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?

@spiderlight

That's a story that needs telling!

Vashna. It was different toys. Elephant ball popper you had to press a button for it to work just went off on its own. An activity table with a train and track on used to go round by itself and play the alphabet (you had to push the train round it didn’t go on it’s own). And the plate I put there before we went to bed it was one that was left on the table so I put it on the hob and went to bed. Came down on the morning and it had moved across the side right to the other side. Nobody had been downstairs. But the chinking of the coathangers did me. Dh got up at 4:30 for work and woke me up messing in the bedroom then we just heard them chinking like someone had run their hand across the clothes. Checked and dd was in bed still sick on no window open or anything was strange.

I havent read the whole 13 pages of this, but there is Charles Bonnet Syndrome, where people see these things (assuming its not just some excentric old dear) caued by 3 serioues eye conditions, is your DH diabetic?

I was walking in the woods at dawn in winter with my dogs, a trail with steps leading down. It was completely dark and a little misty. A head torch was providing the only source of light. Ahead, we saw a female monk (a nun?) approaching alone. She had a shaved head and wearing full robes. She was bending down, kneeling and kissed each step whilst holding a crucifix to her chest. I stood still catatonic. The dogs started growling and refused to move forward. She walked passed us silently, without making any sort of eye contact or acknowledgement. I swore it was a ghost.

I saw her the next morning with a smartphone in her hand and then several times after. She turned out to be real, I think it must have been a penance of some kind but it scared the shit out of me and the dogs.

I am open to ghosts and woo stuff though. I have had other experiences I simply cannot rationalise.

I always think people who shut these discussions down with a categorical 'they don't exist' are a little simple minded. They are the people who used to flatly deny the earth was round because it 'could not be proved'. I think based on sub-conscious fear. We won't change their minds.

Can’t explain it. She was such an honest, sensible person and was 100% awake

I get that. But if you are inclined to believe what she saw was some sort of spirit person rather than a misinterpretation of something caused by how she was feeling, then you have to give credence to every recount of anyone who appears sane (most people). Every account. People seeing pixies, minotaurs, giant mothmen, mermaids, the whole lot.

It's not that anyone is lying. I have no doubt some do, as some people do about anything for all manner of reasons. But it's about misinterpretation.

I always find the “there are no ghosts there is no god because science would have proved it by now” brigade extremely odd.

Science wouldn't say 'it doesn't exist' it could only confirm a positive such as 'it does it exist' like electricity or gravity. I can't say there is no god or ghosts. I can say there is nothing that is recognised as evidence that there is yet. When there starts to be evidence then science will pursue it.

Until then I have to put ghosts and god and anything else anyone claims without evidence in the same category if I want to believe true 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

Your account of another's words is hearsay, whether it's a senior police officer you spoke to or anyone else. What you are telling us of your own experiences isn't hearsay.

Either way, these 'spooky' goings on seem stubbornly incapable of any proof beyond perception. This country is covered in CCTV. Not just out in the open in public but in premises everywhere, open and locked up, day and night, modern and ancient, places where there have been many deaths and where traumatic events have happened. There is CCTV in properties that are supposedly haunted by the same ghosts seen by dozens of different people.

So why do ghosts never make an appearance? Ever. People can see them. Why can't cameras pick them up?

I'd suggest it's because ghosts don't exist.

@nowshesaturtle OK! I've told this on MN before.

I was getting a bus into town with DS, who was nearly 6 at the time. He wanted to sit in the front seat upstairs so he could 'drive' but when we got up the stairs there was an older woman (maybe 50s or early 60s) sitting in that seat reading a newspaper. DS chose a seat on the opposite side of the aisle and slightly behind her, but in front of the steps. I remember thinking that it was a shame that she was in a seat that I always think of as a kids' seat, but then a few minutes into the journey a very young boy of the same ethnicity as the woman popped his head around the side of the seat and smiled at me. I smiled back and came to the conclusion that he was her grandson. He peeped round at me and DS several times over the next ten minutes or so. I thought it was slightly odd that the woman was just reading her paper and that the boy wasn't clamouring for her attention like mine would have been but he seemed happy enough playing peekaboo with us. Then a few stops before ours, the woman gathered her things and got off the bus. DS and I turned to each other and he said 'Where's her little boy??' I looked out and she was walking down the road by herself and there was no sign of the boy either with her or in her seat (which we moved to). There's no way he could have got off the bus without walking past me to get to the stairs, which he was too young to manage on his own. We were so puzzled that we looked down from the window and watched everyone who got off the bus until it got into town (we got off at the last stop) and there was no sign of him. DS described him exactly like I'd seen him, even to the colour of his hoodie. Never managed to explain that one!

