To think ghost stories are BS, but my experience was a bit odd?

[BigMoan]

I moved into a 1950’s house previously occupied by a couple. They were the sole occupants since it was built. The husband died, and a few years later the wife moved to a care home. The house was then put on the market.

Our first night in the house, we’d put a car seat centrally on a table. It fell off.
Few days later, I heard our piano being played - I went in the room and no one was there.
Then a week or so later - daughter went to the bathroom, froze and said there’s someone in there. She described the person as a male, like a shadow and wearing a suit. I hadn’t mentioned anything about ghosts to her, and told her it was just a shadow - perhaps Daddy had walked past when she was about to go in. For a few weeks after she was scared of the bathroom, wanted an adult with her. And now - if ghosts come up in a book/on TV - she always refers back to this experience.

A few other weird things happened. And then nothing else. The house felt ‘creepy’ for a while. Absolutely nothing creepy about it now.

If course it’s ridiculous to think it was a ghost, but what was I experiencing? Was it just the strangeness of moving somewhere new? Just wondered if anyone else had had a similar experience?

I grew up in a "haunted" house. It was a very old, thatched farmhouse, built in 1560 and had been exorcised by the previous occupant (a very sensible and eminent solicitor) as he'd had lightbulbs popping out of their fittings on the landing and used to see "people" wandering around. It clearly didn't work. We used to see a figure walking to the back door at 10pm every night, it was seen by dozens of people who visited our house - my grandfather, (a no nonsense, army man), any school friends staying over, you could time your watch by it.

I had a school friend to stay one night who felt something get into bed with her. She thanked mum for having the next day but said "I won't come again because your house is haunted". I felt the exact same sensation a couple of nights later. We used to see luminous crosses appear on the walls, there was an outbuilding you couldn't go into because of a feeling of dread. When now DH came to stay one weekend, we were sat outside having a BBQ and he saw "people" in old fashioned dress walking through the kitchen. He categorically does not believe in ghosts, but to this day, some 20 years later, he maintains there was definitely something going on in that house.

Now, I think all of these things can be explained away - night terrors, chemical reactions in the old plaster etc but it was certainly a very strange house.

Wow again! I wasn’t expecting responses like these, and my hairs are definitely stood on end - but in a good way!

I guess say 500 years ago - there were a great many things we didn’t understand, but science has given us a better answer. I wonder if this is currently something we don’t understand, but will have a better answer in 500 years time?

Dreaming/sleep/near death experiences - they seems to be an awful lot about it that can’t really be explained. I guess ‘ghosts’ would fall into that too.

That awe and wonder feeling - when you see nature, I’d say it’s fairly close to the feeling I had when I first moved in. Almost liked I felt privileged to experience something unusual.

When we moved to our house, built in the late 30s, things were low level weird for some time. We bought it via probate after the previous owner died in a care home, but her husband Alan had died in the house. He was a very keen, if eccentric, gardener - the garden was chaotic with several ponds and the house was a smelly tip, they'd had loads of house cats and nothing had been decorated for many years. We started to do stuff to the house and garden but there was a very odd energy in the house, I don't know how to explain it. Not settled. But not 'spooky' or unpleasant. Then we were eating lunch in the dining room one day and my then-4yo son said casually 'who's that old man in a cardigan in the garden?' There wasn't, not that we could see anyway (hairs standing on end as I write!). But I thought OK, Alan's not happy that we're messing with his garden and house. So I started doing this little chat to Alan every day (I know this sounds properly bonkers) just saying "Hi Alan, we love this house and I promise we will take good care of it and your garden. Don't worry. You can rest now" or something similar. After a couple of months, the house just suddenly felt completely different. It was still chaos as we were decorating and stuff but just... lighter and more peaceful.

@edwinbear - funny, what you said about crosses. There is an imprint of a cross on our bedroom wall. The previous occupants had one hanging there.

@WheelieBinPrincess

I saw my friend before she died. She was standing in the park six foot away from me, and then she wasn’t.

She was gravely ill in hospital so there’s no way she’d have been in the park, and that afternoon she died.

@WheelieBinPrincess Have you been on a podcast telling that story? If not then there is someone out there who had a very similar experience of seeing a friend in a park who couldn't have been there.

There are so many things that we can't fathom so why should ghosts not be real?

I was spooked out once at Thetford Abbey - just got a creepy 'you're unwelcome' feeling. Several years later I mentioned this to a friend as I'd recently seen a documentary where someone else mentioned Thetford Abbey feeling strange. As I was speaking a glass of wine placed securely on a stable shelf tipped over. No-one was near it.

I'm not easily spooked and didn't think much of it at the time, but it was certainly a very odd coincidence..

@HappyDays40

There are so many things that we can't fathom so why should ghosts not be real?

I listened to a really interesting podcast once that was done by two physicists, they basically went through all of the conventional explanations for ghosts and explained how all of them would be against the laws of physics. So if ghosts exist, they aren't spirits of dead people, time/energy residues, glimpses into other dimensions etc.

