressed like this shows up here in this hall and goes down these stairs... And that is what is observed again and again over the years. Usually, this is associated with some type of terrible event. MY THEORY on these is that, as the universe actually exists in the frequency domain but our perceptions are in the time domain, a very large event like from something terrible will have a huge spike in the frequency domain (large amplitude). I think this can leave echos, and that's what people observe with these repeated things. The other type seems to be where there's a visitor, like someone you know visits, only it's someone that has passed on. If your religion has you ceasing to exist in a few years, then that won't fit, will it?

In the paranormal field, there are names for these. The first type if event is called residual because there is no intelligence behind them. These can't move things. They can be seen, smelled, and heard. Its like watching a video. You can't interact. The belief is that objects, primarily rock can absorb energy and release it. Its a scientific event.

The other is called interactive. They have intelligence behind them. They can connect with all senses.

I have experienced both types. Sometimes you can't tell the difference between them.

In reply to N Sperlo:

So what are the common theories regarding interactive phenomena?

64chrysler300 wrote: How much of the average human brain is used? Makes you wonder what the rest of it's up to sometimes. Or the capacity/abilities we've lost as we have progressed.

We use all of our brain. "Humans only use 10% of our brains" is as real as unicorns, leprechauns and a rust free Datsun.

Brainy people talk about the brain.

Bob

In reply to Salanis:

Being interactive, its supernatural and not scientific. They are their own. For instance, residual would be embedded into an object or place. A interactive phenomenon could be a spirit of a deceased, an angel, demon, spirit of an animal (yea I said it). It can be attached to a place, a thing, a person, or just visit. Its really up in the air even in the paranormal field.

What I'm getting at is, I can't really answer that.

In reply to N Sperlo:

So "interactive" is a pretty wide category. You don't classify door closers that stay in the same area differently than entities that follow an object or person?

In reply to Salanis:

You could. If it can effect its environment in a tangible way and it contains its own energy, it would be interactive. A residual ghost is classified differently because its like a video tape. Try talking to the guy on TV and try to get a response. We want to separate the ones we can communicate with from the ones who are more like a memory.

There are other classifications within interactive. You may call one a area based spirit and another could be a follower spirit.

I grew up in a house built as the Matrons lodge at a hospital around the late 1880’s. Supposedly the garage was used as an overflow morgue. Never saw, heard or felt a thing there.

Owned an old Farmhouse in Plymouth Mi that was built in Detroit in the 1890 and moved in the 20’s. Had plenty of residence over the years, but again never saw, heard or felt a thing.

The house we live in now is ‘only’ 58 years old (I hate most newer houses) but I’ve had three experience there that go beyond ‘feeling’ someone is there.

1st coming out of the bathroom someone said ‘Hello Adrian’ from the bedroom end of the house. My wife and fried were the other end of the house and no one else was there. I was terrified and literally white as a ghost my wife and friend seriously thought I was sick when they saw me.

2nd, similar situation, this time alone in the house down in the basement and someone said ‘Hello Adrian’

3rd was different. I walk into the laundry room with my arms full. The dryer was running. The door opened slowly, paused, then closed and the drying continued running. I’ve tried many many times to open and close the door after that and the dryer just wouldn’t stay running. The previous owner of the house died there at 101, we put it down to him watching his house, we just say hello to him now and again if we ever ‘feel’ anything, but those are the only three ‘physical’ instances.

To the question about religion earlier, I fail to see how a belief or experience with ghosts, the dead, paranormal or whatever you want to call it validates or invalidates any belief in any religion or god(s)

You guys know there's drugs to fix that stuff, right?

Dr. Hess wrote: You guys know there's drugs to fix that stuff, right?

Hook a brotha' up...