hubby says he has seen a ghost five times so far.

[lowresidue]

Hubby has taken our dog to a local wood, and lets the dog go for a run.
He goes at different times and different days.
He came home and told me that he has seen the same woman ghost five separate times so far. Tonight with bonnet wearing woman made him jump when she popped up in front of him. When he said 'you made me jump', she smiled nodded and walked away from him.

He was quite serious but I asked why he thought she was a dead/ ghost? He said because she is wearing a long coat and a bonnet type hat.
AIBU to suggest that this woman isn't dead, isn't a ghost and is an odd lady with a strange fashion sense?
He is quite firm she is a ghost, and walks along the path but not on it though the trees.

personally I am glad we are going on holiday soon my hubby really needs it asap.
Then again AIBU?

Headinhands - you're a blanket non-believer, that's fine

Well no, a 'blanket non-believer without reason'. Your description makes it sound like I wouldn't accept good evidence should it arise, but I would.

I didn't mean that.

YABU for calling him hubby.

*I meant blanket non-believer in all things woooooo.

Sorry. Blanket seems to suggest a slightly arbitrary position. Like if you called someone a blanket believer. It might make someone feel that they weren't very discreet/discrete. (no idea which spelling I need here but the one that means particular etc). ((No doubt someone will put me right))

*Most ghost sightings happen when it’s quiet, dark, deserted... no one ever see ghosts at ten o’clock on a Tuesday morning in Tesco.

The ghost-seer is often alone and even more frequently, in bed having been asleep/about to go to sleep.

Ghosts always seem to be wearing long Victorian dresses or suits of armour. No one ever sees the ghost of a caveman or a seventies hippy.*

Well, I managed to see one in an office in a police building around 11am. I thought it was the bloke I was waiting in the corridor forgoing into the office so I followed him in to find the room empty. In that same building, the chief super got so used to the energy that came through his room at a specific time that he gave it a name. His predecessor had had the same thing with the door handle rattling as though someone was entering. In an adjacent building, a colleague walked into her shared office around 4pm to see a police officer in white shirt, black tie and black trousers standing by her desk; nothing unusual about that but she had screaming hysterics after he simply disappeared in front of her. All in the 21st century and all in modern clothes in an old building in its own grounds. The police accepted it as haunted as too many of them had seen odd things.

In a previous job, my boss saw a bloke in company overalls, safety boots and a hard hat walk past her at the photocopier and round the corner to her desk; when she followed to say she was the only person still in, he had gone, with the only way out involving passing her. In the next door office block, the cleaners hated the sixth floor showers as they heard talking in there when the building was empty. Both 20th century buildings.

But Too, the vast majority of what you’ve just said is hearsay. And surely a policeman or woman is well aware of how unreliable witness statements are.

Anybody care to explain how my Dad and I and my DD and I saw the same thing at the same time? I am surprised there have been no comments on this from those who say that apparitions/ghosts/whatever, simply don't exist.

Have a google of 'psychology group sighting ghost' or something of that order I reckon.

@headinhands I will do that, it sounds interesting...but I will still maintain that my Dad and I walking into our house and seeing the former occupant standing on the stairs as if she just lived there and then just disappearing when we'd just had a Saturday afternoon out is unlikely to be anything but she was standing there. She wasn't a misty, "ghosty" figure...she was just there..I can say much the same for the other one except that person was walking away from us and we didn't see his face...

I can understand ghosts being explained by hallucinations what I don’t understand is 2 or more people seeing the same thing

Off the top of my head you have multiple catholics seeing blood and tears on statues of Mary at the same time.

The nearest thing I have experienced is group hysteria in prayer meetings. Not quite the same but I now clearly see how incredibly powerful suggestion is within a group.

Hasn't Derren Brown conducted a seance where he explores this group phenonomena?

