Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Did I see a ghost? Or am I going mad?

327 replies

SnotRags · 02/02/2022 09:45

This happened on Monday. It’s been playing on my mind since.

I work in a largely unused community hospital. Some days, I’m the only person working there other than reception and a security guard. I run a clinic and my room is down the end of a corridor - remember there is nobody else in the entire building, all other rooms unused. Just mine at the end with its little light on.

So anyway, I don’t believe in ghosts, never have. However this corridor is bloody spooky sometimes and on a number of occasions I’ve thought I’ve seen someone walking around a corner only for there to be nobody there. I’ve heard the sound of a Zimmer frame walking towards my room, gone out to greet my patient and nobody is there. My cupboard door in my room has had a random rattling handle on a few occasion. A pair of scissors weirdly left my trolley and ended up on the floor (I didn’t see how, just heard the clatter on the floor and saw them lying there). Now, not saying those incidents are ghosts but it was unnerving so I asked security if we could put the waiting room TV on a music channel or something just to make the corridor less silent.

Anyway, on Monday I asked reception where I could find something I needed. She said “that sort of stuff is upstairs”. I asked how I got up there (didn’t even know there was a second floor!) and she said “you can’t, it’s locked”. So I asked security to let me up. He laughed and said “you going up there on your own? Because I’m not coming with you!” … long story short he unlocked the door to the stairs, I went up - was sorting through the stuff I needed and saw a nurse walk past the room I was in (not a shadow or Victorian dressed character, just an actual nurse). Thought nothing of it. Went back downstairs and as security was locking the door again I said “you know there is a nurse up there? Does she have a key for this door?” He said “nobody is up there” and locked the door. I said “I literally saw her! You can’t just lock her in!” He maintained nobody was up there and we walked back to reception where he told receptionist I’d seen “Julie”. Lots of dramatic faces and gasps, they tell me Julie is a ghost - had an aneurysm at work and died years ago.

As I said I don’t believe in ghosts but I can’t stop thinking about it! I definitely saw someone, they even described her and it was the same person I saw. Only thing I can think of is it’s an in joke and there is a nurse who works up there?? (But no patients go up there so what is she doing exactly?)

YABU - it’s clearly an in joke and the nurse works up there, the others say she’s a ghost to freak people out
YANBU - it’s a ghost, why would a uniformed nurse be working on an unused floor on her own?

It sounds ridiculous even to me as I’m writing this but I just can’t stop going over it in my head.

OP posts:
Mollysocks · 02/02/2022 15:51

People always say, ghosts can’t exist, the paranormal doesn’t it, it’s against science etc. but what if ghosts are normal. What if it’s a normal part of our universe that we just don’t understand yet. I mean the universe is crazy, search quantum entanglement, that shit is insane and it exists. I believe energy isn’t destroyed it just changes forms and ghosts are some sort of residual energy/imprint. I believe you OP.

BellatrixOnABadDay · 02/02/2022 15:57

@Opus17

It could be left over energy. Sometimes I wonder if our energy still lingers after were gone even though we're not consciously there anymore. If that makes sense
If it did, does that not mean that our families would see imprints of our energy around the house when we'd popped to Tesco's or whatever? Or is the energy confined to you in your living body?

I'm not mocking or disputing by any means btw- I wonder the same myself and am very open minded. But that did just cross my mind 😁

SecretWitch · 02/02/2022 15:58

I think you have had a ghostly encounter

I’ve had two. One occurred on a very warm and still autumn afternoon. The other happened in the Victorian heap I currently live in. My daughter and I were home alone reading books in our lounge. We suddenly heard a man’s voice say “Hello”. We both looked up from our books at each other and then went back to reading.

