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?

I have a couple of odd experiences. The first is when I stayed in Cornwall with my son, when he was considering going to Plymouth Uni. We found a lodge nearby in a village in Cornwall to stay in. My son was 17, nearly 18 at the time, and not a believer but he is nervous watching scary films so we tend to avoid things like that.

Anyway, it was March and so out of season and we were the only people occupying a lodge out of a circle of 7. On one side was woodland and on the other a cliff drop to the sea. So we were quite isolated. We spent a week there as he looked around the are deciding whether to go to Plymouth Uni or not.

We spent the evenings watching films, eating and chatting, but one of the bedrooms (there were 4) kept opening and creaking so we decided to tie it shut as it unerved us both. On our last night, my son went to his bedroom and I went to mine, we agreed to set off on the 4 hour car journey home at about 10am.

At 3am I heard the light go on in the bathroom, I thought this was odd as my son had an ensuite and there was no need for him to use the shared one. Anyway, something about the noises made me uncomfortable, like you know the sound of your family and close friends, the way they walk around, key in the lock etc..so I got out of bed and stood still behind my closed bedroom door. Unaware at the time my son was doing the same behind his bedroom door (which was opposite mine accross a hallway). We both opened our doors at the same time, I screamed and he yelled in shock, he asked if I heard that and I said yes, we went to investigate together. We got to the kitchen and every cupboard was wide open, all lights were on in the lodge. My son said he wanted to leave now and not wait until morning, he was so scared he made me walk behind him as he loaded the car as he thought someone or thing may get in it and jump out at us.

We left the lodge, turning off all lights, closed the door behind us, got in the car and as we were driving away down the windy lane I saw all the lights in the lodge go on! I started to say something to my son, but he told me he couldnt speak until we got over the bridge into Devon, when we got there he said he had been hearing and seeing things all week and the noises and mess in the kitchen was the final straw, I contacted the lodge company and they didnt seem suprised, said Oh yes we have a ghost, normally in the bar but other people have seen, experienced him and it was connected to French prisoners of war being held there. My son still hates talking about it (he is 25 now) and I wonder if instead of a ghost it was a burgular as it was a very physcial, presence , the lights going, on and doors being flung open...I wonder if we may have had a lucky escape from something other than a ghost...will tell my other experience later

I really love these threads!

I can't say I believe in ghosts, as I have never experienced anything at all out of the ordinary. I don't believe in God, either, and think it very unlikely he exists. But I can get on board with the idea that there are things out there that we can't generally perceive and therefore can't accept or explain when others claim to have perceived them. Maybe in the vast majority of us, our brains and senses just aren't equipped to perceive these things, the way a dog, for example, can detect odours that even the sharpest human nose cannot, and maybe a few brains are firing differently and DO occasionally perceive them.

I don't believe in souls, but I do quite like the idea of imprints of the past, and the (well-trodden in sci-fi) idea of different dimensions or planes of existence

My mum died in May this year, she was a humanist, had a woodland burial and didnt beleive in anything other than the here and now. I was/am more open to things than she was and we joked that when she died she should let me know if there is anything. The day before she died, she was semi conscious and said "everybodys different", the following day driving to the home to collect her things, the was a happy news item and they said "everybodys different"...maybe a sign, or maybe I am looking for something thats not there or law of attraction. Then my daughter who was very close to my mum has had loads of dreams about my mum, who tells her she is no longer in pain and OK. My next door neighbour called round to see me a couple of weeks ago, she told me she went to see a medium and they asked her if she knew a "jenasaurus" and I am the only person she knows, they said to her, that Jenasaurus feels very alone at the moment she needs to not be alone. My neighbour was so convinced she called round to see that I was ok. I also keep waking feeling im not alone, and one night told my daughter off for moving my leg under the cover, then when I opened my eyes realised she wasnt home, and it was 2am, so who touched me? I think it is possible it could be a sign from mum saying, I am right, but who knows?

I have seen quite a few 'ghostly' people (not dead people as I don't believe they were ghosts) by the side of my bed, passing in my room,. I've also had a dark/evil thing rush at me at night and screamed and woken up at the same time. I believe them to be hypnopompic/hypnagogic hallucinations:

www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/321070.php

These are a lot more common than people think, up to 40% of the population has had at least one (also a voice shouting in your ear is another one, my dd has that). Hardly anyone talks about them, you could also have one in the day if you momentarily zone out/switch to sleep state without really realising.

