THE GHOST POST

Great thread Shawn and interesting story.

I don't have a paranormal experience to share, but my wife, son, and I spent the night at the Lizzie Borden house in Fall River, MA this past July.  We slept in Lizzie's bedroom.  I would have loved to have experienced something paranormal while we were there, but alas, nothing.  I must say it was absolutely creepy being there, and wondering around the house during the night was quite spooky.  The times I walked around parts of the house alone were especially unnerving.  Anyone who enjoys such things, I would highly recommend staying there.  We also paid a visit to the graves of Lizzie, her father and stepmother before our stay.  It was quite a macabre weekend.

I so want to post something here, but I remember all too well about the rules against agitating another member's thread and spoiling the fun. Perhaps it's time for the typical players to start another thread to discuss this thread.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SWFF 

I've seen that place on GHOST HUNTERS, looks creepy. Too bad you didn't experience anything. I like watching those shows, but I don't think I'd ever have the nerve to go walking around in the dark in a haunted locale. Your avatar, is that the luscious Summer Glau?

It was a fun place to stay.  Even though there was no activity while we were there, it was still fascinating to spend a night in the house where those famous murders took place.  And yes, that is Summer Glau on my avatar.

I have a number of them,  as I've been working in the medical field for years,  but I'll hold myself to two.

I had just started at a facility that was fairly small.  There were only two nurses on duty on the evening shift.  Late in the shift,  I had a question about one of the patients,  so I went in search of the other nurse.  Directly accross from the nurses station was a small 15' hallway with the elevators that opened into a large lounge for the patients.  I entered the lounge saw no one but a little old man reading a book,  turned around and stopped at the nurse's station and looked up the other hall and saw the other nurse coming down.  Asked my question,  looked back into the lounge...empty.  No one could get past me,  it'd only been 2 minutes.  No one was there.

Two years later I had a patient with mental issues pass,  she'd resided in the room for years,  before I started there.  A couple days later I was walking past the room,  it was dusk with the last rays of sunlight shining in the window.  As I'm walking past,  I see someone walking towards the doorway from within the room.  I know that this room is empty at present,  no one's assigned to it.  I turn my head,  look straight at it.  I see a black human shaped thing walking towards me with the last light of day behind it.  I keep going.  I did not want to know what that was. 

Ryan, it was probably, oh, you know, a ... person. You simply got a glimps of a person who happened to be in the room. Not very "ghostlike." As for your other example, you turn your head and put your attention elsewhere and it's very easy to miss someone exiting a room. It only takes a second or two.

Shawn, some others here at HTF and I are skeptical of this sort of thing. It's fun to scare ourselves, especially with Halloween approaching. Not only that, but Robert Wise's 1963 masterpiece The Haunting is a favortie film of mine (genuinely scary), even though its premise is something I consign to fantasy. As for what you saw, buddy, your description of something that appeared to you to be a bodiless head is, simply, a description by you of something you saw -- but it hardly qualifies as a "ghost." (In fact, nothing does.)

My comment was to the effect that if we skeptics would like to have fun with this topic, we could (should) start another thread and enjoy our rational selves, letting this thread's participants have their fun as well.

With this post, I sign off. Poof!

I think I might have posted about this a few years back. I have not seen a ghost, but I lived in a house, that for lack of a better description, was haunted. I don't really want to get into much of the details, but here are the highlights.

• Bought a house in the early 80s.
• The neighbor would talk in the yard but wouldn't come in.
• I had a dog that would sit in the hall and bark towards the empty guest room.
• When I had a guest stay over, many times they would be sleeping on the living room couch in the morning. They felt uneasy in the guest room.
• I never saw anything move on it's own, but things never seemed to be where we had left them.
• I was so sure of this, I thought that someone had an old key to the house and was in it when I was gone. So much to this point that I started leaving items on the inside of closed doors so that when the door was opened the item would be pushed and I would have evidence that the door was opened.
• One time we had looked into the guest room just to see if all was OK in there. We were in the kitchen eating breakfast and we heard a loud noise in there. Neither one of said anything but we knew what each other was thinking. We looked under the table and the dog was under there. When we went in to the guest room, an item that was on one side of the room now was on the other side.
• Convinced that there was something with the house, maybe haunted, we sold it 6 months after moving in.