Thanks @spiderlight!

Poor little ghost boy

To me he seemed really happy - he had the most beautiful smile. I'd like to think he just fancied hanging out with his grandma for the day.

He hid under the seat. Slipped past you to the back of the bus. Got off with adult and went straight into a shop/crossed the road/got into a waiting car. Took the hoodie off and something a different colour underneath.
Think how often people say when their child goes missing in a shop "He was just standing next to me and then he was gone"

I've had a few unexplained experiences/sightings. Never any period costume people. More often in the daylight than the dark. I don't actively look for stuff! I don't want to see it!

The scariest times were in the dark, but i think when it's dark or in a lonely place you feel that much more vulnerable. The same thing in daylight wouldn't scare you - just puzzle you.

2 in a shop.
1 by a stream.
3 in a school.
1 in a field.
1 on a motorway.
5 or 6 (repeat sightings) driving through a wood.

The first 4 were in daylight. Sunshine even. The last 2 were at night. 5 of all the times i was not alone and the person with me shared the same experience.

The one in a field was the most ... boring. DH and i were pulled over by a field gate near our house. I had to see to baby DD in the car seat in the back so stopped the car, got out and walked round the car to do it. Clear bright morning. As i walked round the car i spotted a couple strolling through the field, heading our way. 30 meters away max. Dead flat field of ankle length grass. No hedges except the one near us. Both in dark (navy i think) waterproof clothing head to toe. Walking through the stubbly grass close together. I remember clocking the clothes and vaguely thinking it was odd as it was a warm morning. I leaned in and gave DD her cloth, straightened up and turned around the couple were not there any more. I walked back to the drivers side, sat down in the car and looked past DHs nose through his window at the field sort of frowning. DH looked at me and said ''i know ... where the fuck did they go ...?'

We sat there for a minute in silence. Then drove off. We were both a bit quiet :)

Where did they bloody go? There was no where for an adult size thing to go. Unless they'd fallen down a bloody great invisible hole in silence. Imagine a football pitch size flat area. 2 people on it one second - 5 seconds later they're gone. Odd odd odd.

Yet another one I remember: just after 7o'clock on a lovely fresh summer morning nine years ago, and I'd taken my first mug of tea onto the tiny patio and sat there enjoying the quiet. The garden - think small mid-terrace - had evolved over the years into a miniature kind of woodland with a little wildlife pond in the centre. My mind was sort of idling in neutral when I became aware of someone passing across the middle of the garden a few yards in front of me; she appeared from a tangle of jasmine on the left hand fence, moved steadily in a straight line across the pond, and vanished when she reached the fence opposite. The whole sighting took about 5 seconds.

I recognised her as a friend of thirty years who was at that time a patient in a local hospice.

Her daughter was due to pick me up later in the day so we could both visit.

Needless to say, her daughter phoned me a few hours later to say her mum had died just before 7.30 so our visit was off.

BertrandRussell Why are you so desperate to disprove people's experiences? Surely this must be based on a fear or insecurity of some sort?

I am open minded to these things. If someone tells me of an experience they had I take it at face value. I don't feel the need to either prove it or disprove it. It is interesting. It adds to life's rich tapestry.

Genuinely, why does it bother you so much? If you are so sure these experiences are false, surely it would be too boring to even engage here?

BertrandRussell Maybe, but there was nobody else upstairs on the bus and he was too young to get down the steps of a moving bus on his own. I have a science PhD and I had a blooming good look for him - I am not one to jump to woo conclusions.

I do rather like the theory of the heightened energy showing us a ‘print’ of a person that could be perceived as a ghost.

I’ve had a few spooks over the years that I put down to various different factors but I always remember HATING my partners bedroom. He lived in a semi rural bungalow and had the bedroom on the far left. I believe there was a wall put up for a shed area and an ensuite at some point so some conversations.
Well anyway his room creeped me the hell out as it was so when I’d see shadows across the TV I’d put it down to the moon casting shadows. And his little built in wardrobe area had a curtain swiftly put over it as the dark area gave me the creeps.

I was on my back on evening drifting off to sleep and he was well out cold at this point. The only way I can describe what happened next (it was already pitch black) was a black thin veil being thrown over me as it was so so light and as I felt whatever this was touch my body I went completely paralysed and couldn’t move, or make noise. All I could do was look at the ceiling or slightly to my right where this presence passed the slightest line of vision I had and then made its way around the bed out of my sight.

