I don’t want ghost stories! Everybody has a strange experience that might have been “paranormal”. My mum aged 84, fit as a butcher’s dog and hale and hearty in every way but as you would expect, mentally stressed, is going through a bad time with voices and loud bangs in her thatched 300 year-old cottage in Wiltshire. I am the most cynical and rational person ever and I’ve never seen a ghost but would love to see one or attend an exorcism and witness things that can’t be explained.

Please, no “ghost” stories, but try to convince me they really do exist and it’s not just Human imagination working overtime.

it’s just Human imagination working overtime.

Asking for a convincing word on ghosts is analogous to asking for a convincing on God. Ghosts and such ‘paranormal’ experiences are very subjective, and so almost require people’s stories for them to be substantiated.

I don’t think you’re going to get much satisfaction from this thread, unfortunately.

would love to see one or attend an exorcism and witness things that can’t be explained.

Might I suggest a Derren Brown show?

OK three replies as cynical as me!

That’s not cynicism

Has anything changed in the last n years your Mum had been living at the house ?

Unlikely that ghosts would suddenly rock up and kick off 😉

I ain’t afraid of no ghosts!

Loud bangs? Well it is around firework night…!

On a more serious note I think there are some things that can’t be explained away and therefore the answer is yes.

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio and all that.

God and ghosts are human simplifications of things that we don’t yet understand. The human race, no matter how bright we think we are, are probably the equivalent of a single cell amoeba, maybe less, in what in probability is a very much bigger picture.

I think there’s probably something “paranormal” that bumps into our dimension but ghosts as we define them is probably not the right answer.

Rich.

Have the loud bangs started in the last few days. I have a similar problem in Somerset. Sometimes there is a schreeching noise and coloured sparks appear in the sky. Additionally there are a lot of thin wooden sticks on the ground outside.

Maybe it’s the same ghost?

I saw Ghostbusters in the cinema as a young teenager. I laughed so hard, well… that’s enough of that.

After that, I certainly wanted ghosts to exist.

If your mum believes in ghosts for her their real ! Doesn’t matter what anyone else belives. Voices and sounds might be a symptom of something medical though ? I’d get her to see a Dr before a priest. But in the end if she thinks something like an exorcism would work why not.

Incidentally, taxi25, if an exorcism was requested, a medical professional would be consulted first in any case.

Best ‘explanation’ I’ve seen postulates that, under certain circumstances, a human being, which has a fair amount of electrical activity going on, can leave an electromagnetic ‘imprint’ on surrounding structures, that some people can react to.
It at least gives a rational, scientific explanation to a phenomenon that otherwise is explained by ‘spirits unable to move on from this plane of existence’.
Never had any kind of experience I could explain as ‘supernatural’, either.

Best ‘explanation’ I’ve seen is that some people like to start hoaxes and the human mind is an unreliable witness.

(Speaking as an ex-subscriber of Unexplained magazine. Remember that?)

I saw a ghost a couple of months ago (bear with me).

I was perched against the side of the bath reading something on my phone in the dark, facing the door, which was slightly ajar with a small light on the landing outside. After a couple of minutes, I became aware of a small girl in the doorway. As I looked up, she exited the door and at the same point I suddenly went very cold and had a strange feeling wash over me. Both my children were in bed with their doors closed, so I exited the bathroom to see figure out what was going on. There was no one on the landing and everyone else was asleep.

I went back to the bathroom, made sure the door was in the same position and sat in the same place and looked at my phone. Sure enough, after a few minutes, I saw the figure again, but this time, I avoided looking directly at it. This time, I could clearly see it was an optical illusion, presumably caused by my eyes fixed on point of my phone for a long period of time in darkness, with the slight light coming from the door. I looked up and the illusion was gone. I managed to recreate it again.

The weird thing was the cold and the odd feeling. If I was more suggestible and hadn’t attempted to rationalise it, I’d have been convinced I had seen a ghost.

In summary, you can’t always trust your brain and your senses.

Human brains just don’t work as well as we think they do. Our brains put a huge amount of effort into reconstructing a model of the world from some fairly limited information, and occasionally, get it wrong.

globalti – Member
… My mum aged 84, fit as a butcher’s dog and hale and hearty in every … I am the most cynical and rational person ever and I’ve never seen a ghost but would love to see one or attend an exorcism and witness things that can’t be explained.

Let’s try the scientific way first.

