Do you believe in ghosts?

Serious replies only. If so, have you had an experience with one?

• Yes, I believe in ghosts. I once saw one in Nantucket. I''ve also had other paranormal experiences.

• R1, did it have a horrible accent?

• I do believe in ghosts. I do believe in ghosts. I do, I do, I do believe in ghosts.

  Cowardly Lion

• A ghost once gave me surprise anal. He pulled out and shot ectoplasm all over my face.

• R1, did he have with him a bucket?

• I believe that this thread will sit in my thread watcher for 2011 and will have mulitple parts.

• When I was about 8 or 9 I was riding my bicycle up and down our street. My grandparents had a house on the same street, both had died and the house was up for sale. It was a shotgun type house with a small front yard- the front windows were close to the street. I was turning my bike around in front of their house when I noticed a bald man looking out the window at me. He must have been very tall- the windows were low and I could tell by what I could see of his posture and the bend of his arms that he was leaning quite far over to look out at me. There was nothing ominous or frightening about it- he just was looking at me and I looked at him and then I rode back down the street. I was just a dumb kid- I didn't think much of it. I told my mother when I got home- I had thought maybe someone was looking to buy the house. She didn't believe me, thought I was joking because there was no one in the house that day she was certain. When she asked me to describe the man, tall and bald- she was really shocked. She said it sounded like my great grandfather- and that my brother when he was a baby saw the same man in the house when he was about 3 years old. He was playing on the floor in the living room while my mother and grandmother had coffee in the kitchen- then he came to her and asked who the tall bald man was in the stripey jacket? It is weird to think about it now because his expression was so matter of fact and the experience so ordinary- I have often thought it has to be a misunderstanding and that it couldn't have been a ghost. I don't know if I believe in ghosts- but I believe what we know for sure in this life is like a grain of sand on a beach.

• I don''t believe until I see one myself or someone else proves their existence

  Patrick Swayze

• Seriously, no.

• Yes, I believe in them but I''ve never seen one. People I know and trust have, though.

• I don''t believe in "heaven" or "hell", but I do believe our soul does move on to another realm of existence when our body dies. I believe it is entirely possible that some souls, for whatever reason, remain in this realm or find a way to move between realms.\ \ A parapsychologist I know told me that when the human soul moves on to the next realm it goes through a learning process and eventually learns that it can move between existences at will and at a moment''s notice. These existences are actually multiple "heavens" that many religious people believe to be made by God. One heaven may be a beautiful forest, the next a beautiful tropical island, and on and on and on.

• I say I don''t believe in ghosts but I took a ghost tour (walking) one night while visiting London. By the tour''s end, in an ancient graveyard, I was so freaked out by the various ghost tales about places along the way that I didn''t want to go near them. Problem was, I had to walk past several "haunted" buildings to get to the Underground station for a subway back to my hotel. I invited a guy on the tour to go with me to a pub, my treat. I told him that there was a fabulous pub next to my hotel. He was very tall, a basketball player. I figured that, if a ghost that I don''t believe in decided to come out of one of those building, it would see him before it noticed me. He never knew that the beer I bought him was payment for being my bodyguard to protect me from the ghosts - that I don''t belive in.

• I have had very eerie dreams in which dead loved ones have talked to me and I have felt "presences," but have never had an outright encounter with a ghost. I believe it''s possible, though.

• I heard a ghost once. Waking behind me in a corridor that was sealed by those loud clunky sounding fire exit doors at both ends. It started out just walking at a steady pace behind me, but then started to move faster and faster. I thought it was a friend of mine about to play and prank or jump on my back so when I reached the other fire exit door, I jumped to the side, thinking my friend would go flying into the doors. So I did that but there was nobody there. I was told later that a construction worker died while working on that part of the buildling.

• I hate it when I come across this kind of thread after dark.

  must read it anyway

• Odd. I don''t believe in ghosts, but have had experiences with them.\ My grandfather had a house on Cape Cod. We''d -- me, cousins, etc -- spent a lot of time there when growing up, and EVERYONE has had an encounter with a ghost. One night, my father, sister, and I heard someone walking up and down the steps, but we checked, and everyone was in bed. So what were those footsteps?\ My sister saw a somewhat shapeless form flipping through a magazine that was on her bedroom table. Several times!\ We''d all hear someone walking downstairs.\ So, I''ve heard evidence, but I''m still skeptical. Although I can''t think of a rational explanation for all the events all of us have heard and seen, I still think there must be one. Either that, or there are ghosts in my granddad''s house.

• Yes, I do. I''ve run into a few of them. The earthbound ones have absolutely nothing of interest to say. They are boring and annoying.

  No, I''m not kidding.

• boo

• R17, do you have an overly active third eye or something?

• Craigmcmanus.com

• Something like that, r19.

  r17

• It''s true, r17. I went through a period of having ''visitors''. Most of them are stuck, and no different to those who are alive and ''stuck''.

  seriously..

• The ghost thread again.

• Do you beleeeeeeee-eeve?

  Cher, autotuning as I type

• get some sleep Shane.

• Here we are, for you ghostie lovers.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uIQp9Dqcrw

• Anyone watch Ghost Adventures? A lot of you would probably like Zac, the lead ghost hunter on the show. It was fun and scared me. I don''t know what to believe though. I will tell you this, when a teddy bear moves and the electric detector moves at the same time in a dark, empty underground lair, it''s fucking freaky.

• I always watch Ghost Hunters. Zak and the other guys crack me up because they''re so over the top - I''m not sure if I buy all of their experiences, but it is kind of creepy when they play back one of those EVP''s or whatever they''re called and a voice or footsteps (yikes) are heard. I''ve never seen a ghost but have had a few strange experiences. Once my sister and I were just sitting in our room talking and all of the sudden the front part of an oscillating fan just came off - it didn''t drop off like something was loose on it, it looked like someone just yanked off its face, like it was pulled off and I still think that''s weird, but I don''t know what caused it.

• I believe in gusts.

• I believe in the classic DL ''Occult'' thread, missing believed dead. I wish that could return to haunt me again.

• R30, it was a great thread. Fascinating and scary posts. Hopefully we''ll be getting that DL archive sometime soon.

  Oh wait...

• No, I do not.%0D\ %0D\ Because I''m not an idiot who jumps to conclusions.%0D\ %0D\ To see something you don''t understand and to immediately assume that it''s caused by a disembodied "spirit" of a dead human being, is just ludicrous.%0D\ %0D\ Especially given that what you saw can probably be explained by any number of actual, probable situations or events (including a trick of your own perception ... it''s all in your mind).%0D\ %0D\ It''s just so strange to me that people are so willing and eager to jump to bizarre and nonsensical conclusions based on little or no evidence. See a light in the sky you don''t understand? Well, it MUST be little green men with big eyes and no hair from Mars! %0D\ %0D\ What the fuck is wrong with people? Why can''t you just say "I saw something I don''t undertand" instead of having to make up complete bullshit stories about it?%0D\ %0D

• What I can''t understand are the responses from people like R32. Why all the anger? Why are some skeptics always calling others who do not share their beliefs "idiots" or stupid or whatever? They are so closed to other ideas that they are the ones who are idiots. %0D\ %0D\ I''ve seen things that seem to be paranormal and although I do believe in ghosts, I''ve always been able to question what I have seen and think perhaps what I experienced wasn''t paranormal and maybe just a trick of the mind.%0D\ %0D\ So why are some skeptics such jackasses?%0D\ %0D\ Oh, I forgot: I''m on Datalounge.

• Not sure if I believe in them or not. I''m a little skeptical but open. I''ve never seen one but I got a little freaked out one night because my cat was intently staring out from the kitchen towards the dining room with all the hair on her body standing on end. At around that same time there was a crashing sound. After investigating I found a small table had tumbled down the stairs. Just an overall weird experience. The cat was freaked out about something because she''s never acted like that since.

• I was with a friend who had an experience once. It was at a theater in Pennsylvania, the Fulton Opera House. It''s very haunted. While we were running a scene for a show in a rehearsal hall, the stage manager and the director gasped and looked at each other (I saw them react). I asked what happened and they were both pale white. They had seen a girl with dark hair in a white dress bolt past them and to the back behind the actors and then vanish, but nobody else paid attention and missed it. But the fact that they BOTH saw it and BOTH reacted to it freaked me out. \ \ If there''s any theater in the world haunted, it''s the Fulton. It stands on the site of a pre-revolutionary prison and the back wall of the prison is part of the theater. In 1763, the last members of the Conestoga Indian tribe were slaughtered in the prison by an unruly mob. Anyone who has worked there at length invariably will have an experience they won''t understand.

• A few years ago, my partner and I stayed at an old b&b in the Maritimes. He was attending mtgs during the day which left me time to wander around. The innkeeper encouraged me to poke around the property and check out the history of the place, so I did. I found a small, winding staircase that led to a landing and a bedroom with an open door. Lining the hall was a series of old photos. I looked at each one, the typical stony-faced black and white photos you see in museums. The final photo was of a heavy set woman, alone, seated, looking stern with her pulled back hair. It creeped me out. I proceeded thru the open door to the room (it wasn't a guest room) and walked to the small window to look out when all of a sudden, the closet door swung open with great force. I screamed (yes). Then told myself I must have stepped on a spot in the floor that pressured the door open. Later that night, at about 3am, my partner suddenly started talking in his sleep. Clearly and slowly. I hadn't told him anything about what happened during the day, yet he recounted step by step what had taken place. His first words were, "I saw your photo on the wall..." it was recited almost like a poem. I shook him awake, and I was shaking at this point, and he had no awareness of what he said. The next morning, I, very sheepishly, mentioned to the innkeeper we'd had some strange things happen. To which she replied, "oh Stella had an active night last night - she cleared all the stuff off the bureau in the room above yours, too!" We were stuck there one more night and needless to say, I kept a light on all night AND my eyes open!!!

  Now I''m a believer!

• no

• R32 is just asking for a haunting!%0D\ %0D

• Where was that R36? I love the Maritimes, I''d like to go.

• No.

  Will

• R33, seriously, why do you think R32 is a jackass?%0D\ %0D\ Calling out idiots for being idiots isn''t being a jackass.%0D\ %0D\ If someone hears a thump, and immediately jumps to the conclusion that there is some disembodied human spirit that is troubled or angry... how can you NOT mock such stupidity? %0D\ %0D\ Why do you coddle such utter idiocy and defend it?%0D\ %0D\ When people can''t separate fantasy from reality, that''s a problem. When people have absolutely no concept of logic or reason, that''s a problem. When people let their imaginations run wild and confuse that for "factual evidence", it''s a bad thing.%0D\ %0D\ So why do you lash out and attack anyone who says the blindingly obvious?%0D\ %0D

• R41, most people identify themselves as the poster they are referring to when it''s their own previous post. Do you not know about trolldar? Now you seem like an idiot.%0D\ %0D\ Both of your posts are self-righteous and asshole-y. You start name-calling and then wonder why someone takes offense? %0D\ %0D\ And, where on here did anyone say that they hear a little bump and automatically assume it''s a ghost? No one does that. It''s naturally human to look for the real cause. It''s when they can''t find a real cause that they start to question things. Hell, I don''t think most people on this thread even said they definitively believe in ghosts. They just described things that happened to them that were inexplicable and had some ghostly type properties. %0D\ %0D\ Since you have no countering explanations aside from "I don''t know", maybe you should just keep your attitude to yourself, huh?

• [quote]So why do you lash out and attack anyone who says the blindingly obvious? %0D\ %0D\ There''s a huge difference between pointing out something that may be blindingly obvious and being downright nasty. You probably are unable to comprehend the difference. %0D\ %0D

• How is stating a fact "name-calling"?%0D %0D What do YOU call someone who leaps to outrageous conclusions based on the flimsiest of evidence? I mean, besides "republican".%0D %0D And I know all about Troll-dar. You're trying to create non-existent controversy and you assume intentions not in evidence. No wonder you defend idiots.%0D %0D [quote]And, where on here did anyone say that they hear a little bump and automatically assume it's a ghost? No one does that. %0D %0D You're either ignorant, or a liar. I'll assume ignorant. I've seen and heard people do that all the time. Or exactly equivalent things. And you know they do that. So what are you trying to do here? Play some strange sort of devil's-advocate? Just stop it.%0D %0D [qutoe]It's naturally human to look for the real cause. It's when they can't find a real cause that they start to question things. %0D %0D That's fine. Where did I say I have a problem with that? I have no problem with that and in fact was very explicit in stating so. It's not the questioning that is the problem. It's teh jumping to absurd, outlandish, completely unsuppoted conclusions that is the problem.%0D %0D Even if you saw a ghostly apperition, captured it on film as a shimmering translucent *something*... the leap to assuming it's a "soul" or a "ghost" of a dead human is still a major leap. You know nothing of the sort. Why not assume it's an alien? Or a soul of an animal? Or a projection of a human from the future into our present? Or a trans-dimensional vision from a parallel universe? See? There are a million things you can think of... because you have no evidence to really rule anything out. What's wrong with "I saw something weird that I can't explain?" %0D %0D [quote]Since you have no countering explanations aside from "I don't know", maybe you should just keep your attitude to yourself, huh?%0D %0D How does THAT make any sense? I'm making a perfectly valid point, whether you want to acknowledge it or not.%0D %0D %0D %0D

• One time I mistook semen for a ghost.

• [quote]There''s a huge difference between pointing out something that may be blindingly obvious and being downright nasty. You probably are unable to comprehend the difference. %0D\ %0D\ You are apparently unable to as well. And about the ten thousandth time you''ve had to point out the same obvious fact, you''d probably be a little exasperated as well.%0D\ %0D\ Just because you''re hearing something you don''t really want to hear, doesn''t mean the person speaking it is being "mean" or "nasty". Your irrational reaction is not my problem.%0D\ %0D\ Now grow up.%0D

• R44, it really wasn''t necessary to post all of that...we already have ample evidence that you''re an asshole. And, now we also know you have reading comprehension problems and obviously can''t even read your own previous posts if you are serious about the "Name calling? What name calling?" bullshit.