FAQs · 02/02/2022 16:57

@Shiteshow100

Try asking nurses or other medical staff this question. Guaranteed most who have worked in a home or hospital have encountered spooky goings on. I know I have, you get used to it and even the biggest unbeliever's will change their minds rather quickly after a few night shifts 😂😂
True that! And some emergency responders.
MsFannySqueers · 02/02/2022 17:11

Oh @SecretWitch that’s interesting my DS lives very rurally in an old house with even older outbuildings he and his partner heard ‘hello’s’ outside in the darkness when they first moved there. There is nothing for miles around them. The whole place has a lovely feel about it though not spooky at all. I have been there alone dog sitting and heard gentle, sweet singing in one of the outbuildings. My DS often sees flashes of something or someone out of the corner of his eye when working.

IntermittentParps · 02/02/2022 17:17

Sounds like a ghost to me!

Gonnagetgoing · 02/02/2022 17:19

@Version4needsabitofwork

I don't belive in ghosts either but I've had a very similar experience in in the same place you mentioned *@Gonnagetgoing*. I was on a jolly old ghost walk with friends one halloween, happy as a clam and pissing myself at the silly stories (it was lead by a friend of mine, not a serious ghost hunter, just a history buff) and I suddenly felt the strangest feeling. Can't really describe it, but sterile, silent, dead and cold. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I felt a very strange energy reading the William Wallace plaque. Really weird.
@Version4needsabitofwork - that is unreal.

For me it felt almost peaceful but it also felt numb and silent. Very strange. I'm not religious (or not much) but it definitely felt - almost void of feelings/sensations etc.

I recall a few years later I had a contract with Deloitte (just up the road in Ludgate Circus) - a PA was going to get married and we had a hen do for her in one of the bars very near the WW plaque. Again, whilst I was walking there I had a strange feeling similar to my first one. But as I'd worked in the area on and off including the job at Barbican I knew then of the area's history to easily be able to brush it off. All around that area though, near Farringdon tube station it's all very strange - yet in my 20s I went clubbing a lot in Turnmills just by Farringdon tube or near it and didn't feel anything!

Peter Ackroyd in 'London the Biography' talks about how certain streets have ley lines but also morphic resonance (if it's that) and when I've worked in Victoria - in Victoria Street I often get a sorrowful feeling. Apparently there was a women's mental institute there, friend told me this after I got this feeling though.

Gonnagetgoing · 02/02/2022 17:23

I will say this - have also done ghost walks in London and was in one where we went to The Viaduct Tavern (reputedly haunted) - I felt nothing at all yet I wouldn't want to be there at night obvs! Another pub in Fleet Street though, Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, I was there one evening also on a ghost walk and in the toilets (I kid you not!) I got a very scary, threatening vibe - like they wanted me out - I actually told my friend who was with me at the time to stay with me! When I returned a year or so later same toilets, nothing. Very strange. There are apparently old monks cloisters there.

stillwaitingonaring · 02/02/2022 17:26

I'd love to see a ghost! Don't think I'd sleep ever again though

SnotRags · 02/02/2022 17:51

@stripeyflowers

OP - perhaps she will take a shine to you and decide to follow you home . . .
Christ, don’t say that!
OP posts:
SnotRags · 02/02/2022 18:00

Just got home, loving the replies so thanks for engaging and not outright calling me a nutcase! Think I’ll settle down with some ghost hunting programs tonight to prepare for tomorrow 😂

I’m going to ask a few of my patients about Julie too, it’s a small town, everyone knows everything and most of my patients have been coming to this hospital since it was a fully functioning hospital.

OP posts:
JohannSebastianBach · 02/02/2022 18:02

I came to recommend the podcast "Uncanny" on BBC sounds. It's really good if you like a spooky tale.

RedHelenB · 02/02/2022 18:10

@HaggisBurger

I must be more of a rationalist than I thought as my main reaction to this is - why is the NHS/provider of this service - using an entirely empty building that houses only one practitioner who then needs a receptionist AND a security guard. How is this cost effective. And why is there stuff she needs in a second floor that isn’t apparent from the outside of the building ….
Me too. Anyone would be spooked working in an empty hospital all the time. It's your imagination.
WonderfulYou · 02/02/2022 18:22

What if it’s a normal part of our universe that we just don’t understand yet.