Obviously it's impossible to explain all "sightings" when they are described after the event. But if you start from the premise that there are no ghosts then usually you can come up with a rational explanation. If you start from the premise that there are ghosts then of course you can't. Because for you it being a ghost is the most sensible explanation. If I saw a ghost then, (after I had calmed down), I would be running through all the possible rational explanations until I found the one that fitted. When ds was younger, we used to point out to each other things that in different circumstances we might think of as supernatural. Our favourite was a frost pattern on our neighbour's van window that looked exactly as if a grey woman in a bonnet (yes, bonnets again!) was sitting in the passenger seat. Another was when I sold something on eBay that went to the small town where my brother lived which prompted me to ring him to discover he had just had some bad news. Coincidences happen all the time.

matutinal

So it's hearsay when the people concerned tell you to your face what happened? All court evidence is hearsay then, including personal experience? Both chief supers told me independently, neither of them knowing the other's experience. You're seriously dismissing the word of senior police officers (one of whom who used to lecture to the FBI as a guest expert) as hearsay? So it's hearsay when it personally happened to me?

Yes, the police know about reliable statements or not. So, when the same thing happens to officers and staff over several years and completely independently - people who didn't even know each other - they give due weight to the consistent evidence. Frankly, I'd believe a seriously shocked police officer's statement as well as the reaction of an ex-service member who had seen a lot in their life but was in bits at something happening that - like you - they didn't believe in.

And my boss was barely holding it together; there was no way out of that office without passing within a couple of feet of her. She wasn't that good an actress.

Frankly, I'm with Horatio.

I always find the “there are no ghosts there is no god because science would have proved it by now” brigade extremely odd. Unless of course science has discovered everything it is going to discover in which case we might as well free up
Time in the curriculum

"So it's hearsay when the people concerned tell you to your face what happened?"
Yes, of course it is! That's what hearsay means.

"Unless of course science has discovered everything"

Of course science hasn't discovered everything. But it has discovered lots of things......

So it's hearsay when the people concerned tell you to your face what happened?"
Yes, of course it is! That's what hearsay means

Actually, that's a witness statement. Hearsay is the report of another person's words by a witness, which is usually disallowed as evidence in a court of law.

Do get your terms right if you want to be taken seriously. Science and law require accuracy. Science in addition requires an open mind, not a determination to only accept things that point to a predetermined theory.

Fair enough, TooManyPaws. But at a risk of making you even crosser, I'm not sure that an unsubstantiated witness statement would convict someone either. And being a senior police officer does not make you immune to hallucination, optical illusion, false memory and all the other things that go to make up ghost sightings. Or at least, all the ghost sightings that have been investigated anyway.

I never believed in ghosts until I moved into the house were in now.

It’s been day and night. Dd2 toys play on there own. Toys come off the shelves by themselves when nobody is anywhere near them. At night we’ve heard the coat hangers on dd1s clothes rail chinking together when everyone’s asleep. We’ve had doors close lights switched off and on. Things moved eg a plate I left on top of the job was slid across onto the worktop - none of us had touched it. There’s been loads of stuff. Dh gets really freaked out. It doesn’t bother me. As long as it’s not breaking things. I’ve never seen anything though. My mums funny she comes round and shouts hello as she walks in the door and then shouts hello person we can’t see. I think it’s just a thing so the kids aren’t freaked out. Dd1 has heard things too.

Hannah, can I ask what you mean by “toys play on their own?” Are you sure it’s not just dodgy batteries or something? Mine used to have Furbies that would suddenly kick off in the middle of the night, for instance. And have you actually seen plates sliding and things fall off shelves, or did you just find them misplaced?

Wouldn’t say I believe but have to remain open minded on the subject as I find hard to explain away the number of unusual sightings or experiences described by people I know to be eminently sensible and, for want of a better expression, un-woo. One I often think about is something that happened to my paternal grandmother. This is nice, not scary (sorry )

During the Blitz she was at home alone one night during an air raid, scared and desperately worried about my dad, then about 17, and my grandad, who were both out working. She said her father, by then dead for some years, appeared in the room. He talked to her for some time, calming her fears and reassuring her that both my dad and grandad would come home safely. Then he said he had to go but would leave a light for her - one that wouldn’t be seen from outside. He gradually faded but in his place there was a glowing golden orb of light. It stayed there until the all clear sounded.

Can’t explain it. She was such an honest, sensible person and was 100% awake (what with all the bombs falling around her).

"She was such an honest, sensible person and was 100% awake"

It's a lovely story. But she was dreaming.

I saw a ghost in broad daylight on the top deck of a moving bus, and interacted with him for most of the journey before realising that something was odd. My DS saw exactly the same thing.