Have you, or anyone you know, ever actually SEEN a ghost?

[LifesTooShortToLearnPolish]

I mean actually, visually, witnessed something. I'm not talking about strange experiences, items moving/disappearing/reappearing etc.

I'm curious about this, the sort of visual experiences people have, what they're like, the type of 'person' they've seen.

I'm not interested in opinions on whether such things exist. And for clarity, I'm not entirely sure myself, however I do credit others' experiences and respect their beliefs.

I did have a visual experience of my own in my bedroom of my student flat, about 35 years ago. It was a weird old place. In a dim corner I saw a man with a blazer and hat standing in the corner. He looked annoyed. I ran out to get my flatmate but no one was there when we went back in. Felt a bit stupid.

What's your experience? 😊

I once was staying with a friend in her family home. I was upstairs alone when I saw a white figure move across the landing and it really spooked me.
When I told my friend her eyes widened and she said her mum has seen this 'white lady' many times and believed it to be a ghost.

I'm not sure I believe in them but that's the closest experience I've had to seeing one

Well. I don't believe in ghosts. I believe it to be a trick of the imagination and your brain. But, yes, I have had an unexplainable encounter.

I was in my rural office at the reception photocopier, back to the front door, when I heard the door open and I saw someone out of the corner of my eye come in and walk up the stairs. I said good morning. They didn't reply.

I finished my photocopying and went upstairs talking to this person and ..... there was no one there. Over the next 30m all my staff arrived.

Additionally, in this office, we allowed dogs and one dog hated the back room.

I started a thread about this the other week so I’ve just copied and pasted my post …

I had a really weird experience

Last year we booked a weekend away in a cottage in Devon.

I fell asleep on the sofa and woke up to an old lady in a green cardigan going over to the fire place.
Then she just disappeared.
I was really spooked but husband said I must have been half dreaming.

The owner of the cottage was in the local pub one night and came over and asked how we were getting on. My husband made a joke saying my wife thought she saw a ghost.
He looked at me and said ‘ah you seen Polly, the lady with the green cardigan’
He said he’d also seen her and another guest had mentioned it!
He told us she was a previous owner.

Ive got no other explanation other than Polly being a ghost.

That sound terrifying!

In a work branch, walking around a corner, I swerved to avoid a 'man' standing there. There wasn't anyone there. Weirdly, a colleague also saw the 'person' as a dark shadow at the same time. It was one of a number of odd sightings, noises, and things moving. It felt like a mischievous presence rather than scary.

We have a large jacobean mansion near us, its used as a library, social events, weddings etc, its also set within a park, during lockdown it was closed to the public and all staff were furloughed, completely closed up, myself and one of my Dd's was walking our dogs within the grounds, we heard lovely music coming from the house, we looked through window and there was a female figure playing the piano, she looked up at us and smiled, she was wearing old fashion clothes, and was definitely a spirit as she was quite clearly semi transparent, we ran! Spoke to a landscaper the next day and he confirmed the house was shut, when i told him he wasnt shocked & said she is one of many spirit residents 😱

Not me but DH who is really sceptical about anything "woo".

We were on our honeymoon and walked into a pub. There was a front room not in use and you had to walk through a corridor to get to the back. We hadn't been there before so weren't 100% sure where we were going and DH said we could just ask the staff member he saw in the front room. There hadn't been anyone there but he swears we walked past a figure all in black (which was the colour the staff all wore). When we asked, there weren't any other staff members on and no-one had just left.

Thanks for your responses. I find it fascinating. I've noticed a few observations reading about others' sightings in the past, and wondered what MNers experiences were, and if similar themes emerged.

@Bibblybumblebee I was more surprised than terrified - I didn't feel he was annoyed at me! I was just a bit shocked and irked because I wanted to go to bed! Flatmates' friends came over here and there, but this man was middle aged, not a student, and his clothes looked strange.

A dog!!

Some friends and I visited a local castle and all exclaimed at the dog we could see in the locked castle window (but no window iyswim just a hole in the brick/stone).

We were worrying how it got there, who it belonged to and how we could get it out.

Then it disappeared.

We found out by chance a few years later apparently there's a ghost of a dog like the one we saw who does with its owner at the castle.

👻

Omg I would have ran as well!

when i was breakfast chef at a victorian hotel, i was on my own waiting for the waitress to come in went into the restaurant to put something out on the counter a gentleman walked past me didnt think anything of it, waitress came in asked what the gentleman wanted for breakfast, she said what gentleman, there was only one way down there from reception, went up stairs and asked if we had upset the man who had come down and receptionist said no ones gone past me in the last hour , this guy wasnt dressed weird normal suit contemporary clothes

My brother said that years ago he stayed overnight at my grandma's house. In the middle of the night he woke suddenly and he saw an old woman crouching beside his bed looking at him. He said she looked like our grandma and had the same eyes, but it wasn't her. He then hid under the covers because he was so scared and when he dared look again she was gone.

My friend and her husband were walking down a street and then a man walked across the pavement in front of them and through the wall of a house.

I once went to stay with some friends at their house which was half old cottage and half modern extension. I heard a child speak to me through a door, and saw a child standing watching me out of the corner of my eye but when I turned there was no one there. I later found out that the 3 year old who lived in the house kept talking about a boy who was mean to him at night. These incidents only happened in the old part of the house which had a general weird oppressive feel to it.

I'm not sure I actually believe in ghosts as I always look for alternative reasonable explanations to explain what might have caused "ghostly" sightings. However, some things are hard to explain! I do love a ghostly thread!