1. Have you check the house for mold? i.e. fungi infection?
2. Check the surrounding to see if there is some sort of chemical leak?
3. Check if her diet has been good. i.e. not poison herself recently.
4. Check if there is something (not sure what but check) surrounding the house or in the house that can cause hallucination … not sure what to look for … gas?
5. Check her health. But try not to electrocute her …

The non-scientific ways …

6. Find out the age of her parents/your grandparents/ancestors death age. If they all lived to around her age (nothing traumatic) then perhaps the time to depart is looming but there is no certainty when. Sometimes a “dying” person can live for several years (after the start of his/her “hallucination”) before eventually departs. A person can be very healthy one minute but his/her health can suddenly take a turn for the worst even with a slight flu if his/her time is up.

The scientific minded will call this slow decay of the physical body perhaps starting with the brain first (sometime the brain is the last to “decay”). i.e. the person is slowly dying. For the non-scientific minded the time is almost up and they are “waiting” to accompany her to her future destination, hence, a dying person is more sensitive to the unexplained.

7. Find out if her parents/ancestors passed away peacefully or with illness. What sort of illness. If they had the similar experience then the news might not be good. However, if they did not have such experience and scientific test does not suggest anything wrong with your mum then the house is haunted or recently haunted as they are making their presence felt.

8. Have your mum encountered all that you described recently? If she has how long has she experienced them around? Two possibilities: a) see 6 & 7, b)She has new “tenants” that have decided they want to share her dwelling because she can be “bullied”. The former is a natural occurrence but you might want to take action for the latter.

9. Exorcism? (8b) Who are you going to call? (no, not the movie) Seriously. Do you have qualified priest(s) to solve the problem like this? If there is a troubling ghost(s) in the house can the priest help him/her to cross over? Or merely just asking them to leave the house temporarily only for them to return again after the exorcism, sometimes the situation might worsen if unsure of dealing with the “tenants”.

misterduncan – Member
In summary, you can’t always trust your brain and your senses.

Optical illusion? Perhaps there was a ghost but there perhaps there was no ghoast. The biggest illusion in us can sometime be denial but then blindly taking everything as real/fact can also be an illusion.

Why not ask your children if they have seen a little girl before? If there is one then they will describe her to you. Ask them nicely.

As for the rest of the scientific minded. Yes, I believe in ghost or afterlife or beyond the carbon life for fertilizer usage. “Logic” in me still does not understand why people with strong scientific mind weep over the dead of their love ones. I mean if your logic serve your right that is the end. There should not be any sort of emotional attachment not even cultural.

But then I come from the far east where there seem to be overdosed of supernatural all around me. However, you lot in the west seem to get overdosed of iPhone, iPad and all things smartphones. Are you worshiping your smartphone? 😆

Optical illusion? Perhaps there was a ghost but there perhaps there was no ghoast. The biggest illusion in us can sometime be denial but then blindly taking everything as real/fact can also be an illusion

I recreated the illusion three times. I could make it appear and disappear and as soon as I did this, I could see it was clearly not a girl. My brain just filled the gaps in the first time.

There are no ghosts. Nearly everyone has a camera on them these days and there is still no evidence. Same for UFOs.

misterduncan – Member

Good that you found your own answer but where did the chill air came from? The “image/illusion” can be mistaken sometime for other things but the association with chill air … where did that come from? Are you easily frighten? Why associate with chill air?

❓

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26516-ever-felt-a-ghostly-presence-now-we-know-why.html#.VF6N_fmsVgg

It hasn’t been disproved a bit like god really. Is it possible time is a spiral that occasionally gets tangled up.

Good that you found your own answer but where did the chill air came from?

Expectation? Fight or flight response? Who is knows, but it certainly wasn’t paranormal.

I’m open minded on ghosts. Not seen one, not seen any evidence to prove they exist. But there a lot of things I – and most of the rest of the people on the planet – don’t know everything about.

So I will resist the urge to go all “internet hard man, everything is black or white” on it. I doubt they exist, but I’d be interested if it was shown that they do.

benji – Member

It hasn’t been disproved a bit like god really. Is it possible time is a spiral that occasionally gets tangled up.

I don’t believe in One creator god as the logic does not stack up.

misterduncan – Member

Expectation? Fight or flight response? Who is knows, but it certainly wasn’t paranormal.

Interesting. Hence the question are you easily frighten. Good that you manage to recreate the illusion but try it again for another several times in different environment to be absolutely sure or in different part of your house.

MoreCashThanDash – Member

So I will resist the urge to go all “internet hard man, everything is black or white” on it. I doubt they exist, but I’d be interested if it was shown that they do.

Even if they are true there are always alternative explanations to dismiss them so there is no way to distinguish one’s experience due to lack of monetary value.