I know they aren't proper ghosts (which I don't really believe in myself) as they disappear quickly if you stare at them, don't interact, it's just a figure in that 2/3 second window where you are not fully conscious, but still awake enough to see it, you will notice that a lot of the descriptions on here are about a fleeting movement, something quickly in the corner of a room or eye, or just disappear/are contradicted by real life within a few seconds. Once you actually stare at it, it just goes away, I have no sense these are people, just imprints of people in my mind which project into reality between that sleep state.

That said, I don't know for sure, and there are some spooky feelings/atmospheres in certain places, and several people seeing the same thing is harder to explain.

Just curious- you know how posters have asked why you never see ghosts in Tesco on a Tuesday morning, or wearing an Adidas tracksuit?

Can you really be sure? Did you poke everyone you saw during your big shop just to be sure they were solid? What if 6 of the people you passed today without noticing were actually skulking around all dead and whatnot?

If OP's husband had passed someone in a tracksuit, it wouldn't have even registered. It was only the bonnet that caught his attention. Likewise, if you hear or something at home when you're alone, it's going to draw your notice. But a lot of the time, there could be dead buggers milling all about the place without anyone looking up from their phone.

Toe, the Molly & Tristan story is on this thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/the_unexplained/a2161707-Give-us-your-eerie-stories#49005596 - look for this post by Ultracrepidarian Wed 20-Aug-14 14:37:34

And here's the footprints in the snow thread www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1952232-to-think-were-all-going-to-be-mudered!

I like your Cornwall story, Jenasaurus

I also think that buildings have their own ‘soul’, so to speak. It’s stupid, as it’s just bricks and mortar, but I guess that houses become so personal to their occupants that they can ‘take on’ an aspect of their soul, or something that has happened there.
I think we’ve all been in houses that have immediately given off bad vibes, like you can feel an evil presence.

I looked around a house for sale onceand the feeling was hideous, I just couldn’t wait to get out. I got an awful feeling, like something terrible had happened there. When we were being shown out, the door handle came off in my family member’s hand and we felt trapped. Creepiest place I’ve ever been in!

When I was a child me and my mum moved into a sizeable old semi detached house and for some reason I never felt "safe" sleeping in my own room there, so I would bunk up in her room. That was out of the ordinary for me.

I never saw anything to concern me it was just a feeling of uneasiness.

We had lived there a couple of months and one night woke suddenly in the early hours to loud crashing and banging, it sounded like the house was being ransacked. It went on for a few minutes and convinced somebody was in the house mum (foolishly in hindsight) picked up the first thing to hand which happened to be a small but heavy carriage clock and made her way downstairs to see what was going on. I stayed in bed under the covers positively shitting myself. We didn't have mobile phones back then, only a landline downstairs.

When she got to the stairs she could see the door to the living room was slamming open and shut right in front of her face, by itself, then it just stopped. When she composed herself she went to check the living room and adjoining kitchen and all of our cupboard doors and draws were wide open and cutlery and utensils strewn about the place like the kitchen had been trashed.

The doors and windows were all locked with no possibility of anybody having got in, there was just no rational explanation for it whatsoever.

We didn't stick around for long, it was a short hold tenancy so we moved as soon as we could as I became petrified of being alone in there. I would ask my mum to sit on the stairs whilst I had a bath or carried the cat up with me when I needed the loo.

Now this part is hearsay but whilst we lived there we had a cat and a budgie, obviously they came with us when we moved. My mums friend who lived on the same street and was a neighbour at the time later told her that the agency carried out some refurbs a while later and they 'supposedly' found a dead cat and a bird in there. I can't vouch for the credibility of the latter but stand by my own account %100. That house was horrible.

I've had more strange experiences but that one in particular sprang to mind when @jenasaurus mentioned the kitchen cupboards!

I do find it strange how ready people are to say there are no such things as ghosts, people are silly for believing in them etc but not to say you are silly for believing in God etc. Both are on the same level of possibility or lack of it in my opinion.

The church believe in ghosts as a very religious friend explained: The father, the son and the Holy Ghost. This is why you need a priest or a qualified vicar to conduct exorcisms.

If it's good enough for the Pope, it's good enough for me.

Point out to him that she probably thinks he's a ghost because he turns up with his dog every time she goes out for a walk.

I heard but didn't see a ghost, in our student house. I had the big room across the front of the house and the stairs ran up beside my room, there was a corridor down to the other 2 bedrooms.
One night I was woken by the sound of something heavy being dragged along the corridor towards my room. I lay awake listening to the dragging then the sound got to the top of the stairs outside my room, banged against my door rattling it and I could see a shadow cross under the door. I lay there shitting myself. I didn't hear the dragging go down the stairs.