I thought ghosts were BS but then when DH died I had a visitation from him one night. I was definitely awake - I was lying in bed and I felt the mattress move, and then it was like he was lying on top of me, hugging me. I could feel his facial hair against my skin, smell his aftershave, and hear his voice - he said everything will be OK, kissed me and then left. It sounds ridiculous typing this all out but it happened.

We live in a between the wars semi and have done for 30 years. We are third couple to live here. Both the other couples also lived here for 30 odd years. Never had anything creepy happen.

I should also add it’s possible and common to have very vivid hallucinations when you are between sleep and wakefulness. I’ve had a few myself.

Years ago a couple over the road from us both passed within months of each other. They had lived in the house from new. The lady of the house fell down the stairs and died of her injuries. The lady was very distinctive looking (always wore lots of thick orange type make up) a young couple moved in and could hear bumping noises like someone had fallen down the stairs
They got up and saw a little old lady at the bottom of the stairs. The old lady said I don't want to hurt you I only want to live here. Couple described the lady distictive make build etc it was the previous owner. I remember the vicar going in to bless the house or whatever he did. They never heard anything after that

I grew up in a huge shabby creaky house that was built at the very start of Victoria’s reign so it was actually quite Georgian in style. No one discussed it properly till many years later after we had left and had all grown up. My Mother always shut down the conversation and you did not question her authority.

There was a spot outside the bathroom that we were all scared of, every single one of us. It felt off and very oppressive. At night and this will sound bizarre the darkness in that area was darker than normal darkness. My Mother admitted she felt the same, the house was long sold by then. She also admitted the footsteps heard on the top floor which was not occupied and used for storage had happened many times though she had denied it at the time.

I know my Grandmother was staying with her sister sharing a room and woke in the night and saw her BIL stood at the end of the bed. A few days later they received word he had been killed, he was away fighting and had died on that day.

Combe Abbey is a very interesting hotel especially in the main hotel

I'm like you OP, very much a skeptic, very much a non believer in anything ghosty. And then I had a ghost.

Had about 6 months where I kept seeing a figure out of the corner of my eye. I'd be sat on the sofa, and turn my head and he'd be stood in the doorway, or I'd be washing up and look up into the window and see the reflection of him stood behind me. Just long enough for me to jump out of my skin, and then he was gone

Also had a couple of occasions of thing moving. Would be upstairs and hear a noise, go down and find a spoon in the middle of the floor in the kitchen. Put it on the side and went back up. Hear noise, spoon back on floor. Repeat two more times.

It was only ever me who saw him, wife and daughter saw nothing, and the things moving only ever happened when I was home alone.

Lasted about 6 months, nothing in 10 years prior in the same house, and nothing in about 3 years after.

Looking back, I was going through a really rough time, my Mum was dying and work was being epically shit, risks of redundancy etc. I reckon it was just my mind playing tricks on me, stress makes you a bit loopy.

It might be the same for you. Moving house is stressful. You put the car seat down on the edge of the table, not really paying attention, and it falls off. You think "I'm sure I put that in the middle" and now you're on edge. Next door have the TV up loud and its the piano. Now you think somethings playing the piano in your house, even more on edge. And you get tenser and more stressed and your brain starts filling in blanks, until the move stress goes and you're settled in your house and you start relaxing, and so the "ghost" dissapears.

Or you really have got a ghost and he's decided he likes you, so he's stopped pissing about.

On a related note, I've been listening to "The Battersea Poltergeist" on BBC Sounds. Worth a listen if you like a bit of Woo

I fully believe in all this stuff, these stories are giving me shivers
I live in a new house so you wouldn’t think of a new build as haunted, but I have noticed things move from one place to another and both me and DH have absolutely not touched them. It’s happened loads in the 6 years we’ve been here.
The weirdest was when a plastic fish bowl ended up from on top of the kitchen cabinet, to on the the floor on the other side of the room. It was tucked right up against the wall, practically touching the ceiling, there was no way it fell. Not even the strongest breeze could have got behind it and blown it off. And even if it had, there’s no logical way it would have ended up in the location it was.
Sorry that’s a boring story but it just boggled my mind!
The land was old council houses so maybe something left over from them.

When we started talking about that house my sisters who are quite a bit older than me then started talking about the previous house my parents rented. They moved when I was only a few months old so I have no memory at all.

I was found choking hanging body first through the cot bars , I was very small and too small to roll over by myself. My sisters woke many times feeling as if something was on their chest suffocating them. If I was taken in to a certain room I would scream until taken out.

About a decade ago that house came up for sale. My sister pointed out a large cross on the wall of the room I used to scream in as a baby.

@CharSiu ok time for me to have nightmares then

I haven't seen anything that couldn't have a rational explanation (even if it didn't feel like that at the time).

My view is that there is no hard evidence that ghosts exist, but the lack of evidence of something doesn't mean it doesn't or can't exist. Gravity existed long before people understood the concept of it. In an unsolved murder there is almost certainly a guilty party even if there is no evidence to prove it. A string of random occurrences can't be predicted in advance, but once they've happened an IF/THEN/ELSE type of logic can be applied to them to prove they could have been found if you knew the formula.