Is your mum suffering from dementia? One of the symptoms of this is hallucinations & also paranoia – my mum, bless her, who has been diagnosed as suffering from the onset of this, has “witnessed” someone falling off the roof of her house & landing in the front hedge & regularly “seen” a white rat on her pillow. She can seem totally lucid the majority of the time, but then tell me that she got rid of the clock in the living room because she got the feeling it was watching her. No, I don’t believe in ghosts, by the way.

pedropete – Member

Is your mum suffering from dementia? …

That depends on the things OP’s mum sees. If the time is near ending or beginning of an end then she would be consistently be seeing “people” rather than of abstract matters like animals or people falling off. It would even be more consistent with seeing past people/friends/relatives/strangers etc that would like to interact with her.

Try to observe your mum to see if she starts saying “people” are trying to interact with her or have started to get closer to her like sitting besides her etc. I am just comparing notes/my observation.

But there a lot of things I – and most of the rest of the people on the planet – don’t know everything about.

This is true, I doubt anyone would claim otherwise.

However, that doesn’t give any more credence to any old hooey we come up with to fill in the gaps.

It hasn’t been disproved a bit like god really. Is it possible time is a spiral that occasionally gets tangled up.

^^^^^^
In all my years of trying to unravel some of the strange things I (and others known to me) have seen, smelled and heard – this exactly (almost to the word, I said ‘helix, like a slinky spring’) one of the hypothetical (and plucked out of the air) causes I postulated. You’re the first person I have encountered to hazard the same guess.

Am aware of electromagnetic influence causing dread and feelings of being watchedetc, also hysteria, mind tricks, tricks of the light etc etc, but have still never been able to account for quite a number of certain other apparitions. I don’t believe in ‘spirits’ ie ‘ghosts of the dead’ but have seen and heard things that fit the description so deduce it must be something else we don’t understand.

In answer to the question posed in the title: No.

Some interesting posts there, thanks. IM’s linked article on Feeling of Presence is interesting too.

It’s notable that my Mum is aged 84 and while she’s in great physical condition (leads local walking groups, goes to gym, sings in 3 choirs, guide at local museum etc.) she has what you might decribe as a “fragile” mind and has suffered some extremely stressful episodes in her life. Her cottage has rats in the thatch, which bothers her, and I’ve just remembered that a couple of years ago she had a big episode of hearing “the hum” at night, a well-publicised phenomenon that nobody has been able to track down anywhere it occurs. I went down to stay with her and on two nights when she said the hum was at full strength I could hear nothing.

Nowadays she says she hears voices in the night and the latest episode happened when she awoke with the strong sensation that the former owner of the house, then 103 years old, was standing at the head of her bed and the next morning she heard that the woman had died in the night. Whether that’s the same coincidence whereby we think of somebody then a few minutes later they phone us, or whether there really is something there, is anybody’s guess.

On the times I’ve stayed with her I’ve slept well with no disturbance but her cottage is very quiet and I’d imagine that any small noise would sound very loud in the night to a lonely old lady.

I don’t believe in ghosts.

I have seen one though…

5. Check her health. But try not to electrocute her …

I think this is our big take-home message from this thread

I believe in goats.. I actually saw one once.. At least, I think I did..
I think they are the accumulated energy left over after we depart this planet, as the energy struggles to find a new form..

Best ‘explanation’ I’ve seen postulates that, under certain circumstances, a human being, which has a fair amount of electrical activity going on, can leave an electromagnetic ‘imprint’ on surrounding structures, that some people can react to.
It at least gives a rational, scientific explanation to a phenomenon that otherwise is explained by ‘spirits unable to move on from this plane of existence’.
Never had any kind of experience I could explain as ‘supernatural’, either.

No, – it gives a completely unfounded, superficial, untested and baseless hypothesis that counts as nothing in the realm of science.

It may be “an explanation” and it uses “sciency” words like electromagnetic, – but its is far from scientific

Please, no “ghost” stories, but try to convince me they really do exist and it’s not just Human imagination working overtime.

Ok I’ll give it a shot.

Ghosts are real.

No they’re not.

Damn it!

Ghosts are for the weak minded, film makers, myth makers, storytellers and the gullible.
You must be really special if you believe in what is essentially mythical nonsense that people lacking in intelligence think are real despite no proof they exist. You even have to question the sanity of those supposed ‘scientists’ who look for that proof.
Horoscopes.
Crystals
Jesus.
Seances
Fairy’s
Goblins

All bollocks, if you need to be told you are not right in the head.

I used to see my nan after she passed away, but that was just visulizing memories.

When I was about 12 years old I was walking along Windmill Road, in Ballyholme Northern Ireland. At that time there was still (just) a Victorian mansion called Ballyholme House. It had a walled perimeter. I was walking along the road beside the wall when a ‘strange’ old lady passed me. I turned round just after she passed me and there was no-one there. No where she could have gone to.