• (rolling eyes). Same could be said of you. From my perspective, you''re the one being an asshole.%0D\ %0D\ But fine, you don''t think critical thinking is a valuable skill to have, and think it''s fine if people believe in magical childish thinking well into adulthood, and are gullible tools who believe astrology and tarot and ghosts and aliens and all that crap is real.%0D\ %0D\ No wonder this country (and world) are in such bad staits.%0D\ %0D

• [quote]Now grow up.%0D\ %0D\ Please stand in front of your mirror, R46, and repeat that one hundred times. Maybe it will sink in.%0D\ %0D\ You exhibit the nastiness of a hate-mongering TeaBagger. I''ll bet you were devastated when McCain-Palin lost.

• There is nothing funnier than an atheist who believes in ghosts.

• I hate when threads go all USENETy

• [quote]You exhibit the nastiness of a hate-mongering TeaBagger.%0D\ %0D\ And you exhibit the reasoning and intelligence and knowledge of a TeaBagger.%0D\ %0D\ I''m exactly the opposite.%0D\ %0D\ TeaBaggers believe in shit that isn''t true. Like Obama''s a socialist. Or a "muslin". Or that ghosts are real, and that Republicans are fiscally responsible.%0D\ %0D\ You''re only making my point further. %0D\ %0D

  A Liberal Progressive just standing up for reason and truth. Sheesh.

• Amen, R50! :-)%0D

• Thanks for ruining the thread by arguing about your opinions as if they were facts. Way to go.

• How is "People needlessly jump to conclusions that aren''t supported by any evidence and end up just making stuff up and pretending it''s real" not a fact in this case?%0D\ %0D\ And I''m hoping to ruin this thread, actually. There''s too goddamned many stupid "do you believe in ghost" threads in this place. There seems to be at least one a month. It''s ridiculous and laughable.%0D\ %0D\ It''s also funny how asking or expecting someone to actually think critically always results in them sputtering and getting really defensive and mean and confrontational and upset. Because it''s such a HORRIBLE thing to expect of someone I guess.%0D\ %0D\ And idiots never liked their idiocy being pointed out. Which isn''t ever going to stop me from pointing it out, mind you. But it''s amusing anyway.%0D\ %0D

• I think all of the ghost hunter kind of shows are complete bullshit (though the one with celebrities talking about weird experiences is fun, especially if you go in trying to figure out which ones are describing something real and which ones just want free publicity.) But on the other hand, I do believe in ghosts because I saw one, it was in my college library, fully formed real looking woman in Victorian clothes who vanished (and I did search the whole floor to be sure). Most people in my family have some kind of story. I have a niece who when she was very young (too young to make it up) described a nice old man who used to come and talk to her. One day she pointed him out in a family picture. It was her great grandfather who had died about four months after she was born. There are others, but just the other day my friend was telling me how her grandson had called her sounding completely terrified and asked her to come get him where he and his friends had gotten together. When she pulled up, he was trying to rip her car door open before it had stopped and she saw the whole group of boys standing in the middle of the street staring at an open garage and all of them were terrified. When he got in the car, he was frantically asking her "Do you see him? Do you see him?" but when she looked, no one was where he was pointing. She asked him who it was and he told her, I can't remember the name, but it was a friend of his who had been killed (shot) in that garage a couple of weeks before. He told her they had all (a group of 10-11 boys) seen him standing there covered in blood and laughing at them when they had bolted at the sight of him. She said she'd never seen her grandson look that scared and he won't even go into that neighborhood anymore. But since the kid had been shot there and everything, she kind of saw it as a good thing if it kept him away from a place that was obviously dangerous. My mother also told me once that she had an image of her grandmother waving goodbye the day she died (before she found out she had died). I've heard of others, but those are ones which involved actually seeing someone who wasn't/couldn't have been there. But it always makes me laugh a little when people try to explain to me how I didn't actually see anything, and it was some singular, complex delusion that I somehow had stone cold sober in the middle of the day in a brightly lit room. Because that's somehow supposed to be more logical. When weird stuff happens, I guess it's just a question of which outlandish sounding explanation happens to make sense to you.

• [quote]There is nothing funnier than an atheist who believes in ghosts.\ \ There is nothing funnier than a Christian who judges atheists.

• [quote]There''s too goddamned many stupid "do you believe in ghost" threads in this place. There seems to be at least one a month.%0D\ %0D\ And you lie like a hate-mongering Republican, too.

• [quote]And about the ten thousandth time you''ve had to point out the same obvious fact, you''d probably be a little exasperated as well.%0D\ %0D\ %0D\ ten thousandth time? Really? It''s amazing that one person can pour out so much bullshit, but you manage to do it very well. Go back to Free Republic with the rest of the liars.

• [quote]But on the other hand, I do believe in ghosts because I saw one, it was in my college library, fully formed real looking woman in Victorian clothes who vanished (and I did search the whole floor to be sure). %0D\ %0D\ Or, you thought you did. You perceived something. Whether it was real, or a trick of the light or a trick of the mind, you don''t know. What it was, if it was real, you don''t know. You saw [italic]something[/italic], or at least imagined you did.%0D\ %0D\ The mind can and does play tricks, and perceptions can be deeply flawed and even misremembered.%0D\ %0D\ Of course, it depends on what you mean when you say you "saw a ghost". If you mean "I saw a dead woman''s spirit from the past", you probably didn''t. If you merely mean it as short-hand for "I saw something weird, or at least thought I did, and it sorta looked like what most people mean when they think of a ghost, but who knows what it really was", then okay.%0D\ %0D

• [quote]Go back to Free Republic with the rest of the liars.%0D\ %0D\ You don''t realize how hilarious this is. Not just from your pedanticness, but the fact that anyone who insists they saw a ''ghost'' and that ''ghosts'' are real is the one doing the lying and believing in delusions... like they do at Free Republic.%0D\ %0D

• An alternate idea is that the thread-ruiner dude lacks imagination and is hostile to any idea that he cannot wrap his mind around or that does not fit into his world view. %0D\ %0D\ Don''t you have anything better to do with your time? Also, since you have stated that your goal is to ruin a thread, maybe everyone else should "ff" your post at r55.

  Trying to stay out of the futile argument, but having difficulty.

• My partner and I investigate haunted places and I have indeed experienced ghost activity. In one house, we had furniture stacked on the second floor of the house. I mean a heavy Victorian table stacked upside down on a vase and drawers taken out of cabinets stacked end to end on top of them. We have also picked up frightening EVP''s which ghosts say thongs such as "leave us alone...we are dead". My partner is a psychic medium and used his abilities to speak to ghosts.

• Like I said, r60, it's just a matter of which outlandish explanation a person chooses to believe. Since I was actually there and all, I can only perceive it for myself. But lets say you're a hard working, and fairly boring college student. You don't like beer and have never seen the appeal of mind-altering substances. You do however love to read, and particularly love the old books they keep in the old library building, which they have built the new modern library around, keeping the the structure intact. But since it's essentially connecting two buildings, the door between them metal and very heavy. The the floors are made of thick plates of glass, so the room is actually very bright and not given to shadows at all, since you get the light from below as well as above. One day, you go up looking for a book and head into a room you've been in several times without anything unusual happening. You have a habit of glancing down each aisle as you pass by it, and have only seen other people on the floor the same time as you on one or two occasions, since only the really old books are kept there, but that makes you a little cautious about being caught there alone with someone. You pass by one aisle and see that today is one of those days someone is there. A woman, facing one shelf with her arm raised to either grab a book or put it back or something. But her clothes seem a little strange, long sleeved shirt and long black skirt that kind of poofs out in the back. Her hair is up in a bun, you can't tell if it's white or blonde. All that in and of itself isn't all that strange. I mean, it's college. It could just be some SCA kid who likes dressing up. But just before you make it completely past, you notice something else that seems strange. The lady seems to have heard you passing and turned toward you, but she moved very slowly,so slowly that she doesn't even get her face all the way around toward you before you pass out of sight. So you stop after about another step and think for a moment about what you saw and that it just seemed a little strange. So after a couple of seconds, you lean back around to find there's no one there anymore. You frown, and call out a "Hello?" or two, knowing the loud ass door is behind you, you walk to the end of the aisle and look and still don't see anyone. The room isn't that big and you just have to know, so listening carefully for anyone moving or the door, you make a circuit around the entire room only to find you are alone. It's weird, but you're not really scared. You don't have any bad feelings about the place and it doesn't seem like you're not welcome there. So you shrug and head over to get your book and take off. You've glanced down enough aisles to know what a person standing ten feet away from me looks like, so it's a little funny when people go out of there way to explain to you that you didn't actually see someone there. But you also know that since they didn't see it for themselves, that's a very natural reaction.

• Oh and for the sake of it, here is a picture of what this area of the library looks like with the glass floors.\ \ That photo stream isn''t mine though, I never took any pictures of the library, but it''s distinctive enough that it wasn''t hard to find one.\ \ How a person would randomly imagine a whole person standing just a few feet away is as absurd to me as I''m sure my story sounds to anyone who is somehow graced with the ability to understand everything that is or isn''t possible in the world.

  http://www.flickr.com/photos/cooperharrison/3877374090/sizes/z/

  r64

• Ghost Hunters has a new investigator Adam Berry, who happens to be from Provincetown. He and his partner have their own paranormal business or something like that.

• I have never seen a ghost but I think they probably do exist. I watch Ghosthunters and those type of shows but I usually have to tape them and watch them during the day.\ \ One time after my cat died, I was sitting in bed reading and I swear I felt the bed sink like when the cat would jump on the bed. It was near my feet. I felt my legs go down and I looked up from the book but saw nothing. I felt it only once.

• [quote]I mean a heavy Victorian table stacked upside down on a vase and drawers taken out of cabinets stacked end to end on top of them.%0D\ %0D\ Your ghost could totally be in New York Social Diary!

• "A parapsychologist I know told me that when the human soul moves on to the next realm it goes through a learning process and eventually learns that it can move between existences at will and at a moment''s notice. These existences are actually multiple ''heavens'' that many religious people believe to be made by God. One heaven may be a beautiful forest, the next a beautiful tropical island, and on and on and on."%0D\ %0D\ Your friend sounds like a schizophrenic. How would he know this to be true with any certainty?

• I never believed in them. Never really thought about ghosts. Never wanted to see one or was in the least bit interested in them. I thought it was all superstition and silly kids stuff. Then in the summer of 92 I found myself staying at a victorian era bed and breakfast in Boston. One night as I was getting ready for bed I turned and noticed a shimmering light hovering next to the bed. I was totally awake, not drunk or stoned and absolutely riveted to this soft glowing light. I watched as this light slowly revealed itself to be a youngish man with dark hair wearing a white t-shirt. He was only visible from the waist up. I could see his face, hair, arms,chest. The most remarkable thing was that the light generated from him!! He illuminated the entire corner of the room. It was not frightening or scary...more fascinating then anything. The apparition looked directly at me them slowly evaporated in a shimmering mist. The entire encounter lasted no more then five minutes. I was stunned and shaken up. When it happens to you it changes your perception on life. I now know that their is something going on....After life??? I don't know...but its something.

• The funniest part about the self-righteous asshole of a thread ruiner is that he''s too stupid to have an understanding of alternate universe theories, multi-verse theories, extradimensional theories, etc., which could manifest in this universe as "ghosts".%0D\ %0D\ It''s actually thought that the force of gravity is only a fraction of what it should be in our universe because all we feel of it is the part that has slipped through the bounds of another universe. Gravity, by its nature as a force, should be much stronger than it is and scientists can''t now account for its weakness.%0D\ %0D\ If gravity, the entire basis of our universe, is extradimensional, then other energies and forces can be, too.

• I don''t believe in ghosts, but ghosts believe in me.

• You know I had an experience and I can''t say if what I saw was paranormal or could be explained away- I just don''t know. I have no issue with those who say its impossible and no issue with the people who feel ghosts are 100% real. \ \ I do know when someone gets excessively angry and insulting about a difference of opinion or viewpoint that person has a definite problem.\ Makes me wonder what they are trying to make up for with all the bluster.

• I''ve posted this before but I''ll repost. My brother''s little girl spent a lot of time as a small child at a plantation where her grandma was in charge of the preservation society. This plantation dates back to the some of the earliest settlers and also was home to a "witch" during all that hysteria. Grandma freely admits it''s hauntd by several past occupants and used to hear my niece talking and playing with someone. When questioned she said she played with a little boy who used to live there but died a long time ago. Grandma has had to spend the night there on occasion and said she is never comfortable, not threatened, but as if she''s being watched and definitely not alone.

• Can you imagine what an awful life the thread-ruiner leads that he has to come on here and vent anger at complete strangers? Wouldn''t it be ironic if, after he died, he came back as a ghost?

• Don''t know if I believe in ghosts, but I believe in residual energy, sorta energy recordings. Like if something really bad happened in a room, that bad energy will linger on long after the event is over.

• When my grandmother was dying, myself, daughter and mom were by her bedside. I kept seeing a dark grey form hovering at the top of the bed. I noticed my daughter looking around also so I asked what she was staring at. She described the exact thing I was viewing. The only one who did not see it was my mother who is an evil bitch to begin with.%0D\ Just after that my grandmother sat straight up in bed, pointed to the wall and said "the angels'' are here. She passed later on that early morning. Didn''t feel afraid but it caused me to think about the fact there can be other forms of beings I don''t know about. RIP granny, I miss you daily.

  Anonymous

• I certainly do.

  Mrs. Muir.

• Who ya gonna call?

