To think adults believing in ghosts are odd

[nothingmore]

Hi,

Aibu to think grown adults believing in ghosts is a bit odd?

I have an acquaintance who is also going on about going on ghost hunts and 'investigations' at supposed haunted sights. Of course they always seem to come back from them and say the evenings where 'quiet'.

I feel it's a bit odd that a grown adult can believe in this sort of thing. They're obviously not hurting anyone with this hobby but I find it so strange they're certain that ghosts exist.

Yes, @IvanaPee, I think that vast numbers of the ‘supernatural’ encounters people report on here are timing mix-ups, whether genuine or with the wishful thinking of hindsight — because obviously it would be lovely if a loved one came to say goodbye when you didn’t know they were dying at a distance.

When you discount these, sleep paralysis/hypnagogic hallucinations/ things seen when it’s dark and the person is half-asleep, hearsay, mice, electrical faults, highly imaginative small children talking to things, or suggestible, drunk teenagers with an ouija board, practical jokes, natural forgetfulness about small objects, people who are freaked out by going solo into cellars/distant storerooms at work, nervous people who hate being alone at night and get freaked out by the normal night sounds of a new house, people ‘primed’ to see a ghost by ghost stories about a place — there’s not a lot left, really.

I’m not sure what else it could be.

The neighbour?

Like that scene in Blackadder:

"Today I saw a horse standing in a field, with 8 legs and 2 heads."
"Errr....perhaps 2 horses, standing one in front of the other? Just a wild stab in the dark"

@Lifecraft .

Would it be too outing to post the video @Limitedsimba123?

Actually, this has just reminded me that I once, completely unwittingly, gave rise to a ghost story myself. When I worked at a university in another country, decades ago now, I occasionally, when working late, spent a night in my office, where I had a sofa bed. It was only years afterwards that I heard that apparently the security guards used to talk about the faceless 'grey monk', who could apparently be seen at the window of an office in one of the towerblocks. This, I realised, was undoubtedly me, wearing a giant grey hoodie I used to keep on the back of my office door because the heating went off overnight, and presumably looking eerie by the light of my desklamp, when seen from a distance across a deserted campus.

No different to people believing in god, but yes It's hard to believe.

Can you post videos on here? I could crop it to just the window and remove the audio to make it less outing. My sister posted it onto some sort of woo Facebook group (I don’t have Facebook) but ended up taking it down as she had lots of abusive messages from people saying it was fake.

Video evidence is always somehow not obtainable, it's blurry. It's the lochness monster legend over and over

I don't know about here, @Limitedsimba123. I suppose you could consider posting to Youtube or somewhere, and post a link here?

PanGalaticGargleBlaster I live in a 14th century house and no woo stuff going on here either. The house does creak a fair bit and my more imaginative guests are convinced we have ghosts.

I’m not woo at all really but I have seen a ghost so I do believe in them. I wouldn’t expect everyone to believe in them but I know what I saw and 100% they exist.

You could post screenshots of the video, simba?

Right I’ve uploaded it to YouTube and will post the link shortly. You need to slow the video down to get a good look at what is walking past. This went on for 10mins or so but I only filmed for a few seconds just so I could zoom in on what it was. At first I thought it may be the curtain blowing but it was a gorgeous sunny day in June, and you can see the curtain hung to the right hand side. Also if you have good eyes you can see the area around the material go lighter as it walks past, like some translucent figure is there (look above the material in particular). Happy to have suggestions as to what it is as I honestly didn’t sleep the first night I saw this.

I would love to hear anyone try and prove that ghosts don't exist.

I would love to hear anyone try and prove that ghosts don't exist.

Another moment of Woo Thread Bingo.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=tA6RmkE8Zjw

you can’t say they don’t exist without proof
I would love to hear anyone try and prove that ghosts don't exist

This just isn’t how it works. You can’t claim something exists and demand everyone else proves you wrong. If you are saying ghosts exist it’s up to you to prove they do - and subjective accounts aren’t proof.

I just watched that several times, @Limitedsimba123
Why do you say it doesn’t look like a person? It seems to clearly be a person to me. I screenshot at 5s. It’s a person.

Drogosnextwife

I would love to hear anyone try and prove that ghosts don't exist

It's not up to non believers to prove a negative.

As the late great Chris Hitchens said, 'what is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence'

That looks like a person walking back and forth while talking on the phone or your local burglar. It doesn't look at all ghostly. It looks like a very much alive human being.

You could say the same about people believing in a god

Except some people have actually seen a ghost.

I feel the same way about people who believe in god. One thing i do wonder about with regards to ghosts/spirits, whatever, is that is it possible that some people have extra-sensory perception of things, making them real, but only to those who see them? I'd say it possible, though I'm not convinced.

Except some people have actually seen a ghost.

Some people think they have seen a ghost.

Saying you have seen something extraordinary is not proof. We are now firmly in Russell's teapot territory now.

No they haven’t @HarryElephante
They’ve seen something they can’t explain. As the video posted above shows, people can be quite adamant that something looks weird but others see it is perfectly clear.

I don’t think someone stood at their window would look like this? You would be able to see features etc.

@Limitedsimba123, it looks to me as if something pale-coloured/fluorescent is being carried or worn by someone who is moving around in the room, but who doesn't catch the light in the same way -- could be someone carrying something on a hanger? You can see the curtain moving as the person goes past, and it's either not always the same thing being carried, or a different side of it is facing the window on the last pass past.

That or someone pranking. It's very much the kind of thing my sister and I did as children, when we specialised in annoying pranks like lying on the ground by the front gate pretending to have fallen over and knocked ourselves out to alarm passersby...

I have seen a 'ghost' but don't believe in them in the sense that they're disembodied souls wandering the earth or similar. So I don't have an explanation for what I saw, woo or otherwise.

Best I can do is 'some kind of hallucination that has some kind of environmental trigger that can therefore induce different people to see the same thing under very specific circumstances' which sounds more science-y but is still bollocks, really.

I prefer to say: I saw something weird. I don't know what it was. I don't have any explanation for it. I'm unlikely to ever get one, it will remain a weird experience, and I can live with that without having to convince myself that it was either a) an undead soul or b) a brain tumour. Living with uncertainty is fine.