Believe me I would love to be in the skeptic crowd, but I lived through this experience. I don't like to talk about it because most people start questioning your state of mind or sanity. There is much more, but if you don't believe this part, you definitely wouldn't believe the rest. 

I was an atheist and this experience convinced me there is more to existence than meets the eye on the surface. Now I am a strong Christian and I no longer want anything to do with Halloween. I really don't care if other don't believe my story because I wouldn't either - except that I lived through it. I never experienced anything like this before or since. The only reason I posted about it is, I would like people to take time out of their busy lives and really consider the afterlife and if you are prepared for it.

Edit:

Here is the other post.

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/forum/thread/275479/ever-been-in-a-haunted-building

I don't expect anyone to readily believe this (and skeptics are welcomed to shrug it off), but it's been a puzzle to me for years--and I'll keep it reasonably brief. But it really happened.

For starters, this occurred in broad daylight on a street in Manhattan! It was on West 71st street, at noon, and there were few people on the block at the time. I was drinking some soda when this slow moving old lady approached me from behind and asked where a certain address was (possibly a hotel or apartment?). I wish I remembered the specifics. Anyway, the lady had a somewhat tinny voice and her clothing was nondescript; her hair was in an old fashioned bun. I couldn't help with her question, so she walked away, quite slowly, behind me. I swear I only looked away for ten seconds before I looked back for one last look, and she was absolutely nowhere in sight. The nearest corner was way too many yards away for her to cover, and there were no obvious doors she could have suddenly slipped through. What the hell just happened? It'd be nice to say I was chatting with a ghost, but I'm at a loss to explain her sudden disappearance, and her somewhat unworldly air in retrospect has puzzled me since then. It's become my one and only Halloween-type story, even if it happened on a hot summer day on a city block! I'll just leave it as a "?" incident.  

BrianW - nice threadfart...

I'm sorry, Christopher.  I honestly didn't mean to offend, so I've deleted my Halloween story.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barry Rivadue 

I don't expect anyone to readily believe this (and skeptics are welcomed to shrug it off), but it's been a puzzle to me for years--and I'll keep it reasonably brief. But it really happened.

 

For starters, this occurred in broad daylight on a street in Manhattan! It was on West 71st street, at noon, and there were few people on the block at the time. I was drinking some soda when this slow moving old lady approached me from behind and asked where a certain address was (possibly a hotel or apartment?). I wish I remembered the specifics. Anyway, the lady had a somewhat tinny voice and her clothing was nondescript; her hair was in an old fashioned bun. I couldn't help with her question, so she walked away, quite slowly, behind me. I swear I only looked away for ten seconds before I looked back for one last look, and she was absolutely nowhere in sight. The nearest corner was way too many yards away for her to cover, and there were no obvious doors she could have suddenly slipped through. What the hell just happened? It'd be nice to say I was chatting with a ghost, but I'm at a loss to explain her sudden disappearance, and her somewhat unworldly air in retrospect has puzzled me since then. It's become my one and only Halloween-type story, even if it happened on a hot summer day on a city block! I'll just leave it as a "?" incident.  

Maybe she got into a taxi cab.

Quote:

Originally Posted by drobbins 

I think I might have posted about this a few years back. I have not seen a ghost, but I lived in a house, that for lack of a better description, was haunted. I don't really want to get into much of the details, but here are the highlights.

 

No shame in fear. Contrary to what Yoda said, fear leads to being wary which leads to being self-protective. What you've loosely dubbed "haunted" will probably, someday, be found to be some kind of cross-talk between parallel dimensions in close proximity... or something understandable only to Stephen Hawking.

Two versions of your house, objects in contradiction, rearranging spontaneously due to some fault about which was which.

Since we're probably decades away, maybe a couple centuries away, from understanding where our world ends and the next ones begin, who can blame you for moving out.

But there's no need to worry about "supernatural" -- there's only nature.