• I think most people are capable of comprehending theories about the multiverse and other dimensions - most iterations of string theory say that our universe has 11 dimensions - but there''s something disingenuous about your statement, R71. Yes, the ''thread-ruiner'' is extreme in his denunciation, but to automatically equate ghosts with extradimensional energy is a strong leap to make.%0D\ %0D\ For the record, I do believe in the multiverse and the potential for other dimensions besides the three we directly observe. I am very skeptical, though, that energies from these dimensions would manifest as anthropomorphic facsimiles of the dead.

• Even sceptics can enjoy a good ghost story, so keep them coming!%0D\ %0D

  Sceptic

• [quote]It''s just so strange to me that people are so willing and eager to jump to bizarre and nonsensical conclusions based on little or no evidence\ \ This the basis for religion. So no one should be surprised that it''s so pervasive.

• this *is*

• My grandfather had been ill and while sitting in his chair told grandma "the angels were coming for him," and he died that night.%0D\ %0D\ In HS we were rehearsing for a play. The auditorium was by the gym. There was the sound of the bleacher in the gym being pushed in, a LOUD racket. We ran in there and no one was around. We searched and nothing. %0D\ %0D\ After the story got out, the coaches and staff said the toilets flushed by themselves and doors closed, phones would light up, while the school was empty. This was all on that side of the building.%0D\ %0D\ It also came out that they moved a cemetery from that side of the building to build the school.%0D\ %0D\ A band friend said she saw a ghost lady there too.

• Ok here's my story: Unfortunately I was very young so I can't say it's a rock solid memory and for years I still wondered if I was dreaming or imagining things. I asked my mom about it last year and she said "I think so , I can kinda remember that." For my Mom, then means "yes, but I don't want to think about it too much." My Mom moved in with my Grama - who lived alone after her husband died- right after I was born. The house was small, one level ranch house so I had to share a bed with Grama all growing up (yes we weren't rich.) One night I was in bed and my grama was getting ready for bed and I was under the covers and my Mom came in to check on me and tuck me in. Grama asked Mom, "Do you have the tv on in the other room- or the radio?" Mom had just shut the house down for the night so no. Nothing was on. Keep in mind, this is a house wherein you can yell "Phone!" from one end of the other without effort. If the back bedroom door is open, you can hear everything in the house. Grama, paused and said, "do you hear that?" We all listened and sure enough it sounded like a dinner party happening in the other room- except you could only hear it through the bedroom vents. It was the strangest thing. Mom went to check and see if anything was on but there was nothing the whole house was dark. She even went outside to see if the noise was from a neighbors house. Nothing. The whole neighborhood was quiet. Through the vents we heard muffled laughter and plates clinking. A happy room of muffled voices. After a few minutes, it faded out. Mom and grama thought it was strange but nothing about it was threatening so we all - we they - just forgot about it. I heard it once more that night but never again after that. At the time the sound was strange, it was not so much like a real sound coming from within the house but like the [italic] memory [/italic] of a sound. My Grandfather built that house for my Gama and him and I learned years later that my grandfather died in that room. If it actually happened my own personal theory is that this was his happy memory. That moment when you're hosting a party and you take a break to go to the bathroom or kitchen or something and you can hear the waves of laughter coming in through the vents. I've had moments like that since then and I always take special notice because that relaxed happy noise is exactly what i heard back in that room as a small child. I've never experienced anything like that since, never seen a ghost and I'm very skeptical of them but I can't deny anyone else their own experience or rule it out altogether.

• There were ghosts in the house I lived in during my teenage years, from '73 to '83. We'd hear loud footsteps-- stomping really-- going down the length of the library, but the second you'd touch the doorknob to yank the door open, it would stop. On several occasions various members of our family were heading upstairs to go to bed, i.e. that person would be the last one to go up, and the powder room door in the downstairs hall would partially close and the light would turn on. Sometimes, right after you'd gotten into bed and turned off the light, you'd feel someone press down on your shoulder or kick the foot of the bed. It's hard to describe if you don't experience it yourself, but you'd have the feeling that who- or what- ever it did that was merely curious, not evil or bad. On one occasion, I was grooving around the family room listening to loud music. My family was out, and I still remember that it was Rick James singing "Superfreak." I opened my eyes and there was a man walking across the room right in front of me, about 5 ft away. He wasn't transparent, but he wasn't 100% opaque either. You couldn't see through him, but could tell instantly that he wasn't substantial like a flesh and blood human. He seemed completely unaware of me. even when I gasped, and was gone within a few seconds. I didn't say anything to my family about it, even though I was a bit freaked out. Frankly, I sort of wondered if maybe I had a brain tumor or something. About a month or two after this experience, my Mom and i were sitiing in the breakfast room talking and she was facing the kitchen. I saw her start and look at something very intently, then shake her head. I said "what?" and looked behind me, but nothing was there. It took a couple minutes to convince her to tell me what she'd seen. She finally said she'd seen a man walk across the end of the kitchen-- he'd walked from the pantry and disappeared into the oven. Her description of ho=im completely matched what I'd seen, down to his hair color, clothes, etc. She said he seemed completely oblivious to us, like he was just on his way somewhere. Then there was the poltergeist, or whatever it was, that terrorized our 120-pound dog one afternoon. We've always thought that these were entirely different ghosts or manisfestations, maybe different dimensions. The stuff that happened with the powder room and our dog gave us all an extremely uneasy feeling, like something evil was there. The other manifestations felt very neutral and weren't worrisome.

• There are more logical explanations to ghosts than any evidence of them at all. In older times houses were reliant on kerosene lamps, torches and flame-generated light that naturally cast shadows that made it seem like things were moving. %0D %0D Moonlight coming into through a window could light up sheer curtains making them look like ghosts. %0D %0D Houses used to be made mostly of wood and would settle, which would generate the creaking noises that sounded like footsteps. Wind would whip through older houses through cracks and crevices again generating those sounds. %0D %0D I grew up in a house with upright steel radiators, clanging pipes and steam heat. The sounds you hear as the heat kicks on could scare the pants off anyone, and any cat or dog. %0D %0D Finally, we process dreams every night which come from the subconscious, and it may seem like you're "visited" by dead relatives, etc. %0D %0D And also, there are animals such as mice, squirrels, racoons, cats, dogs, and birds that can also be the source of "mysterious sounds." %0D %0D No, I don't believe in ghosts.

• R87, good to know it was just raccoons turning on the lights in our powder room and closing the door. That''s a relief.

  R86

• R80, was there a part of my use of the word ''could'' and my putting the word ''ghosts'' in quotes that wasn''t understandable? %0D\ %0D\ I said nothing about them being anthropomorphic in nature. Reports of ghosts are usually of whisps or shadows or cold spots or electrical manifestations. Those are all energy, force and light based. The reason I discussed the partial gravity theory was to explain what I was talking about. "Ghosts" could be considered holdover energy or partial energy seeping through from another dimension or universe.

• People dream about dead people all the time. It''s the basis of ancestor religions and ghosts.

• It''s nice that you''re dialing it back now, R71/R89.

  Your Menstrual Cycle

• R91, are you suffering from some form of mental illness?

• R85, that reminds me of something that happened in my house. Very late one night I was reading in bed when I heard muted voices that also sounded like a group of people talking - but it sounded like they were coming from outside. However, this happened in winter, it was freezing out, and it was like 1:00AM, so I knew there wasn''t anybody outside (I live in the burbs of a major east coast city). Then the voices became louder and louder, though I still couldn''t understand them, and began to move until it sounded like they were actually coming from my living room. Cautiously I crept downstairs and when I was about half way down the steps, the voices completely stopped.

• No, R92 - you''re just easy to wind up.

• I don''t deny that ghosts may exist, but I don''t really believe they do, no.

  Francis

• I don''t believe in ghosts (maybe because the thought scares me), but two of my closest friends--very sane and trustworthy guys--have told me on separate occasions the kitchen of my house is haunted.%0D\ %0D\ The first friend claims to be a bit of a medium, in that spirits who''ve passed on "try to get his attention." He likened it to "being able to hear a station on the radio that no one else can hear, and it only comes in once in a while." The second friend doesn''t claim to have any such abilities.%0D\ %0D\ Both, however, agree that the spirit of a man is bound to a very specific spot in my kitchen. (These two friends have only met once, and have never been in my home simultaneously.) They describe a feeling of cold---altough the spot is directly in front of the oven---and a male energy.%0D\ %0D\ The strange thing is that despite having lived in the house for nearly 10 years, none of us (me, my partner, or our dog) have ever seen, heard, or sensed anything odd in the house.

• I sure do!

  Cackle Cackle (authenticated)

• I love the ghost stories in this thread! Please keep them coming!

• Not a ghost story but an encounter with Shadow People. When I was in college, I rented a room out of a house owned by a crazy lady. She talked to herself all the time and one time I asked her who she was talking to and she replied, "The Angels." She would get into arguments with them in her room in the dead of night and I would hear her as she yelled at them. I often thought I saw shadows moving very quickly out of the corner of my eyes when I was there. Like you think you see a person standing off to the side, but when you turn your head, there's no one there. One night, I was lying in my bed with my girlfriend and I was starting to drift off to sleep when a man stood up right next to my bed and scared the crap out of me. I jumped up and actually was sort of screaming and it was enough to wake my g/f who convinced me it was a dream. I figured it was since I was skeptic. I did however, describe the man I saw to her as being completely in shadow but wearing a type of fedora hat and a trench coat or cloak. Years later I was listening to a radio program where people were describing something known as "The Hat Man" as a very common "shadow person" that many people have seen. I went home and googled "Hat man" and got chills because the artist rendering on Wikipedia was EXACTLY what I saw. After I moved out of that house, I've never seen anymore shadow people. I did once see my mom's cat who passed away in her house. When I told my mom, she laughed and said she and her husband had seen the cat several times in the house after it died.

• My story: I went to a graveyard in Westchester NY to pay my respects to a friend that passed. I took pictures of her stone, and when I uploaded them that night, there are faces in the pictures of a child and woman. I couldn''t move for about an hour after seeing this. The next day, the stereo started coming on by itself and I would smell roses. I left lavender roses for my friend as they were here favorite. This went on for a year until I moved. My friends thought I was crazy, until they experienced the stereo just popping on randomly. It never did that before the graveyard visit. I don''t know who or what followed me home, but I truly believe something did.

  I believe

• Now see, here''s where my skepticism comes out. There was something wrong with your stereo, r100. You should have taken it in for a fix. It was just a coincidence that it happened after your grave visit. You made that connection that it was related because our minds like to make patterns and connections when often there are none.

• R100 - can you post a link to said pics?

• R98....cat ghosts are very common in hauntings. I have "felt'' many a cat ghost in Cape May NJ. That towns b&b''s are wonderfully haunted if any of you are interested....especially the House of Royal B&B, the John F Craig House. Also the. Bedford...ghost of an old African American housekeeper there.\ At the Columbia house...I had a dream about cats that was a bit unsettling as I had heard about cat ghosts in that Guest house. All of these places are beautiful b&bs ....you bitches will love them.

• My Grandmother was a medium and very much a Spiritualist, so I grew up around this. For the most part I never felt what everyone else was picking up on. I spent alot of time in various places that were said to be haunted but while everyone else was going on and on I just waited. My office is in a haunted building, nothing. There were a few times that I have seen ghosts, but in otherwise very ordinary circumstances. Once in a former public building that was now a gallery, once on a street, that sort of thing. Never when slinking around old graveyards or the basements of abandoned mansions. I did see something and hear something in an abandoned childrens hospital, but that was the exception.

  Will

• I''ve had cat ghost experiences with two of my dead cats and I don''t even believe in ghosts. Once, the girl jumped on my bed and snuggled up and the boy would often run by my ankles. It was fucking weird.

• I was shopping once in a supermarket when I started walking behind this teenage girl. She was dressed strangely and I at first couldn''t pick it out. then I realized that she was wearing these flared bellbottoms that just were so out of date. They were so dirty, splashed with mud. I was like what does she think this is the 60''s? I realized that she was not from the area, she seemed to be so out of place. As I turned the corner at the end of the aisle she had stopped to look at something in a bin. I turned around again to see what she was doing and she was just staring at me and smiling this big smile. Her teeth were all rotted and some had fallen out. Her hair was seriously dirty and it was then that I realized she was some sort of ghost. The supermarket was on a major highway and many hitchhikers back I''m the 60''s and 70''s would use it to bum rides. This poor girl had clothes on from another era and for some reason picked me to come through to. Absolutely chilling...

• R99- Thank you. I saw The Hat Man twice when I was probably 7 maybe 10 years old. He walked past my window on two occasions. I recall it like it was yesterday but never told anyone. But yep, that''s him. I saw him from the side, he slightly slump shouldered.

• What the hell is going on with these two posters having this ridiculously pointless, immature fight on this thread? What are you trying to accomplish by your angry rebuttals and blind psychological accusations? Do you really think you are going to make the other person cave in and finally agree with you?\ \ Both of you should be ashamed of yourselves. This is entertainment - lighten up, you are ruining it for the rest of us. Get some manners!\ Fucking DROP IT you idiots.

• This shadow man is intriguing and would make a great movie subject.