Next thing I’ve propelled myself out of the bed screaming and thoroughly putting the entire household out as it was 1am or so.

Took me weeks to get myself back in that room and then when I’d finally started sleeping well again my partner tells me an old fellow had passed the bungalow that morning (they had a public footpath that passed the property) who’d informed him his brother lived in the Bungalow when first built.
His brother/uncle I can not remember was an ex soldier who’d gained paralysis and ended up very bitter. He mostly resides in the area of the bungalow that turned out to be my partners bedroom and he’d killed himself with his shotgun whilst ‘cleaning it.’ Makes me wonder if it was actually a suicide as back then that would have been frowned upon and obviously wouldn’t have been talked about.

Remembering that feeling of being so powerless and frozen still gives me the shivers now and being told a man died in the room really didn’t help with my sleep patterns let me tell you.

Do you live near Gilead?

God excuse the million typos

@Rottweilers1 That sounds terrifying. It might have been sleep paralysis (I get it and it's absolutely horrible) but I know what you mean about the feel of certain rooms. My old PhD supervisor had a gorgeous cottage that I used to stay in to look after his dogs, and one of the bedrooms just felt horrible. Everyone commented on it. He told me once that he'd been in there working at his computer and a stream of blood ran down the wall opposite him. Now this is a man with a professorship in science, but he was so obviously freaked out about that room.

Maybe ghosts only wear the clothes available to them - from shops that died in that era.
It's okay though, it looks like they might have house of Fraser to shop in soon.

It’s a lovely story. But she was dreaming

As I said, Bertrand, I’m not saying I believe. I’m just keeping a fairly open mind. I didn’t say ghostly visitation was the explaination. I don’t know. I would say, however, the explaination is definitely not that she was dreaming. If she slept through the entirety of the bombing raid, complete with house shaking and plaster crumbling and passed peacefully from sleep to waking without realising I would find that equally impossible to explain. Dreaming is not a logical explanation. Ghost - not a logical explaination. So, as I said, l can’t explain it.

Can’t explain it. She was such an honest, sensible person and was 100% awake

I get that. But if you are inclined to believe what she saw was some sort of spirit person rather than a misinterpretation of something caused by how she was feeling, then you have to give credence to every recount of anyone who appears sane (most people). Every account. People seeing pixies, minotaurs, giant mothmen, mermaids, the whole lot.

No, Headinhands, I don’t have to. The very specific circumstances mean I keep an open mind about this particular occurrence. In different circumstances, say if the vision had been fleeting, or in a situation where she could have been asleep, then I would probably assume trick of the light, wishful thinking or dreaming. Many of the examples you give can, I’m sure, be explained this way. Not this one.

As I’ve said, I don’t offer an explaination ghostly or otherwise.

@spiderlight Thats what I mostly put it down too. The feeling of practically being held down though was traumatic.
I’ve had SP many times, way after this event and when I was on meds and having severe anxiety issues. These were two different feelings.

As a teen I use to work in a hotel (live in) that was very haunted. It was pre 15c but they only had records of the sales until then. It had had multiple fires, was in a very historic area. I hated locking up alone at night, but never really saw much myself. Constantly had guests reporting similar things or the same thing depending on the room/floor.
There was always a woman in one of the rooms, she was only seen by men. Many a male guest on checkout would ask about this, or call the night phone in a panic.

In the gardens, there are converted outbuildings, but before that there were stables and paddock that burnt down, people who stayed here have reported hearing horses whinnying and crying out.

Footsteps running on one of the corridors, smashing glass elsewhere with no sign of any breakage, people at the windows, coughing (was used as an emergency hospital at one point during war) it's regularly featured on the towns ghost walk. There was one room I'd feel uneasy in (the woman ghosts room) and occasionally think I had seen something, but I think that was more to do with knowing others did and being aware of the stories. Plus I was an impressionable teenager.

The night I had dd1 there was an old lady standing in the ward looking around, she looked like my dhs granny (who died while I was pg). I must admit I thought she was her double and got a good look at her as she walked over towards my bed, then walked away.
dh had left minutes before.
The next day when discussing what we should call our dd my husband said he had seen a woman who he could have sworn was his granny as he was leaving the ward and was shocked when I said I saw her too but thought I had imagined it.

Many of the examples you give can, I’m sure, be explained this way. Not this one.

So you're assuming that anyone who recounts seeing anything in that category won't be as adamant. Doesn't this sound just like people who believe in god a discounting the experiences of people who believe in god b based on the their assumption that it just can't be true so they can't feel as strongly about their experiences.