Particularly, there's no need to worry about there having been an intelligence behind the moving objects. Think of it this way: If a primitive man saw a piece of metal move across a table to a magnet, his first instinct may be to fear that an unseen intelligence grabbed it and moved it across the table. But we know it was just natural forces snapping the metal into place next to the magnet. Same concept, though wildly different, may be at work in that house. No intelligence behind it at all, just natural forces that we don't yet understand and won't for many decades.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will_B 

 

 

Maybe she got into a taxi cab.

Nah, not in that short time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrianW 

I'm sorry, Christopher.  I honestly didn't mean to offend, so I've deleted my Halloween story.

No offense on my part whatsoever - I was merely admiring the non sequitur.  Sorry if that was lost in my message, however you were not alone in misunderstanding my comment.

the house we live in is an old farmhouse built in 1892. We are it's third owners. I swear some nights I or my teenage daughter will be up late and see movement in the hall or kitchen. But apparently it's a friendly ghost... no horror movie stuff

I Spent Halloween Weekend on Vacation in Texas. One of the places I visited was Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, which is where President John F. Kennedy was Assassinated in 1963. As I walked through the Plaza, I could hear the sounds of the Crowds of people who gathered there to see the president as his Motorcade paraded through the streets of downtown Dallas. It had to have been a festive atmosphere,  maybe a few Hecklers (You ALWAYS see them whenever a Politician makes an appearance)  but most of the People gathered excited at the Oppurtunity to see the President in person (Hey, it isn't everyday the President shows up in your neck of the woods!).  One of the places I walked through was on Commerce Street about a Block away from Dealey Plaza. This was also along the Motorcade's Route, and it was certain people were lining the street there as well. I do not know if they heard the gunshots from the Book Depot or not, but lets assume they didn't. They were waiting for the Motorcade to pass by them, and I'm sure they could hear the sounds from the area above them indicating the Motorcade was coming. Then it did pass them, but at a FAST SPEED! (As the Motorcade made a rush for the nearest Hospital!). I'm sure those in that area thought "What The......"  Then the word got out, that he was fired upon.  It must have been HORRIBLE, a Party one Minute, then All Hades breaks out the next. If this place isn't Haunted I do not know what is!

Perhaps it's haunted by the memory of November 22, 1963, William. I still am.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SWFF 

And, I will state unequivocally that it was a ghost that I saw.

It seems to be unequivocal that you believe it was a ghost.  It's not, however, unequivocal that anyone else must share that belief or accept your experience as "proof" or even evidence of the paranormal.  It's an anecdote, nothing more.

Shawn, RobertR is one of the other skeptics here who places value on critical thinking. And his final sentence says it all. JB

Everything is anecdotal.  There's some threshold where masses of anecdotes become reports. Then some threshold where masses of reports become considered facts.

Oddly, the bias the reader has against the material effects where these abstract thresholds are!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will_B 

Everything is anecdotal. 

No, not everything.  Observations can be subject to bias controls.  Observations can be conducted by different individuals to see if they can be repeated.  Variables can be controlled.  It's the difference between a scientific observation and an unscientific one.

Or the difference between labwork and "the wild".

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will_B 

Or the difference between labwork and "the wild".

Or the difference between "extraordinary claim" (requiring extraordinary evidence subject to careful scrutiny) and "unextraordinary claim".

Well now there's where we depart. I don't believe in different standards of evidence. Claims, be they extraordinary or ordinary, are ideally subject to the same requirements if the intent is to present a compelling likelihood of accuracy. Different standards introduces bias based on expectations, and that sort of bias should be avoided.

I know Carl made a cute catch-phrase out of saying the opposite, but it was just a catch-phrase, it doesn't hold up to scrutiny as maintaining a dispassionate eye.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will_B 

it doesn't hold up to scrutiny as maintaining a dispassionate eye.

OW!  My irony gland!
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Will_B 

Well now there's where we depart.

We do indeed.  I think it makes perfect sense for a wife to be more skeptical and demand extraordinary evidence if her husband says that he came home late because he was kidnapped by aliens instead of spending time at the pub with his drinking buddies or had car trouble.