• The ghostly tales from real nurses are entertaining and in some cases disturbing.

  http://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/whats-your-best-108202.html

• When I was about nine years old I was staying at my cousins apartment for the day. It was myself, my cousin Bobby who was five and his sister who was thirteen. At about noon we heard yelling from the apartment next door, but didn't think much of it. Kid's yelling isn't unusual. After a short time we saw smoke rolling by the balcony and ran out to see the apartment next door burning. The balconies shared a common divider wall that we could see through but it went to the ceiling and we were five stories up. I looked through and saw an adult lying on the floor and a young girl pressed against the sliding door trying to open it but it must have been locked. This was probably only a few seconds but it seemed like I stood there watching her pull on the door for a long time. I remember her arms jerking violently every time as if her bones would break. My cousin grabbed Bobby and I and we ran down the stairs as the trucks pulled up. It all happened very quickly but when we were downstairs I started screeming that there was a girl trapped, she couldn't get the door open. By this point I was hysterical. We sat on the lawn opposit the parking lot watching the building burn. When the fire was out we just waited for hours, unable to re-enter the building and shaking not from the cold but the ordeal. At about three I looked up at the burned out apartment and saw the fire investigators milling about, and then I saw the girl standing there just inside by where the door had been. I was so relieved and really thought that she had survived, but of course she had not. We found out that everyone had died, that the mother had set fire to the apartment and cut half severed her head with a butcher knife. Her two children burned to death. I was so convinced that she was alive that I managed to slip past the tape and hid in the hallway untill I could get to the apartment. I was stopped when I rounded the corner and actually saw her body on a stretcher being photographed. I knew that it was her even though she was so burned and contorted that she almost looked as if she were made of shiny wood. I saw her once again when helping my cousins retrieve there belongings three days later. I stepped onto the balcony and peered around into the apartment. I didn't expect to see anything but a burned out shell but I saw her standing back in the hallway. I burst out crying and must have fainted because I woke up downstairs where they had carried me. I didn't tell anyone about what I had seen, the girl trying to free herself, her body or her ghost for years.

  David

• I also saw the Hat Man once! This was in 1999 and I had come home from work one afternoon and was very tired. I laid down on my bed, and my bedroom door was open. I was just drifting off to sleep (lying on my back) when to my right, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a black misty shape just outside my bedroom door in the hallway. The shape was in the figure of a man about 6 feet tall, in profile, and he/it looked to be wearing a 1930s/1940s style fedora hat. I was terrified and I couldn''t move. I opened my mouth to scream but nothing came out, and my arms and legs were paralyzed. I don''t know how exactly long this lasted, but it might have been less than a minute. Then the Hat Man was gone and I could move again. I''ve never been so frightened in my life! I lived in that apartment for about 9 more months and never had any other incidents.

• Spectral earings.\ \ Ectoplasmic caftans.

• I had a nieghbor who had a priest do an exorcism because of a "demonic stench". He ended up relacing his sewer line after several months. No more demon.

• I found that allnurses forum when my mother was home on hospice. I was looking to read about hospice experiences and found the ghost thread. There are some very interesting stories there. I posted earlier in the thread about the man looking out the window at me, but there was another thing that happened that the allnurses mention made me think of . It might have been the drugs talking because my mother was heavily medicated near the end- she would have completely lucid moments and moments where at least we ASSUMED she was out of it. She was staring at a corner of the room intently- very odd expression. I asked her what was wrong and she said- Don't you see the man in the gray suit over there? She said he was standing and looking at her- she didn't know who he was- This was maybe two weeks before she died. I thought then it was either the medication or the fact that she was so ill. I read on the nurses forum that dying people go through a process called sundowning and that could have been it-- I don't know- no one can know for sure. Many times I would see her looking at what I saw were empty places in the room- and I didn't ask her why- and she didn't say. I was frankly afraid to ask- I couldn't accept that she was going to go. I wish I had asked her now.

• I had intimate relations with one once. What "ghosts" you say? I thought you said "goats".

  Old Irish Joke

• Please don''t bump this after 7 p.m. Though I don''t believe in ghosts, it''s too spooky to read after dark and it''s impossible not to open the thread when it pops up at any time.

• Bump.

• I agree with r117.

  Oops

• I have sat ain bed late at night reading datalounge and heard things in my kitchen. I have a small apartment and you get used to noises. This sounded like a glass clicking and someone crying. If I could tell you now that I didn''t hear these things it would have been okay...but there I was. I looke around my bedroom door peering around the corner amd there shewas... a woman in the oddest clothing which if I could date I would say was 1930''s era...a longer skirt. Pale as a ghost....I was scared shitless let me tell you. I turned away and looked back and she uad disappeared. W.t.f.

• here''s a crazy veggie story:%0D\ %0D\ i had this crazy dream about a roller coaster ending in a slaughter house. there were butchered animals all over the place. i just became a vegie, so it kinda made sense. BUT i woke up startled about the dream, looked in the mirror across the room and there was a transparent "bozo" clown in the mirror laughing at me. i could not hear the laugh. thought i was still dreaming and pinched myself. nope,no dream and it was still there. i covered my head and asked god to make it go away.%0D\ %0D\ i had not read "the stand," but did have the book. (actually in the closet behind the wall where the mirror was! hmmm...). anyway, the tv movie did come out soon after and freaked me out. %0D\ %0D\ researching and asking, some said it may have been loki, the trickster spirit, playing with my head, or was it some other "thing." i don''t know. i sure protect myself everyday. i have not seen anything like that since, and can''t say i want to and i''ve seen lots of things.

  Reikiman

• That sight with the nurses telling their stories is spooky as hell.

• boo

• im convinced the house i lived in as a kid was haunted, or at least something weird as fuck was going on in there that i just cant explain, and my whole family agrees with that, so it wasnt just a case of an over active imagination. \ one day my dad asked whatever it was to leave because it was scaring us kids and after that nothing ever happened again. and no im not making this up.

• I have experienced the "name" phenomena. My experience is a little different because it was not directed at me but to my mother....And I heard it!! My mom was very close friends with a woman named Lillian. They were friends for at least 50 years and would often spend afternoons shopping and running around town together. Lillian had a very distinct sharp voice and could be heard through solid concrete if she wanted. She always called my Mom Pat and when visiting would start calling her name as she walked down the driveway to the house. We would hear "Pat...Pat..Pat.. Like a World War 2 air raid siren until Lillian walked in the back door. I was very familiar with her voice. Poor Lillian had a major stroke and died when she was 84 or so. My Mom took it hard and missed her dearly. About 6 months after Lillian passed away, Mom and I were shopping at a department store where Lillian and my mom would often frequent. The store was kinda empty with plenty of deserted isles and no sales people in sight. We were just walking together, I was holding Mom's arm for support when all of a sudden' as clear and loud as can be , we both heard ' PAT' in Lillian's unmistakable voice.!! I looked at my Mom and said " Did you hear that"....She looked at me as calm as a cucumber and said.." Yes, It was Lillian". I got chills up and down my spine!!! It did not sound like it came from anywhere in particular...not from behind or from in front. It just sounded like it was right in my ear. We talked about it often and later my Mom also told me she heard my father call her name after he passed away. I don't doubt it for one moment. Because of my Moms very accepting, relaxed attitude about the other side I have never questioned its existence or feared it. I can however spot a phony a mile away...Hear that Silvea Brown?? Also because of my own personal experiences I have come to accept that there is wayyyyyyyy more out there that us silly humans can ever comprehend. And thank God for that!!!

• Please don''t wait until dark to post your spook stories.

• Gary Numan''s song, "Are friends electric?", was inspired by a, ''Hatman'' encounter he had as a young man in the London subway.

• Craig Mcmanus...your welcome ghost bitches.

• I, too, have experience the hat man, however I later discovered that he is most likely connected to experiences during Sleep Paralysis. %0D\ When I was visited by the hat man, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of pure evil, almost as if the hat man was the devil itself.

• \ I have experienced the " Caftan and Earrings Man". Frightening experience. He sang show tunes at the foot of my bed.

  Mr Chiffon LaMay

• Yes, very much so. Awfull experience.

• I was the one who posted the original Hat Man story. I do think it''s possible it was related to Sleep paralysis but what''s odd is it has only happened that one time to me. Usually people with Sleep Paralysis have repeated experiences. Mine happened almost 20 years ago and I''ve never had it happen again.

• My father claimed he saw his father's ghost at his office late one night over thirty years ago. He was having some heart issues at the time, and felt his father was trying to warn him. He hightailed it out of there, and my mother said he was terrified. A few years ago, I was visiting, and watching the news in the family room. My dad's bedroom was just off it. In the corner of my eye I thought I saw a figure going into his room. I dismissed it. A couple of days later, my mother asked me if I had "seen anything". like a figure going into my Dad's room. She'd seen it too. Not directly but out of the corner of your eye. It happened to both of us a few times after that. I figured it was my Grandfather warning my dad about his health. A month later he was diagnosed with cancer. He saw someone at the top of the stairs later on. My dad eventually died. I put their house on the market soon after he died. My brothers girlfriend was there by herself sorting some stuff out one day. She claims she could hear something, like someone banging on a pot with a spoon. When my dad was bedridden, I gave him a pot to bang on with a spoon if he needed help. Bad idea. He drove me crazy with the banging all the time. When the girlfriend told me I thought, "Christ, he took that fucking pot with him into the afterlife".

  That''s all I got.

• 132- I had a single episode of sleep paralysis several years ago and believe me, once was plenty. \ \ In a way I was lucky- mine happened in broad open daylight- I could see everything in the room but I was absolutely positively convinced that something in my closet was going to do awful things to me. I was terrified. I have no idea how long- it must have been only a few minutes- but I finally realized that was ridiculous. I took a while before I could move my body and then I went right online to find out what the fuck just happened.\ \ I have no doubt- had that room been pitch black- I would have seen an alien, a ghost, a monster, the hat man- take your pick. Not to discount anyone elses experiences- but sleep paralysis- you believe what is happening like its the gospel.

• i used to get sleep paralysis all the time as a teenager, it''s was so terrifying i used to just stay awake for as long as i could. this one time i felt something scratch down my back, like really digging its nails in and breaking skin and it was so painful and felt so real, but i couldnt move atall or make a sound. When i finally snapped out of it i even went to check in the mirror for marks but there was nothing. ive had hundreds of similar experiences, and every time there was this "presence" of pure evil, like something was watching me and meant me harm. The very worst ones were when i couldnt breathe because i really thought i might die. im so glad i hardly ever get that anymore because it really was hell.

• Nope. I once read this article about the physics of ghosts (or something like that). Basically it used common sense, logic, and the laws of physics to point out all the stupid inconsistencies in ghost stories. Ghosts are like God - once you use your brain to think them through - it becomes obvious that they don''t exist. \ \ There are no such things as demons, miracles, magic, wizards, witches, vampires, ghosts, spirits, gods, heaven, hell......

• r136 , please explain how a reasonably heavy glass slid by itself,without any force applied to it, aross a flat horizontal surface, to fall and smash on the floor. Or explain how a heavy chunk of metal could rise up in the air by itself and then fall back down again, in a room with all windows and doors closed??? And i wasnt alone in seeing these things, so i wasnt hallucinating, and none of us were on drugs or drunk. These are just a couple of examples out of the many strange incidents

• I've never seen a ghost and I generally don't believe in the paranormal, BUT: When I was a teenager, we moved into a house that was around 40 years old. Everything creaked and I felt uncomfortable in it, but I wasn't paying the mortgage so my opinion didn't matter :) Here's where the ghost story begins. I wasn't allowed to go out and party like normal kids, so I'd spend most of my time in my room listening to music. One night, I thought I heard a baby crying, so I turned down the music and listened more closely. It seemed like 3 or 4 times during the course of a couple of minutes, I heard what sounded like a baby crying. It sounded like it was coming from the basement, but eventually I just figured that my mind was playing tricks on me. The following day I grabbed the mail, and as I was looking to see if there was anything for me, I came across a postcard that was addressed to the previous owner of our house. It was from a local hospital advertising a support group for parents who had lost young children. Part of me wondered if the previous owners' baby had died, but it freaked me out too much to dwell on something like that.

• I was not paralyzed when I saw The Hat Man. He was not inside my room but I saw him outside the window. The first time I was 8. The curtains were open looking out onto the side of the neighbors house, there was a full moon. There were two windows in this room both looking out onto the same scene. The hat man appeared in the right window, he walked into the frame, turned and briefly for a second or two looked into my room, then proceed to go along towards the back yard. I called my dad and told him somebody was beside the house. Being from Texas my dad got his gun and went outside. There was nothing, it was a still and quiet evening. The next time I saw two people. It was probably two years later and I was now sleeping in the back bedroom (which looked out onto the back yard). I was not thinking of the shadow figure I firs saw, in fact he was forgotten. Suddenly a smaller figure appeared at the window, it was bald and looked like the shadow my friend Kevin would make but Kevin lived across town and would never be in my back yard, the Kevin thing walked by towards the fence, then the Hat Man appeared as if he were following Kevinthing. Kevin thing was not running away they just seemed to be walking together. Hat Man looked in my window again and this time sort of nodded (I think). Again I ran to my Dad's room. Both these figures, were they human would have walked straight into a fence and would have had a bunch of dogs howling like hell. 7 Dad got his guns and went outside, nothing. I told him the whole truth and he explained it away by saying that someone was probably is the park and walked in between a streetlight and my curtains. The park was half a block away. These figures were inches from my window. I knew Dad was trying to console me or at least dimiss the problem. I never saw either figure again but I still think maybe I will one day. Years later my friend Dan told me that he has been seeing the HatMan for 10 years.

• The question is, do ghosts believe in me?

• Me too, R35. When I was 17 and at uni I lived in a house with my friends. There were a lot of drugs, a lot of 'fast times' and so on leading to a point where we stole 4 shopping trolleys and rode them down the street. We ended up at a gas station and I managed to steal some pies, chocolate bars etc. Fine... The next morning I was lying in bed and I heard my flatmates talking about me in detail. (They were both actually at work at the time). Then came the knock at the door. The knock lasted for a while and the person who was knocking opened the door and came in (I was still in bed, but awake). He came into my bedroom (I remember the door opening nd feeling complete terror...He introduced himself as Sargent ______ and proceeded to interview me (in bed) regarding the shoplifting of the previous night. He went on and on. I was freaked out and told him a limited amount of details. My flatmates came home and I confronted them. Had anyone heard of sargent ______ etc - they all thought I was crazy. We rang all the pollce stations in the city - no guy going by that name existed. I never found out who he was but that name still freaks me out.