It's a naive but common human assumption that present day humanity is the best informed and most knowledgeable species that has ever existed, therefore something that can't be explained "rationally" can't exist. We've always been like this, in the 1600s the "rational" explanation for a lot of things was witchcraft, because witches were known to exist and denial of them automatically meant the denial of angels and positive spirits - ergo the denier was not a believer in Christ and therefore wrong.

The fact that no plausible evidence of ghosts has ever been captured on camera suggests that most sightings are in the viewer's head. I don't mean they are all made up, I mean that someone believes they have seen something inexplicable - a ghost - because their brain has interpreted things in a certain way that is not necessarily physical reality.

(Interestingly the same lack of documentary evidence applies to UFOs. It's funny how if there's an asteroid or plane accident above a major city there's always CCTV or dashcam or doorbell footage of it happening, yet this never occurs when a UFO allegedly flies over.)

Then there's the natural forgetfulness of humans. I like to think I never forget things but obviously do - it's just that having forgotten something, I don't remember I've forgotten it. On a low level this accounts for things being moved whilst out of the room. I always shut my wardrobe door therefore there's no rational explanation for it being open when I got home, therefore it might be a ghost. Or I was in a rush and forgot to shut it, but that's not likely because I've not done that once in the time I've had it.

We know so little about consciousness and how our brains work. That feeling of "being watched" or how skills are unconsciously passed down through generations - there's no reason memories can't be passed down, or us have levels of perception we don't know how to actively use. Really, we don't know what happens when we die. We know what physically happens to the body and make assumptions based on current understanding. But in reality the belief that consciousness stops when the body dies is no more certain than the belief we then go to heaven or hell.

To butcher Socrates, the only thing we know is that we don't know anything.

Weirdest I had was in a local pub/hotel which was supposed to be haunted. I went in to the toilets the main door for the toilets was closing behind me when swung right open and closed as if someone was coming in behind me but no-one was there. Thing was this door was a heavy fire door and wouldn't have moved in a draft. Needless to say I didn't take long.

We moved into this house last year. A few strange things have happened like internal door handles being pulled down on their own and that sort of thing. The strangest though is probably my baby when she was a couple of months old would look up to the ceiling and smile. DH and I joked about the ghost on the ceiling thinking she's just smiling at shadows or whatever. But then my 4 year old started doing it too he woke up in the middle of the night once and pointed up to the corner of the ceiling. A couple of times he would be in my bed and clearly tracking something moving across the ceiling. One morning I woke up to find him sat on the end of the bed laughing up at the ceiling. I asked him what was funny and he said it was a monster. I asked what the monster looked like and he looked at me and whispered 'a ghost.' My stomach dropped out of my arse. Funnily enough since that happened neither of them have looked at the ceiling again.

@SmellyOldOwls FUCK. THAT.

Moved into our house 12 years ago. It’s mid Victorian (1850’s) and the previous occupant’s DH had died there (though she denied this, I could feel his presence). Things used to fly off the kitchen top for example. I definitely felt a presence- not malignant- but just “lingering”. I asked “him” nicely to go away, that this is our house now etc and it’s time for him to move on etc etc. I also asked the priest (I’m Catholic) to come and bless the house, which he did. After that, nothing. Call me bonkers but I do believe that sometimes spirits linger in houses.

@Paris14eme

Moved into our house 12 years ago. It’s mid Victorian (1850’s) and the previous occupant’s DH had died there (though she denied this, I could feel his presence). Things used to fly off the kitchen top for example. I definitely felt a presence- not malignant- but just “lingering”. I asked “him” nicely to go away, that this is our house now etc and it’s time for him to move on etc etc. I also asked the priest (I’m Catholic) to come and bless the house, which he did. After that, nothing. Call me bonkers but I do believe that sometimes spirits linger in houses.

But dozens of people will have died in a house that's from the 1850s -- hospital deaths are a comparatively recent thing.

There was a murder in our house a long time ago. It hasn't left any detectable trace.

I know entirely level-headed people who’ve had very strange experiences, so I do think there are things nobody can yet understand or explain.
I have had no such experiences myself, but that doesn’t mean I dismiss what has happened to people I know very well.

A minor case - a dd moved into a house where the wife of the old chap selling it had recently died.

On two occasions, with different babies of around 8 - 10 months old (so had recently learned to wave) she saw them waving and smiling at someone who wasn’t there. Both times it was in the same place, no view of a mirror or anything.

However the house had had a lovely warm atmosphere from the moment of first viewing - you could tell it had been a happy family home, so although dd was a wee bit spooked, she wasn’t really bothered.

A similar case, ages ago when I was 9, we moved into a house where my sister of only 3 used to say for a while that ‘a lady’ was sitting on the end of her bed and smiling at her. She wasn’t at all bothered, rather the reverse.

It came to light not long afterwards that the young woman who’d lived there had died in childbirth.