About 5 mins later I heard one of my housemates doors open and him going downstairs. I assumed he was investigating the noise and went down. I found him blearily heading back towards the stairs and asked him if he had found whatever had made the noise. He had no idea at all what I was talking about, had just got up to use the loo (downstairs loo only). Still scares me a bit to remember.

Lol at "ghosts don't exist it's a physical impossibility"

Does anyone want to elaborate on that? Whip out your vast research to prove ghosts don't exist?

If it's good enough for the Pope, it's good enough for me.

Hmm, I can think of several things about the Catholic Church that he might think good enough that not many others would. Like the fact that priests who confess to child abuse don't have to be reported to the police.

Both are on the same level of possibility or lack of it in my opinion

As an ex-Christian it was having this kindly pointed out to me by a lovely atheist that made me realise how untenable my beliefs were.

"Does anyone want to elaborate on that? Whip out your vast research to prove ghosts don't exist?"
It's up to you to prove they do. There has never been a ghostly sighting that has stood up to the simplest of scientific examination.

I also keep waking feeling im not alone, and one night told my daughter off for moving my leg under the cover, then when I opened my eyes realised she wasnt home, and it was 2am, so who touched me? I think it is possible it could be a sign from mum saying, I am right, but who knows?

I totally appreciate how much you would like there to be a way you could still have people who have died in your life. I lost my sister and I can't describe how I would feel if I knew she was happy somewhere. (I guess it's of some comfort to know she's not unhappy anywhere iyswim)

But why wouldn't someone who was relatively sane communicate in a normal way after death. Like a letter or just calling on a phone or knock on your door? I mean they might want to leave a note first. Just a letter saying that don't want to scare you but would it be okay if they popped round Tuesday for a chat? Why do they think 'no, not going to pop in for a cuddle, I'll blow on their hair, hide their keys etc.

You’re quite right Allegorical. I don’t believe in God, I don’t believe in life after death, I don’t believe in mediums and I don’t believe in ghosts.

I’m quite sure if ghosts existed, we would have worked out a way to prove it. Likewise, there’s that million dollar prize that no medium has ever managed to claim...

What never? Or maybe not every single ghost sighting has been scientifically examined.

It's not up to anyone to prove they're real.

I think there's a lot of things we can't prove / don't understand yet but it doesn't mean they don't exist.

Thanks Panpan I love reading woo

The footprints in the snow reminds me of a friend of mine, she was staying in Canada at a similarly remote lodge in the snow (seems like a prerequisite for woo!) and video called me very upset one morning.

There had been about a foot of fresh snowfall over night, but when her fiance had been out for a cigarette in the early hours the snow had stopped. Just outside the patio doors he drew her a picture in the snow, hearts and "I love you".
When they got up in the morning there were footprints in the snow coming out of the forest, right up to the patio doors, over top of the picture he'd drawn, and there were no footprints leading away from the house, just the one fresh set leading right up to the patio doors, where they stopped.
Friend called and asked me for an explanation (not sure why I'd know ) showed me the prints etc on video. I was and had no explanation. They left that day. Still haven't been able to explain it but it gives me the shudders.

This is something which always seems to come up on these threads (and religious threads), that either one side or the other has to "prove" it.

Nobody does, that's the whole point of belief over known fact.

wildlife etc....don't they have a spirit too

Well yes. Let's just assume that everyone here is up to speed with the verifiable fact that evolution is how we got here , okay? So at what point did we suddenly become able to be ghosts after we die. Like why don't we see ghost diplodoci etc lumbering through the Matalan carpark?

that either one side or the other has to "prove it'

So when you make a positive claim it's up to that person to provide the evidence for it. Not the person who doesn't accept the claim to disprove it. Imagine i tell you I can fly. Is it up to you to show me I can't, or me, the person claiming I can, to give you good reason to accept what I say?

I'm can't say 'there are definitely no ghosts' in the same why I can't claim to know that there is definitely not some sort of intelligent deity. What I can do for any such claim is point out the abject lack of anything that we recognise as evidence for either case.

I want to believe as many things that are true and as few that aren't. Can't remember who said that but that's how I feel.

It isn't though, is it head? It would make anyone a pretty poor conversationalist if they insisted on proof and evidence for every experience another person recounted.
What a person believes it up to them, they don't need to justify or explain it to anyone, excepting of course beliefs which cross the line into human rights and other abuses.