• Why ghosts can''t walk through walls, wear clothes, make footstep noises, talk, make things move, etc.

  http://news.softpedia.com/news/Why-Ghosts-Can-039-t-Go-Through-Walls-and-More-Scientific-Arguments-55697.shtml

• There are no such things as ghosts. The dead do not return to the living. What is out there is even scarier. What people perceive as ghosts are really evil entities masquerading as so-called ghosts. That is it, Peeps, in a nutshell.

  Ghost of Nostradamus

• After all this talk about the Hat Man -- I was browsing the NY Times website and accidentally clicked on this slideshow.\ \ Creepy.

  http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/02/02/fashion/20110203-hats.html

• One winter night I decided to go take a walk near the Mississppi river at around midnight. The further along I walked I started to sense something was watching or following me from within the trees. I got kind of uncomfortable and decided to see if i can find another path on the other side of the road. I crossed the road in hopes of finding another path. Well, it turned out to my surprise there wasn't any walking path but just a ditch! So, I ran back across the road to get back on the path, where I originally started, and to my surprise I saw a reflection of myself dress all in white running super fast through all the trees. My initial reaction was what the hell was that? But I kept calm and ignored it and started to walk back home. Eventually, I didn't stop to think about it again till I reached a bridge that cross over the river. As I was still trying to wrap my head around what I just saw, an sweet old couple stopped by, pull out of there car and asked me if I was alright. They thought I was going to jump into the river. lol! The End.

• r145, I think I saw your story in an old Tales Of The Darkside episode. A woman kept seeing her own ghost.%0D\ %0D\ Nice try, though!

• I am sure ghost do exist. I don''t know exactly what they are but I have had enough experiences to know, for whatever reason, they are there and they can be real assholes.

• I''m kind of agnostic or athiest but I can not deny the paranormal. I know things happen that we can not find any logical explaination for. I would think anyone who is my age, would understand.

• We weren''t allowed to believe in ghosts -- my Mom''s father would lecture my Mom on how whatever it was she thought was a ghost had a logical explanation, and my father felt the same way, so we had both parents who scoffed at the idea, or at the idea of any paranormal activity.\ \ All that said, one of Mom''s and Dad''s favorite shows when we were growing up were reruns of "One Step Beyond."

• I know of a voice story, a grandmother warning her daughter that her son was about ready to fall off some stairs. Three people heard the voice.

• "One time after my cat died, I was sitting in bed reading and I swear I felt the bed sink like when the cat would jump on the bed. It was near my feet. I felt my legs go down and I looked up from the book but saw nothing. I felt it only once."%0D\ %0D\ One of my cats died in an instant, hit by a car. I would often feel him jump on my bed, as he always did. Was it him or my imagination? I don''t know.%0D\ %0D

• Your imagination. You wanted him to be there so much, which is natural.

• once or twice i have heard/felt something kick my bed, or bedroom door, i once heard my name called out to me as a child, it was a crystal clear female voice, i even asked "what?" but obviously got no answer. i heard/felt a lot of spooky shit as a kid but its become much less frequent as i get older, apart from my imagination freaking me out sometimes. Im still not sure that i believe in "ghosts" but i think its stupid to deny that these bizarre things do go on. Sure, some people lie and make up stories to scare people, but are we ALL making it up? and sure there are often logical explanations, but some of these things just can''t be explained.

• r153 = Linda Blair

• I did not believe in ghosts until I saw the film of the Hampton Court ghost. Now I am not sure.

• I had that exact experience, R129 - hat man, horrible feeling of evil. I do not know what it was, but I do not think it was "sleep paralysis", which seems like an incredibly weak explanation.

• There are no ghosts, per se, but there is evil lurking out there, believe me.

  Charlie Manson

• A ghost named Large Marge gave me a lift once.

  P.W. Herman

• I gave Large Marge a lift one day.

• Large Marge was the d.j. at Bedlam last night.

• I believe in the ghost of neurosis.

• Yes sir. It was the worst accident I ever seen.

  Large Marge

• I''ve never heard of the Hat Man until I started reading this thread. I did some research and the description made me freak!%0D\ %0D\ About 10 years ago, me and my BF at the time were standing at the bar of a local hang out. It was pretty empty and this guy comes in, trench coat, fedora, 50s or so. My BF and I looked at each other and one of us said, that guy looks like something out of the Twilight Zone. He really looked like something out a different era. He drank his beer and left. It gave us the creeps.%0D\ %0D\ About 2 years ago, BF is long gone, I''m living in the same neigborhood but different place. I see the guy come out of a building two doors from my apartment building, looking exactly the same.%0D\ %0D\ I have been living here 8 years or so. I had never seen him before (except at the bar that night and the bar is a 20 minute walk from here) and have never seen him since.%0D\ %0D\ Weird

• Never mind that,r163.Give us the scoop as to why the BF is gone!

  NosyGuy

• The hat men at r144 link are scarier than all fuck.

• I really need to pee but this thread has me too scared to move.\ \ Kudos! More stories, please.

• R164, it had nothing to do with the Hat Man, at least I don''t think it did.%0D\ %0D\ He moved to the states from the UK so we could be together, after 4 years or so, he still hadn''t gotten on his feet or felt at home, missed his friends, family and England in general. We gave it shot and it didn''t work. We are still friends.

  R163

• Hatman is alive and well.

  http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_HuCpUVPsgaE/S6wHFlYyPhI/AAAAAAAAAhY/hVAeH2zlI0o/s1600/sandeman1.jpg

• These people believe in ghosts. Or else it''s a publicity stunt.

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/9387849.stm

• Apologies. Wrong link. Trying again with the haunted theme park.

  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ghostly-surge-sees-theme-park-ride-moved-2206652.html

  169, who sucks at copy-and-paste

• Thx 163/167 for the update.%0D\ %0D\ I always need to know these things. :)

  NosyGuy

• I believe in pussy cheese.

• r172 = skanky

• Will the "pussy cheese" guy please give it a rest?

• i think there are lots of phenomena out there that we don't understand, which one day will have a logical explanation. with that being said, everyone in my family has had encounters with our parents & other (passed) loved ones, mostly sounds in my parents house (where my baby brother lives). my father likes to clear his throat and walk in the kitchen. my brother's family gets quite spooked.%0D %0D one night "something" moved my pink crocs across the room. i don't sleep walk. i take comfort in it, and sometimes laugh at my mother's little "tricks." she's a prankster, and had a thing about shoes. during stressful times, my father paces in front of my bedroom door to offer his presence as support and protection. i recognize his footsteps in his workshoes he always wore. sometimes when something good has happened without my knowledge, he hangs around to see my surprise and joy. he waits outside my door some more, just puttering around like all dads do. %0D %0D i think there are also "place memories" in which you can see a glimpse of a former resident or visitor. i don't think there is much communication involved in these events. i think quantum physics and certain philosophical beliefs about the "reality" of time can explain these events one day.%0D %0D i do not believe the dead can hurt us. fear the living, not the dead.

  farmer''s daughter

• There comes a point in your life when you realize:%0D\ %0D\ %0D\ Who matters,%0D\ %0D\ Who never did,%0D\ %0D\ Who won''t anymore...%0D\ %0D\ And who always will.%0D\ %0D\ So, don''t worry about people from your past,%0D\ %0D\ there''s a reason why they didn''t make it to your future.%0D

• i''m a thread killer.

  farmer''s daughter

• R175 is schizophrenic, and R176 is an especially sophisticated Hallmark card.

  God''s Left Asscheek

• A few years ago, I was drinking to the point where I knew I had a problem. I was at my family's summer place,an old house that my grandparents bought when their kids were young, and has been the site of many family gatherings and vacations for three generations. I got up there early and planned to spend a few days there by myself relaxing. My parents and my sister and her kids were coming on the weekend.%0D %0D On my second afternoon there alone, I decided happy hour would start at 4 pm. I was planning to tie one on. I went to the liquor store and picked up my booze of choice and a few packs of cigarettes because I smoke like a chimney when I drink. I got back to the house, put the bag on the counter and went upstairs to put on my bathing suit as I planned to take a cocktail shaker down to the lake. On my way back downstairs, I swear I was pushed. I fell all the way down a flight of stairs, so hard that I had multiple fractures in my leg and hand.%0D %0D I believe the ghost of my grandfather, uncle or grandmother pushed me down the stairs to keep me from drinking. Both my grandfather and uncle died young of alcohol related causes. I feel like they interceded to keep me from harm that afternoon or to get me to stop drinking (and smoking) once and for all. %0D %0D Several days in the hospital, 2 months recuperating at my parents house in a wheelchair, six months on crutches, three surgeries and months of physical therapy was just what I needed to give up booze for good. That year was hell for me, but not drinking was relatively easy. I still get urges now and again but now I have a mental image of the ghost of my grandma (I think it was her, and she was angry at me) ready to push me down a flight of stairs to knock some sense into me.

• boo bump

• I've finally got some time to contribute to this thread, so this post will be long, probably in two parts. My answer is Yes, I do believe.%0D %0D To begin with, the females on my mother's side of the family are very intuitive. Both my mom and sister have called me through the years, when I've been in crisis, to find out what is going on. My niece was barely old enough to talk when her father was killed, and she began %E2%80%9Cseeing%E2%80%9D him regularly. She%E2%80%99d say things like %E2%80%9CPapi came to see me last night%E2%80%9D or, once, she and I were walking through the woods at my mom%E2%80%99s house and she said %E2%80%9CWhy is Papi watching us? Can%E2%80%99t he come with us?%E2%80%9D%0D %0D So I%E2%80%99ve always believed that there were things happening around me, but I just wasn%E2%80%99t tuned in.%0D %0D Until my partner and I moved into our home five years ago. %0D %0D This house was built in 1923, with a basement that was just renovated and finished out before we moved in. The new master bedroom is downstairs, with plenty of garden windows and light (not scary). However, the first night we slept in it we both heard music%E2%80%A6 very high, clear notes, like a music box or a carousel organ? We could never really identify it. We would get up to open the windows to see if it was the neighbors, we would go through the rest of the house%E2%80%A6nothing. It would even wake us up. We solved that problem by turning on a fan to make white noise and drown it out.%0D %0D Then we began to hear footsteps in the upstairs hallway. One particular example is that I was downstairs one afternoon working at my desk, and heard someone walking the length of the upstairs hallway, from the bedroom at the back of the house all the way to the front of the house. The dogs took off running upstairs, and I assumed that my partner had come in. But he had not.%0D %0D So skip forward a year or so, and now we%E2%80%99ve moved our desk and computer up against an external wall upstairs, which, if we%E2%80%99re sitting at it, means our back is to the hallway and center of the house. I began to feel presence, like someone was looking over my shoulder. Several times I would speak out to my partner, knowing that he was there, but he wasn%E2%80%99t. Sometimes at night if he was already in bed, I would be working at my desk (or watching TV) and swear that someone was standing in the hallway door.%0D %0D I finally told my partner what I was feeling, and he got a look of surprise on his face %E2%80%93 he was experiencing the same thing, from the same place.%0D %0D On occasion when we slept in the upstairs guest room, a female voice would wake us up talking, but just barely audible. Once we start talking, it stops. %0D %0D Our dogs, even to this day will wake up and charge, barking, into the kitchen, as if someone has just come in through the hallway or kitchen door.%0D %0D I understand that it is unusual (takes a lot of energy?) for a spirit to move things, but I have had a spoon on the stove fly over and bounce off of the kitchen island. This happened when a friend of mine was visiting and helping me cook, and it happened right under our noses %E2%80%93 I was kind of freaked out, but he took it in stride, then told me about the %E2%80%9Cvoices%E2%80%9D he had heard while he and his partner were sleeping in our guest room. We had not told him about our experiences in that room.%0D %0D Several years ago my partner%E2%80%99s brother stayed with us for about six weeks, and told us that he was having trouble sleeping in that room (we had not told him anything, either). He said that he%E2%80%99d be laying there and it sounded like someone was running a finger up the window blinds, and that he heard voices. He began sleeping with a radio on.%0D %0D More in the next post...%0D %0D

  GreenJeans

• We had been here about two years when things started to get worse. We began hearing the %E2%80%9Cnoise%E2%80%9D%E2%80%94which sounds like someone dropping a stack of magazines on the hardwood floor, right in the middle of the upstairs hallway. Sometimes it would happen right behind our backs, sometimes we%E2%80%99d hear it when we were in bed at night. We could never find a source of the noise, and nothing was ever out of place.%0D %0D Then things began to start happening in the basement. We had never been afraid of the downstairs, but there were times when the hair on our necks would stand up, and again, it just felt like we were not alone. Sometimes I%E2%80%99d be walking down the staircase and my body would stop, as if it just didn%E2%80%99t want to walk all the way to the bottom. The air began to feel different, just %E2%80%9Cflat%E2%80%9D and stale. Not all of the time, but enough for us to notice and begin talking about it. Then my partner began to wake up at night and see a dark shadow, moving from our bedroom door, across the room past the foot of our bed, and out the wall. Several times he said that he would wake up and it was standing on his side of the bed, looking at us.%0D %0D One time I was in the bedroom and, as clear as day, I heard a male voice say my name. I started praying and left.%0D %0D We finally called the local %E2%80%9Cghost hunter%E2%80%9D group here in our town. They came one night to take EVPs while my partner, the dogs and I left to stay in a motel.%0D %0D Several weeks later, they met back at our house to give us the results. To begin with, they had researched and found out that there had been two deaths in our home--one from natural causes and the other by suicide. When they mentioned the suicide, my voice spoke and said %E2%80%9Cin the basement.%E2%80%9D I have no idea why I said that, but I know it is true and don%E2%80%99t ask me how.%0D %0D The EVPs were quite interesting. To begin with, they captured a little girl%E2%80%99s voice singing in our bedroom downstairs. That felt right to me, as the high, clear tones were like what we had heard a couple of years earlier. %0D %0D Next, was another EVP captured in our bedroom. As part of their protocol, the investigators will announce themselves and what they are doing as they set up sound equipment and move through the house. This one man (I%E2%80%99ll call him John) was setting up the microphone and introducing himself, and the minute he said %E2%80%9CMy name is John%E2%80%9D a male voice said %E2%80%9CJOHN!%E2%80%9D%0D %0D They spent a lot of time in the guest bedroom, recording many taps and knocks. Another EVP captured in that room was a female voice that said %E2%80%9CMy name is Tess.%E2%80%9D %0D %0D The group also recorded the follow-up session where they were giving us the results, and picked up yet another EVP. At one point they are telling us that they%E2%80%99d like to come back and do it all again with cameras, because they think there would be stronger evidence. A male voice says %E2%80%9CFind it!%E2%80%9D I use that one for my ringtone!%0D %0D The advice from the society was to 1) have the home blessed and the entities banished, or 2) set our boundaries with the entities and make them behave as if they were any other houseguest. Since we never felt in danger that was what we decided to do, and after praying and saging thehouse and setting our rules (no scariness, no more noise in the hallway, no more intimidating us on the stairway) things calmed down. We felt that more than anything, the entities were trying to get our attention, and we acknowledge them regularly now, saying things like goodbye, take care of the dogs, etc.%0D %0D More in the next post.