I'm not sure I actually believe in ghosts as I always look for alternative reasonable explanations to explain what might have caused "ghostly" sightings. However, some things are hard to explain! I do love a ghostly thread!

Spot on.

It's the not having any realistic alternative explanation.

My husband saw an old man in my bedroom when we stayed with my parents in our old house.
I slept in that room as a child and always felt like someone else was there but never saw anything.

I work in a hospital and I saw a woman walking into one of the rooms, I ran down behind her as I thought she was going into the wrong room and when I got to the room there was only a male patient in the room.

I also took a picture of my child (was just a picture of them) and when I looked at the picture one of my deceased relatives is sitting next to him clear as day

Loving the dog ghost! That's a new one for me!

I grew up by the seaside in a big old house which had originally been an Edwardian boarding house. When my parents bought it in the 60s as a young couple, it came with a (living!) lodger in the top floor flat; she was a lovely retired lady who used to babysit me and my sisters. She moved out as we grew up, and as a teenager I had her old flat to myself; bedroom, bathroom, kitchenette and a spare room with a big bed opposite the old fireplace.

Years later, Mum and I were discussing moving the furniture around in that spare room, and I suggested moving the bed to face the window, instead of where it was. I reminded her that the bed had once faced the sea because I distinctly remembered, as a child, popping in to say hello to our lodger's guests who'd been staying there. I had a vivid memory of a nice older couple sitting up in bed, having a cigarette and a cup of tea (this would have been the late 70s, so not entirely unusual...) The lady's hair was piled on her head, in a high bun. Mum went white and said that not only had our lodger never had anyone to stay, but in the entire time she'd lived in the house, the bed had never been in any other position.

It's literally only dawned on me now that it was a bit odd that our lodger chose to sleep in the small bedroom when she could have had this big room instead. Hmm.

Is it a printed photo, @allisonsingalveston ?
Can everyone see your relative in the photo?

I don't know what I saw in this story but I can't explain it.

I was on call at a hospital and was called in overnight. I had to go to a ward that was a bit away from the main ward block and so you had to swipe your ID card through three sets of locked doors to get to it for security.

The ward was an odd design and part of it was used as a clinic during the daytime. To get to the beds and the nurse's station you had to walk through the clinic bit and go round a corner.

As I entered the clinic area I said good evening to an elderly lady who was sitting there and who nodded at me as I walked on . I mentioned the lady to one of the nurses no longer than a minute later who was surprised as the ward only had male patients that night. We both went back around the corner and couldn't find her.

I called security believing that another ward must have lost a patient. They checked and all patients were accounted for. Security checked the various CCTV cameras and couldn't see the mystery lady leaving or indeed arriving. They could see me swiping my card and the next activity was me leaving.

I was possibly tired and saw something that looked like a person but when I went back with the nurse I couldn't see anything that looked like a person shape.

I genuinely have no explanation.

Only out of the corner of my eye. When we first bought our house and we were redecorating before moving in, I was sitting on the stairs painting the skirting, and I saw what I thought was my daughter walking along the landing and past the top of the stairs into one of the bedrooms. When I finished painting I called her to get ready for lunch, and she answered from downstairs. There was nobody upstairs - she hadn't gone up there at all. I'd have noticed - she'd have had to climb over me!

Since we moved in I often feel like I'm not alone when I actually am, but it's not an uncomfortable feeling. If we do have a ghost it seems to be a fairly benign presence.

I have a few 'encounters' that I cant explain. Not long after my cat died she was sitting in the utility room by the door when i walked past (trick of the mind maybe?).

I was on a tour once and I happened to say to DH it smells like someone's been smoking in here. About half way round they mentioned a ghost who shows his presence by smoking.

Also on night shift in a secure location chatting with a colleague and I notice someone on CCTV coming to the office as the camera is on the way to the office with no other rooms off the corridor. I waited and no one came. A few minutes later she said you saw that person as well didn't you. I thought it was a trick of the mind but apparently it's a resident ghost.

Theres also another one but it would out me totally if i explain fully on here but at some key points in our lives music turns on randomly without us asking alexa to do so and its always the same artist which is meaningful so maybe a message from beyond?

I worked in a bar that used to be part of an old bank from the early 1800s. There was a section that had a wall that used to be a walkway between sections of the bank so was now the wall that separated two different bars.

I was bringing a group into the section and someone asked why "that couple" was in Victorian fancy dress. I had no idea what she was talking about, then she asked where the door led to and again I was confused. I showed her it was a solid wall and she went white as a sheet. She saw a couple walk through, what she assumed was a door, in fancy dress. There was no couple. There was no door.

When I was at uni I lived in a shared house. I woke up one night and there was a guy with a baseball cap on at the end of my bed. I assumed he was someone else's visitor, hit my bedside lamp on, told him he was in the wrong room and to f off and watched him very clearly move through my closed wardrobe doors.

I absolutely don't believe in ghosts but it was weird, I searched my wardrobe for ages thinking someone was playing a trick on me

@LifesTooShortToLearnPolish
No it's a photo on my phone, I didn't even notice it at first I thought it was a shadow and I sent it to my dad and he was the one that said look there is X. Everyone has saw it right away

I saw my dad near the foot of my bed around 7am... an hour or so before my stepmum rang to say he'd died.
I was in England, he'd died unexpectedly in France.
I was so spooked about that. Not encountered anything before or since.