  GreenJeans

• Before you finish your post, r181, can you tell us if your 1920s house has a cooling cabinet?

• Three more incidents and I%E2%80%99ll sign off.%0D %0D One, the society encouraged us to record our own EVPs. So one night we got the voice recorder and announced our intention, invited anyone (thing?) to speak into it, then set it on %E2%80%9Crecord%E2%80%9D and placed it on the dresser while we were getting ready for bed. We crawled into bed and began to listen to it%E2%80%94you can hear us in the background talking, water running in the sink in the bathroom, then all of a sudden the sound of someone blowing into the mic as if testing it. That scared the pants off of us, and we shut it off and have not re-recorded again. %0D %0D Two, one night we were awakened by a noise in the wall %E2%80%93 as if something was slowly falling from upstairs down into our bedroom wall. Then all of a sudden the bedroom door started swinging open, which takes energy %E2%80%93 the door naturally swings shut. I said %E2%80%9CSTOP IT AND STOP SCARING US!%E2%80%9D and the door made its usual swing shut.%0D %0D Last, we have begun seeing an entity in the basement. One day I was in the laundry room working, and caught a glimpse of my partner, in his white T-shirt, walking from the stairway into our bedroom. My first thought was %E2%80%9CWhy did he take his shirt off?%E2%80%9D and followed him into the bedroom, but he was not there. I called upstairs and sure enough, he was still up there. A couple of months later it happened to him.%0D %0D He came up the stairs, wide-eyed, and asked if I had been up here the whole time. When I said yes, he said that he saw what he thought was me, in a white T-shirt, walking quickly from the bathroom into the laundry room. He thought to himself %E2%80%9CWhy is he running so fast?%E2%80%9D and followed %E2%80%9Cme%E2%80%9D into the laundry room, but I wasn%E2%80%99t there.%0D %0D We%E2%80%99ve been advised that sometimes a home renovation or remodeling might stir up activity, and maybe that is what has happened to us.%0D %0D Anyway, if you've stuck with my posts this long, thanks for reading.

  GreenJeans

• Enjoyed your posts very much GreenJeans. If you have any other experiences, please share. :)

• Green Jeans, I''m reading your stories on a sunny day, people all around me, and still i have goose flesh.\ \ Thanks for sharing!

• Have you seen "Celebrity Ghost Stories"? It''s a great show. I''m always blown away with the ghost stories they tell. I can''t imagine what a celebrity would gain by lying about these things, so I tend to believe them all.

• Boo bump

• I find Celebrity Ghost Stories too boring to watch, between the lame "re-enactments" and the eternity it takes for the actor to finally spit out the story.

• Bumping for a good one I heard tonight. My friend grew up in a log cabin her aging hippie parents built in the woods. The house was situated at a crossroads. Across the street was a picturesque 19th century cemetery, small and long since full. At the age of six my friend told her parents all about her imaginary friend, "Ninna." She enthusiastically described Ninna as a girl slightly older than herself who had died in a fire. She added that Ninna had a sister Julia who was blinded in the fire but survived. Where she got this tale from she didn't know, only that it was what came to her as she scouted about the wooded lawn looking for invisible friends. At one corner of the parents' property there was a large soft spot dug into the otherwise settled forest floor. The family used this as a burn pit of sorts. When there was no fire going my friend and her siblings played in and around it all the time. Years after she told her parents about Ninna they informed my friend that the burn pit had once been the location of a one-room schoolhouse. It burned down in a fire in which several people including children were killed. Some of the victims were buried in the cemetery across the road. My friend searched among the old tombstones for a girl named Ninna but never found her. The realization that Ninna must have been a nickname (for Virginia? Pennina? Lavinia?) didn't come to her until she was older and too spooked to go back and look again.

• That''s some spooky stuff, GreenJeans. Thanks for posting.

• Fascinating posts GreenJeans. I wonder if such detailed accounts will make any naysayers think again.

• Loved your posts, Green Jeans!

• bump

• no more bumps in the night, please

• ooh ooooooooooh ooooooooooooooooh

• bump in da night

• Boo!

• No, I don''t believe in ghosts. I don''t believe in vampires, witches, werewolves, mermaids, leprechans, pixies, the Loch Ness Monster, or Bigfoot, either.

• Thanks for your immeasurable contribution, worthless, cranky asshole at R199.

• ok, I'll tell mine. A few years ago I was on a business trip to another city. We were put up at the best hotel in town, which at the time was only about four years old. A colleague, who was staying in another room on the same floor, came by for a chat. The room had the typical hotel layout... the bathroom near the door forming a small hall, a king size bed, and two chairs and a table in front of the windows. My colleague was sitting in one of the chairs on my left, in front of the windows. I was sitting on the bed with my back to the wall. As we chatted, I kept seeing movement in the room, in my peripheral vision, so I would turn my head to my right, away from my friend, to try to see what it was that caught my eye several times. Finally, he asked me "What are you doing, are you ok?" I replied "Oh, nothing. I just thought I saw something." As soon as I said that, a figure appeared in the room at the foot of the bed. I hesitate to call it a ghost because I don't know what it was. But we both saw a figure in the room. I looked at my friend to see if he was looking at it, and he was. I'm not sure how long it was, maybe only a minute or so, but we both just sat there staring at this presence in the room. It, the figure, then moved across the room toward the door and bathroom, and disappeared from view. My friend then said to me "Did you see that?!" I wasn't sure what it was I saw, so I answered "Did I see what? What did you see?" He then described exactly what it was that I saw, confirming without a doubt that neither of us imagined it or hallucinated. We both saw exactly the same thing at exactly the same time. I then felt a bit spooked (pun intended) and said "I'm not staying in this room tonight. I'm going down to the desk and getting another room." He said "I'm not staying on this floor tonight, I'm going with you." He had brought his dog with him, which was still in his room down the hall. As we weren't coming back up here that night, we went to his room to get his dog. To get from his room to the elevator, we had to go back past my room. As we approached my room, the dog suddenly stopped and all the dog's hair on it's back stood up straight. He couldn't budge his dog, it refused to go further, closer to my room. It stood there frozen stiff, hair on end, growling with bared teeth, staring at the door to my room. So he picked up his dog and carried it past my room. For us two, this was the freakiest part, that the dog knew there was something in my room and was greatly disturbed by it. So we got our other rooms for the night. The next day I felt calmed down and a bit silly. I checked out of my replacement room and went back to my original room which I had not checked out of. I was determined that if there was something in my room, I would face it and deal with it. I stayed up late watching tv, waiting for the figure to reappear. Eventually I grew dead tired and went to sleep, a bit disappointed that nothing had happened. I'm not sure how much later it was, but I was awakened by the sound of someone walking around in my room, and I could hear the papers on the dresser being moved, you know that sound of shuffling paper. I had the clich%C3%A9d reaction, scared out of my wits I drew the sheet and blanket up over my head and lay there shivering with fright under the covers until I fell back to sleep again. The next morning, everything seemed normal and nothing else happened. While I tried to laugh the whole thing off, my colleague remained spooked by it, thanks in part to the reaction of his dog which he said had never before exhibited that sort of behavior.

• Great story, 201.

• R201, did you explain to the front desk why you wanted to move to another room - if so, what was their reaction?

• Very cool story, R201. Thanks.

• Thanks, R202 and R204 R203, a "superior" in the company, who was there on this trip, had instructed the front desk to not allow any room changes without it being first approved by her. (control freak) So, because of that, the desk clerk at first refused to give me another room. I argued that this had nothing to do with the company, I was not changing rooms, I simply wanted an additional room which I was paying for out of my own pocket. Therefore, I explained, it was a private matter and not the company's concern. The clerk still refused, until eventually agreeing to it on the condition that I explain what was going on. I thought "Oh what the hell" and told her. She had no reaction other than being nonplussed. I then, with the cat being out of the bag, asked her if any such thing had happened before, if any hotel employees or guests had ever mention anything of the sort. She said no. I asked if any guests had died in their room. She said not that she knew of. The next day she ratted me out to the company superior who was in charge of travel and hotel arrangements. And of course that person told everyone. We, my colleague and I, became laughing stocks in the company and around the hotel. It was a long stay, about three months. But we knew what had happened and didn't allow the jokes and the ribbing to bother us. A couple of years later I was back at that hotel, and asked around if there were any stories of ghosts or hauntings and such in the hotel. Most said no, but a few said they had heard of only one instance, which was probably mine.

• Then, R205, I''m finding it intriguing as to why the specter/ghost/whatever chose to materialize to you and your colleague. Maybe he wanted a three-way? Hee.

• R201, could you describe the figure in more detail? Was the figure solid or translucent? Did it look like a person or was it just a mist?

• [quote]"I''m not staying in this room tonight. I''m going down to the desk and getting another room." He said "I''m not staying on this floor tonight, I''m going with you." \ \ Never got that reaction. Do you think a ghost will kill you!?

• eerie bump

• Thanks for sharing, R201. I absolutely believe that you saw something.

• R207 I can''t really, but I''ll try. I remember it as being more of a solid, but not with a fully human form to it. It wasn''t like we were seeing a person in the room. It was about the same size as an adult human, but without discernible human features, but almost. It was a shape, maybe like a cloud, and I remember it as having a grayish color. It definitely wasn''t a white mist nor was it translucent. \ \ R208 Did I say anything about fearing being killed? I don''t need to justify my reaction to anyone, but you did read that I went back to the room hoping for another visit. \ \ Thanks, R210 everything I wrote is completely true, and it wasn''t just me.

• R201, would you allow me to put you under hypnosis so you can better recall what you saw? I can do it here on Datalounge with your permission.

• 201, don''t worry about the naysayers. I would be creeped out too and would definitely want to change rooms. I love hearing ghost stories but I don''t think I''d want to see a ghost myself - it would scare the hell out of me.

• [quote]Did I say anything about fearing being killed? I don''t need to justify my reaction to anyone, but you did read that I went back to the room hoping for another visit. \ \ No YOU and HE said "I''m not staying in this room tonight. I''m going down to the desk and getting another room." He said "I''m not staying on this floor tonight, I''m going with you."\ \ Why did you leave? I didn''t say I didn''t believe you. I want to know why people are terrified. There has never been a documented case of a ghost or spirit hurting anyone.

• R214 Fair question. Remember, I didn't call it a "ghost". I said that I didn't know what it was. It's quite unnerving to experience such a thing. Instinct? Who knows? Why did the dog behave as it did? The dog, which wasn't in the room, and as far as I could tell couldn't see what was in the room, regardless had a very unsettling reaction as we approached the room from out in the corridor. The dog knew something. From outside the room the dog sensed something that was in the room, and he didn't like it. Perhaps whatever the dog sensed, also causes people to become unnerved. But, actually SEEING something and being in the presence of something that is clearly not part of this world as we know and understand it, is quite enough thank you. Again, I don't know what it was. Was it a living entity of some sort? It appeared, it moved around on it's own, and it clearly projected an energy that caused a frightful reaction from an animal that didn't even see it. Fear of the unknown? Why are many people afraid of the dark, when they KNOW there is nothing there in the dark that isn't there in the light? I can't answer your question except to say "instinct".

• I can''t even begin to imagine how you went back to that room. I would have slept in a car, sat up all night in the lobby or whatever. Anything but stay in that room.

• R201/215, thanks so much for sharing your story. I find it profoundly believable. %0D\ %0D\ FUCK Stephen Hawking for not believing in any kind of afterlife. How the fuck would he know any more than the rest of us?

• [quote]FUCK Stephen Hawking for not believing in any kind of afterlife.%0D\ %0D\ How do you know this was connected with "afterlife"? Maybe it was someone''s pre-arrival. Maybe it was a gay man scheduled to arrive and he didn''t want to be involved with some messy vagina.

• R217 = clueless moron%0D

• 214, have you never heard of the Bell Witch?

  http://www.bellwitch.org/story.htm

• Ever see "The Crucible" reply 220?

• Anyone ever hear about the ghost who wrote messages on Polaroid photographs?\ \ Happened in Mt. Washington here in LA at the home of a gay couple.\ \ One of the spookiest stories I''ve ever heard and it left me totally bewildered. \ \ Probably deserves its own thread, but I''m done with the $18 thing.

  http://www.ghosttheory.com/2008/04/01/polaroids-of-the-dead-los-angeles-ca

• I believe shadows can move of their own volition.

• Yes, R221, I have.\ \ But you said there has never been a "documented case" of a ghost harming anyone, which the Bell Witch case contradicts. Whether you believe that this documentation is credible is up to you.\ \ Personally, I don''t believe in ghosts, but if I ever experienced a phenomenon that made me revise my opinion, I might take such an account to heart.

• R222, I remember when Sightings did a segment on that back in the early 90''s. I''ve seen other reports on it since then, too. It may have been debunked, I''m not sure.

• The videos are pretty convincing, R225. I honestly don''t know how something like that could be faked on-camera, in full view of observers.

• There are some seriously crazy and seriously gullible and seriously stupid people on DataLounge. And their numbers are increasing. \ \ If any of you people would just go and at least try to learn about the logical explanations for the phenomenon you describe here, I''d at least have some respect for you.\ \ But you all want to believe. And revel in your ignorance. Terribly sad. \ \ If there are any people here who genuinely want to learn about why all this is bullshit, please go to the James Randi Forum, where they debunk this stuff all the time. \ \ The rest of you, one day believing in this bullshit will bite you in the ass.

• [quote]But you said there has never been a "documented case" of a ghost harming anyone, which the Bell Witch case contradicts.\ \ What is the Bell Witch? Is it a witch or a ghost? No, I will not be clicking on any links so just tell it here.

• What''s most amusing about that R222 is that the author thinks a house built in 1906 is old and thus more susceptible to hauntings. Given that almost every property in any European city, and almost every property in the UK would be ''haunted''.

• Back in the late 60s/early 70s, my mother worked with a woman who said she was worried that the house she'd just bought was haunted. The house was in woods, on a hill, with a tall tower nearby.%0D %0D She could hear music and talking coming from various areas in the house. The weirdest thing was that she could hear music coming from the toilet.%0D %0D She told the woman next door who laughed and said it was from the radio station tower right behind them. Somehow, the sound waves got picked up in pipes. She said her daughter could sometimes pick up transmission from her braces, and they joked about it with the daughter -- at the time, America still had a mental health system with hospitals, and many a hospitalized psych patient claimed the FBI or CIA was sending them messages through the fillings in their teeth. The family would tell the daughter with braces that they believed she was an FBI plant in their households. The father would be talking at the dinner table and suddenly say to the daughter, "Now this is in confidence... you're not transmitting it to the FBI or KGB, are you?"

  Awwwww, Daddy!

• Who was the actress (was it Lucille Ball?) who used to tell the story about how she had dental work done and the next day she was hearing a radio station unti she went back and had the dentist fix it?

• Bump

• There was a previous ghost thread that had some terrifying tales.

• going "bump" in the night

• It's a dark and stormy night. Winds at 50 mph.

• Where at, R235?

• It was a dark and stormy night on the 9th but the sun is bright today. 80 degrees.

• bumpity yay

• In my opinion, sceptics have closed minds, big egos and really aren't very bright. They actually think they can explain everything that happens on earth. Now, how stupid is that?

• I know there are ghost but I can't explain them. Sometimes I wonder why people are so afraid to admit the truth? It's somthing that should be studied.

• Bump in the night for Halloween fright

• My Dad told us that during the war, he and the others got so immune to horror that they thought nothing of using the deep fox hole they'd just captured from the Japanese even though the men they killed to get it were still in there. Normally, they would have just pushed out their bodies to use as parapets, but it had been a rainy morning, so they stacked them into the muck on the bottom and sat on top of them to keep dry. We wondered if that wasn't at all...scary, and he reminded us that they were dead. Yes, but...still? He laughed and said if there were ghosts (which he didn't believe) the first thing they'd do would be to get as far away as they could from New Guinea in WW2.

• The ghost of Any Winehouse has been seen in a recording studio.

• I could believe that about Amy Winehouse. Alcohol is a terrible thing to be addicted to. Sometimes I wonder why some spirits would not automaticly leave an area where they were unhappy. I do believe in ghost, although I don't understand it and I don't believe in God.

• Bump in the night.

• I have NEVER seen a ghost, nor have I heard one or sensed it any other way. However after my mom died when I was 13 years old I had some very vivid dreams about her. I realized it was just my mind trying to hold on to her and soon after the dreams subsided. And I live in an area that was built between 1850 and 1900. So you'd expect lots of ghosts but alas, no such.

  LuciferTheLightBringer

• Yes, I do believe in ghosts. I had a lot of strange experiences when I was young but they seemed to stop when I reached high school (except for the time I was at home sick and there was a knocking which started at my bedroom door and went all the way around the room) but weird things started happening again a few years ago.

• I've never experienced a ghost or anything paranormal but friends of mine have.

• R243, she resembles a creature from hell if you ask me.

• There's a You Tube clip titled "Most Authentic Ghost Footage of All Time?" that is pretty damn spooky. It looks to be filmed at twilight or early evening but you can clearly see ghost soldiers patrolling the grounds at the Gettysburg field where it was filmed. (Although the filmer and his companion sound like Gomer Pyle's cousins.) It had over 4 million views and I thought it would be one of those dumb ones where someone jumps out at you and screams at the end but it appears to be 'genuine.' I have heard that the Gettysburg battlefields have a high number of ghost solider sightings. There's also another You Tube video titled "Hampton Court Ghost CCTV" that's pretty amazing as well. It was allegedly taken by security cameras at Hampton Court palace. You can see the doors swing open and a man of the Charles II era (long curly hair dressed in heavy robes with "Capt Hook" boots" walk out the door. Pretty darn spooky)

• I realy wish that DL poster would repost his picture - an old black and white pic of a courting couple/his gran and grandpa? standing in front of an orchid or field with this most demonic figure caught up high in the tree behind them sneering. It was really amazing. Trick of the light/trees or something else? I wish I had saved it.

• Thanks r250, checking out those YouTube vids right now.

• [quote]Anyone ever hear about the ghost who wrote messages on Polaroid photographs? Has Perez Hilton died?

• Have any of you see the photo(s) from Pat Montandon's old haunted house which is located at 1000 Lombard Street in San Francisco? I ask because I saw the following mentioned in an Amazon.com review for her book 'The Intruders': "Several years ago, in a British book on ghost photos, I saw a photograph of her and a photograph of one of the ghosts in her house, which at the time freaked me out so much I never forgot it." Any ideas where the photo(s) or the book can be located at? Or the name of that book?

• there are no ghosts.

• The Hat Man that people describe further back in the thread sound like one of the more notorious Shadow People. If you google Shadow Hat Man up he pops. Lots of images too. Sleep paralysis mentions the Shadow Hat Man. The descriptions are always close; tall and thin, evil vibe, dark trench coat and fedora or floppy hat and sometimes red eyes. I'm sure this part inspired the Creeper character from Jeepers Creepers movie.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

• R253, the Polaroid picture ghost writing pics were debunked by a columnist in an old issue of Fate magazine. He wrote that he had gone to college with one of the picture takers, in fact they had studied film and learned about special effects together at the U of MD. The Fate columnist (the late Mark Chorvinsky - who also published the fascinating Strange Magazine) also wrote that he wouldn't be surprised based on his knowledge of the guy, if the guy hoaxed the photos, because that was the kind of thing this guy would do. Either Chorvinksy or another Fate columnist also wrote that it is totally possible to create hoax Polaroid photos in that way. Conclusion for me was that the photos were indeed fake.

• R254, I've seen the picture of the "ghost" or whatever it was - unfortunately, I can't remember the name of the book, but it was a book on ghost photography that was published in England at least 20 years ago. The photo was taken in her house and showed what appeared to be a somewhat thin, wiry person going through a drawer. I can't remember if it was a dresser drawer, kitchen drawer or whatever. I do remember the photo was slightly blurry. I also remember that this "entity" wore a hoodie-looking top with the hood covering the head except for the face. And it was solid, not transparent.

• One of my ghost experiences involved a figure in a hood with no face.

• Nope. Keep an open mind, but not so open your brain gets stale.

• Thank you very much, R258. I forgot to mention that I was also intrigued by the book 'The Intruders'(which I only read about because I saw it mentioned here at DL a few years ago) because some of the alleged events that took place sounded very creepy to me. Seemed like a good ghost story. I have a few questions if you don't mind. (1) Do you think the book is probably fairly well known/popular/easy to find? Probably not a lot of British books about ghost photographs. (2) Have you read 'The Intruders' by any chance? If so, what did you think of it? (3) So it looked like the ghost was looking for something in a drawer? (4) Did you think it was an especially scary photo? (5) Did the photo look legit to you, or possibly fake somehow?

  R254

• R254, you are in luck, I wracked my memory for the name of that book and finally came across it on Amazon. Link below. I've read The Intruders and (if this is the right word) I enjoyed it. And I thought the photo, given the provenance, was very strange. However, if I just saw the photo with no explanation I probably wouldn't think twice about it. To me the strangest thing about it would be how thin the person was, and there was something about the posture that was odd. If you get the book, let me know what you think.

  http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Spectrum-Survey-Supernormal-Photography/dp/0850596203/ref%3Dsr_1_2%3Fs%3Dbooks%26ie%3DUTF8%26qid%3D1323407144%26sr%3D1-2

  R254

• Oops, the above post should have been signed "R258."

  R258

• Nope. I live next door to a gruesome murder-suicide scene, and I can look into the vacant house out a bedroom window. Nothing happens over there...ever.

  still%20slightly%20creeped%20out%2C%20tho

• Thanks so much, R262! Very nice of you. I've never read 'The Intruders' BTW, but I might do so in the future.

  R261

• I did when I was young but then I grew up. The scary things in life are real people, sadly.

• I don't believe in no ghosts.

• r264, not directed to you personally, but I don't understand how some people think every scene of a murder or suicide has to be haunted. Who knows why spirits remain earth-bound in the first place, but perhaps in the scenes of these violent episodes, there's no reason for them to do so.

• R115 Im sorry for your loss, I wanted to say that I googled sundowning and it means some type of dementia that occurs during evenings or late afternoon.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundowning_%28dementia%29

• R71 I am so fascinated by this theories, paralell Universes and such, I red somewhere that we are just balls of consciouness. Basically just a reflection of a different Universe, if so I want to be in the real Universe. Does anyone know anything about this?

• j

• BUMPPPPPPPPPPPPPP

• Friends of my partner and myself recently finished refurbishing a house from the 1800s and invited everyone in our circle to celebrate Christmas there, including staying overnight in one of the guest bedrooms if needed. They've had some interesting things happen during the renovation and I've experienced a few things when I've visited so I'm looking forward to sleeping there. (However, one of our mutual friends has a bf who was raised in a VERY Christian household and believes all ghosts are the work of the devil and has refused to visit.)

• R273, I certainly don't see that being more difficult to believe than to think that they are people. I think the idea that it's family members and people who can 'verify' things by answering questions is a deception. I think that an evil entity can have that power/knowledge.

• I was just in the theater a few hours ago. I kept feeling like someone was sitting next to me, but there was no one else in the row except my friend to my left. No one was behind us either. The theater isn't very old, but is in an old part of town.

• Not a ghost story but one of a psychic event in my life. I've told this story to friends, but never put it in print until this moment. When I was 21 I worked a third shift job. Most of the time I would end up napping in the evening, before waking up to go to work about 9. One November night the sound of an ambulance awoke me from a really strange dream... I dreamed that my Uncle Joe had died and they were holding "visitation" for him in his home (something that was once a common practice). But in the dream it wasn't my Uncle Joe's home, but the home of a friend of mine named Mark. Joe and Mark physically resembled each other, both tall and thin. In the dream my dead Uncle Joe, got up from his casket and walked outside and lay in the dirt. At this point, the sound of the ambulance woke me. The next morning after work I learned that my friend Mark had been shot and killed, falling to the ground. His wife and niece were with him at the time and the niece was screaming "Uncle Mark! Uncle Mark!" The ambulance that was called to the scene (about 5 miles from my home) was the one that awoke me the previous night. I was dreaming this dream as the real life tragedy was taking place. In my dream I confused my Uncle with my friend - possibly because they looked similar, or possibly because I was somehow picking up on the niece's screams. The location of the funeral visitation in the dream was my friend's home and he fell to the ground when he was shot. There are three points where this dream connected with the event happening while I slept. There were a couple of other dreams like this previously - nothing as dramatic and nothing that scared me as much as this one did. I believe at this point I somehow blocked this from happening again, because that was the last one.

• Wow, r276, that is quite something. Thanks for sharing.

• yes, very interesting, R276.

• I appear in Gwyneth's mirror and mouth the word "cunt" at her.

  The Ghost of Mutti

• Boooooooooooooooo!

• In all the Ghost hunter shows on TLC and Discovery...the Ghosts seem to respond only to the English language. I wonder if any spirits speak French? Vietnamese? Spanish?

  Arisen From The Dead

• There have been a few instances where investigators couldn't make out an EVP and when it was played back for a client, they realized it was in another language besides English. I think it may have happened when Ghost Hunters went to Hawaii. (Of course Steve couldn't make it because he's afraid of flying among other things but that's a separate thread.)

• I don't want to see a ghost, it's a sight that I fear most. I'd rather have a piece of toast and watch the evening news.

  Des%27ree

• I live in a 1905-built house and some things have happened. Someone gently poked me in the back once while I was doing laundry in the basement. A week or so I was awakened by a booming man's voice saying, "Howdy!". It was once a rooming house.

• I'd like to see a ghost but I'm not holding my breath. Friends of mine apparently have seen them. In my one friend's old house he said how they had a ghost cat that was so realistic that guests thought that they owned a cat but they didn't have any pets when my friend lived there. Another friend of mine who has seen ghosts said how they can take on certain emotions or some will get annoyed or even angry that you're there, and how they feel sort of like a fog or mist, and that you have the feeling that you're being watched and then they appear.

• I like to watch all of the paranormal shows (Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures, Celebrity Ghost Stories, etc) and while I believe, I've never seen a ghost although I've heard strange noises and sounds. I'd love to go on a ghost hunt or investigation.

• R261, thanks to your post I ordered The Intruders and have skimmed through it (haven't had time to read the whole thing yet). What do you think was going on with her house? I felt that there was a chunk of the story that wasn't being told. Someone sent out a phony press release describing her as a call girl, she got harassing phone calls--that was clearly the work of an actual person or people. I am wondering of some of the weird stuff going on in her house (windows opening by themselves) wasn't the work of a person with a grudge. Maybe the notorious party girl was running around with somebody else's husband? Still doesn't explain her friend's death before the fire. Or the fire itself, though it might come down to the illegal wiring. That was very weird, and creepy. If you buy the book with the ghostly picture, please post it here!

  Love%20being%20creeped%20out...to%20a%20point

• I'm linking to a photo- look at the first photo, in the hallway- I've seen the raw larger photo and it's much clearer- a woman with long black hair wearing a white top and black skirt, carrying a black bag, walking away from camera. I said to the photographer, "That was an interesting choice, why did you put her there?" He said, "There was no woman there, and we don't have anyone on the crew that looks like her."

  http://www.modelmayhem.com/portfolio/470087/viewall

• Crap- didn't link straight to the pic. 8 rows down, 2nd row from the left, Asian guy with glasses on.

• R288, all I see are pics of models reclining--no one in a hallway. Here are some pics of the Montandon house, in case anyone is interested. Looks like Pat is still alive and blogging too.

  http://www.hauntedbay.com/features/montandon.shtml

• I want to do a naked investigation with Steve and Dave Tango.

• R288, it's a bit dim, but you can definitely make her out as being there. She looks very substantial, though, like someone crashed the photo shoot and decided to leave.

• "My partner is a psychic medium and used his abilities to speak to ghosts." Yeahright.

• Besides Ryan Buell (sp?), are there any other gay or bi guys on any shows?

• This Christmas Eve, I picked up my jacket and my cellphone fell out. I looked at the display and it said, "Call Aunt Sue." My phone locks when it's not in use, and you have to press two buttons to unlock it. I hadn't used it for hours. The phone had unlocked itself, gone through the menu to the second page, selected saved phone numbers, gone to that menu, gone to the second page, 6th name down, and selected Aunt Sue's name and phone number. The day after Christmas was the first year anniversary of my dad's death. He and Sue were very close, and without fail he would have called her if he had been alive. He also would have told me to call her. After that happened, I felt very strongly I should call her, on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas. I called, Sue was going to be gone all day Christmas and I wouldn't have reached her. I told her what happened. Dead silence. Sue is a born again Christian and they don't believe in ghosts. It's actually really offensive to them because they think the only spirits that walk the earth are damned or some such rubbish. Dad used to call her all the time to argue about politics and religion, and he enjoyed "getting her goat" greatly. He didn't belong to her religion and believed in the afterlife. I felt terrible for upsetting her, as I had forgotten her beliefs, and I got the distinct impression she was offended. At the same time, I wondered if Dad did it on purpose just to tell her she was wrong. He would. He also would have really, really wanted to call her, because she's moved to a nursing home recently and he would be afraid she was lonely.

  True story.

• r 295, ever heard of Occam's Razor? You mean the first explanation you came up with to explain your cell phone acting funny was ghosts?

• Season premier of Ghost Hunters tonight, started at 8pm but will repeat. They're investigating Kings Island amusement park.

• I had an incubus in my apartment in California...I'd wake up with a raging hard on and the strange feeling of a wet mouth on my cock, and a finger in my ass. I'd never come, but I'd see a strange dark but colored cloud hovering above my bed.

• what's the difference between an incubus and a succubus?

• incubus: A male demon believed to have sexual intercourse with sleeping women succubus: A female demon believed to have sexual intercourse with sleeping men

• R298 how do you know it was an incubus and not a succubus?

• 301, good question. I wonder if there's a completely different set of demons who target gay men and lesbians.

• lescubus? gaycubus?

• I don't believe in ghosts, but I believe living people are susceptible to all manner of hallucinations.

• [quote]I wonder if there's a completely different set of demons who target gay men and lesbians. Are there also transgendered ghosts?

• Fascinating story R295. Did Aunt Sue ever mention it again?

• Cool story R295.

• Boo!

• I think I might. At night, I often get a feeling that somebody is standing in my doorway of my bedroom watching me sleep. I get that "somebody is watching me" feeling intensely. I turn-over and I often see the presence of a man but then it quickly disappears. I have woken up from it as well. One night, I was freaked out so bad by it that I threw my pillow at "him", and the presence disappeared. I do feel like there is somebody else living in my house.

• Did you ever have a radio that would not turn off, even when you unplug it? I had a cheap one...no batteries. Finally I threw it away. I walked in my room and there was all kinds of static coming from it, even though it was turned off. It made me uncomfortable. Is that something that is normal with radios?

• To 309, do you think he might just be watching over you? Maybe he's fond of you?

• I was serious about the radio. I just wanted a logical explaination.

• It's always fun when someone adds a new ghost story.

• Bump in the night

• I don't like to read threads like this after dark.

• I wonder if the site of The Our Lady of Angels fire, in Chicago is haunted? 92 kids died a rather sudden death.

• I'm not afraid of ghosts but demons now that is something different I just recently moved in my apartment and one night i woke up with the feeling there was someone leaning against my back, this happened several times or I would wake up and feel someone's breath on my face only it's a single bed and I sleep alone. every time it would scare me awake every time I would say 'in the name of Jesus Christ be gone' so it went my parents came from out of town and slept at my apartment my mother said to me she felt as if someone was leaning against her back while she was asleep and it wasn't my father she kept complaining till I told her my story. I just said do what I do chase it away

• My partner and I rented a house in Las Vegas back in 2001 - we both saw separately, but constantly, an old man in the hallway and a little girl in the kitchen. It wasn't at all threatening, but we both wrote down all the details we'd seen and then exchanged them - they were exact. The weird thing was that it was just a run down tract home with nothing special about it. We have a new house in Dallas that we're in the middle of renovating - I've seen someone out of the corner of my eye walk by my office door more than once. The dogs don't react, though, which is kind of weird.

  Not%20that%20the%20whole%20thing%20isn%27t%20weird

• [quote]Are there also transgendered ghosts? Funnily enough, R305, a good friend told me a creepy transgendered ghost story the other day. I just called him to verify I had the details correct. His sister-in-law was a live-in resident of an old terrace house that was being used as a drug rehab. in inner-city Sydney in 1984. It was early evening and she was the only person on the premises at the time. She heard a noise that sounded like it was coming from the entrance hall so she went to investigate. She confronted a man standing on the stairs. She asked him, "Can I help you?" At that the man's face turned into a woman's and he/she fled up the stairs. A bit freaked out by this, my friend's sister-in-law ran out the front door and went to find her sister who lived in the same neighbourhood. Together they returned to the rehab. and searched the place thoroughly but found no evidence of anyone else in the building. Later they found out that a transman (woman?) had suicided there two years earlier.

• I like your story r276. I'm just curious, are you saying that the that the ambulance that woke you from the dream was the same that was called to the scene? How do you know this?

• r250 were actually fooled by those videos? The Gettysburg one is so obviously a fake and the Hampton has been debunked.

• To 317, it could have been the spirit of a dog or cat that had always slept with it's owner.

• There is other footag of a Gettysberg Soldier. I believed it.

• My mom claims a ghost hides her earrings.

• .

• .

• Not really a ghost story.... A few weeks after my grandmother died, I was home alone and began to think about her. I was pretty close to her as a chile. I began crying because the last time I saw her, she was feeble, forgetten who I was but was trying so hard to smile and be courageous. At that time, I believed in the afterlife so I wondering how she was after death, if she was ok. I decide continue my mournfest and dig out old cards from family that I had stored away years before. In a stack, I found a birthday card she sent me years before when I was 18. This was the only card I had ever received from her. In the card, all she wrote was "Happy Birthday. I'm ok here". I thought it was an odd birthday message. I think it was her trying to tell me she was ok and stop the fucking crying already.

• Why would she write "I'm ok here"? Was she very old?

• Can ghosts perform exorcism on each other?

• I live in an old house that was built in 1908. One night I was at my computer at the front of the house and there were three loud bangs on the front door. It was night out and I was alone in the house. I got up and went to the door which was about two feet from where I was sitting. Opened the door and there was no one there. It took me no longer than 5 sec to open the door. I was standing outside and my partner pulled in the driveway right after. We looked up and down the street and there was no one. I thought nothing of it at the time but it happened three more times .Three out of the four times I was home alone. The last time it happened I was with my partner and my cousin who had come over for dinner. We heard the loud banging and my partner went to the door open it and no one was there.

  Who%20is%20it%3F

• no. but I believe in magic in a young girl's heart.

• I had the same thing happen to me, only it was only one bang on the door and it was after midnight. I got up and openned the door. No one was around. There have been many deaths in my building.

• My partner claims to have seen a horse grazing in our street last night.

• I'll start watching celebrity ghost stories. There is a fraud named Amy on a ghost show who works with an Italian-American detective. She, is a fraud and shouldn't be filmed without extensive eye makeup on. Looks like an old midwestern hausfrau from Illinois. You know who I mean?

• Why do you say that she's a fraud, R334? And the show you're talking about is "The Dead Files."

  http://www.travelchannel.com/tv-shows/the-dead-files

• I'm bumping this thread because Adam Berry of Ghost Hunters came out of the closet while investigating the site of the UpStairs Lounge fire of '73 in New Orleans. He actually said he was gay while trying to contact spirits of those gay men who perished in the fire. I'm happy for him. And I'm happy or Ghost Hunters because I'd never heard of this tragedy before and it's heartbreaking. Congrats, Adam.

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UpStairs_Lounge_arson_attack

• Thanks for sharing that news r336.

• [He actually said he was gay while trying to contact spirits of those gay men who perished in the fire] later and off camera, one of the gay men's spririts tried to fuck him raw

• [R335] Amy told a little girl in one episode that as a child she was obsessed with Lizzie Borden case and on another episode went to the LB house and did a "reading". In another she tells homeowner that memories can't communicate with him. She claims the prisoner who is alive and 50 miles away doing time for killing a gay man tells her to shut the fuck up, bitch. There are many other inconsistancies like a reality star named Adam who was also on LA Ink, etc. She's irritating as all get out, to boot.

• I'd hardly call that coming out since it was commonly known Adam was gay before. See the link from February of 2011 below

  http://www.afterelton.com/people/2011/02/ghost-hunters-adam-berry

• a thread that goes bump in the day.

• No. I think that human beings are very sensitive to the presence of other human beings, and we are liable to misinterpret certain cues, like sounds that remind us of somebody walking around or vocalizing, as being evidence that something's really there when it isn't. I also think that on some level we're not really able to comprehend death. It just doesn't make sense to us that somebody can be here one minute and then be gone forever the next. When a person is gone from our lives we fill in the blank with memories, and sometimes those memories respond to those cues I mentioned before and make us think we're in communication with a dead person. It's also very common for recently bereaved people to have vivid dreams about their dead loved ones. I think this is normal psychological phenomena and it's fine. The trouble is when greedy assholes like Sylvia Browne go around tricking people into thinking that they have special powers to communicate with the dead. That is a particularly evil form of exploitation.

• r340, I doubt Ghost Hunters audiences read After Elton. I don't even read After Elton. I meant it takes a lot of courage for Adam to come out on the show during an investigation. On his show, he officially came out. I'm sure many of Ghost Hunters viewing audience were shocked by that revelation. It would be nice if like r337, you could simply be happy for him instead of snarky.

• We are surrounded by energy. What we label as ghosts is energy (can be as simple as a sound, voice, scent, etc.) that triggers the emerging of unresolved issues from our own unconsciousness. Some people call these experiences dream or nightmare-ish like, because vivid memories clash with the present and kind of turn into a double exposed mental image. Usually when these type of things happen we have the urge to push the vivid memory back into our subconscious (because we aren't mentally prepared to deal with the issue at hand out of nowhere) and that's where the fear and struggle come from. It's basically like a headache or some other bodily symptom. Your body alerts you with a message of pain that something's going wrong and instead of listening and following the root of the message we just take pain medication to shut the symptom's painful message up without ever looking for the reason why the painful message was sent in the first place.

• bump in the day

• There are some who say they don't believe in ghosts yet wouldn't go near a graveyard after dark.

• It's almost Halloween and no ghost stories?

• Boo!

• Going bump in the day.

• Bump.

• R346, is that from something or are you just saying that? It's strangely very poetic.

• Tlelate Maureen Regan, and her husband both, on different occasions claim to have had a ghost come into their room while staying overnight at the whitehouse, and sat at the edge of their bed.

• I had a ghost once grab me and hug me

• yes and i have more experience with than i would have wanted.

• Every minute of every day we are being penetrated by wandering cell phone packets. Who knows how much of this our brain actually can identify...

• I had a ghost give me a kidney punch. Mean old bastard.

• Yes. I have had encounters all my life.

  Ma Joad

• It can be disconcerting.

• [quote]There are some who say they don't believe in ghosts yet wouldn't go near a graveyard after dark. I'd probably fall in this category. I'd rather not go to a graveyard at all because they are a sad place, but I definitely would not go at night. Not because of ghosts, but because I know my mind will feed into all the supernatural movies and TV things I've seen and I would definitely scare myself.

• Interesting take on it R359

• I've had male energies enter both my mouth and anus.

  Chip

• I've never had THAT and I've never seen one but I have had experiences that can only be blamed on a ghost or poltergeist...whatever that is. It's annoying if you believe it is a person whom you've known in life and cared about but often disagreed with.

• I don't know if I believe in ghosts. But I do believe there are many people who are not lying when they've had paranormal encounters. Just what they experienced is the question. Was it mental? Was it natural? Was it paranormal? Was it beyond the realm of ghosts? Whatever it ways, you can tell when someone's lying and when some is genuinely telling the truth when they've encountered something unexplainable.

• Boo