There is so much we don’t know/understand so this could just be one more thing but I always think if they’re so normal/common wouldn’t there be more pictures and videos of them?

Mollysocks · 02/02/2022 18:29

@WonderfulYou

What if it’s a normal part of our universe that we just don’t understand yet.

There is so much we don’t know/understand so this could just be one more thing but I always think if they’re so normal/common wouldn’t there be more pictures and videos of them?

That is the one thing that makes actually me wonder.

Although of course now, photos don’t really prove anything as they can be doctored and videos too to some extent.

I want to say maybe recording equipment doesn’t pick these things up well but that just feels too convenient, Why would our eyes be able to see something a camera can’t. I dunno.

Puffflashpuffflashbang · 02/02/2022 18:33

Following- love this kind of thing 😍

QueenPeony · 02/02/2022 19:16

I’m a very rational sciency type of person, not religious or woo either, but I’m also a bit on the fence about ghosts. There are a lot of forms of energy like radio, x-rays, infrared, neutrinos etc that we once didn’t know existed, and some of them can carry information. there could be some kind of mechanism that makes you see/hear/sense events or people from the past.

Stories like this are the most convincing (assuming it’s not colleagues winding you up) - when someone thinks they’ve seen a real person and it matches the description of what others have seen.

I wonder if it’s something that stimulates your brain, rather than something that actually appears, which would explain why cameras don’t seem to work. Like you get a repeat of an experience that someone standing in the same place once had in the past - hearing or seeing something.

WonderfulYou · 02/02/2022 19:24

I want to say maybe recording equipment doesn’t pick these things up well but that just feels too convenient, Why would our eyes be able to see something a camera can’t. I dunno.

Yes I guess we have made cameras to pick up what we can see so they wouldn’t necessarily pick up on everything.
Like the PP says a phone camera wouldn’t pick up our bones but an X-ray would.

Toottooot · 02/02/2022 19:26

Until you’ve seen a ghost i don’t think you really believe in it. I certainly didn’t but saw something one night - an old Victorian lady standing in a window. I will never ever forget that sight - it still weirds me out 20 years later and I can still vividly remember her.

Nodancingshoes · 02/02/2022 19:30

How spooky...I wouldn't be venturing up there again - you are brave! My friends DH has seen several ghosts, one that he sees quite often in the hallway of their apartment. He is a senior engineer and very serious and sensible - not the type to make these things up. He is very matter of fact about it - doesn't scare him at all. I would freak out!

KylieCharlene · 02/02/2022 19:32

I've got goosebumps.

Arsewangry · 02/02/2022 19:38

@5keletor

Oh I would feel bad for someone being trapped at work after death though, if there was an afterlife I really wouldn't want to spend it at my desk. 😂
Aye you watch that will just me my bloody luck. An eternity of being up to my eyes in excel spreadsheets and meetings that could have been emails. At least I will be able to get away with the moaning and wailing I am currently suppressing I guess.
Gindrinker43 · 02/02/2022 19:43

I had a similar experience whilst working in an outpatient clinic at an old hospital. Saw someone go up the stairs. The only way to the bottom of the stairs was to walk past my colleague and I or to come out of the consulting rooms we had closed for the night. We both went to the bottom of the stairs, looked up and elected not to go and check. No one complained about being locked in overnight...

SecretWitch · 02/02/2022 19:43

@MsFannySqueers

Oh *@SecretWitch* that’s interesting my DS lives very rurally in an old house with even older outbuildings he and his partner heard ‘hello’s’ outside in the darkness when they first moved there. There is nothing for miles around them. The whole place has a lovely feel about it though not spooky at all. I have been there alone dog sitting and heard gentle, sweet singing in one of the outbuildings. My DS often sees flashes of something or someone out of the corner of his eye when working.
@MsFannySqueers, that is interesting! We are the only house on our side of the street and our property covers 2 acres. The voice definitely came from inside the room. Obviously, neither of us felt threatened as we just went back to reading😂

Other times, especially when I’m alone, I can hear very faint music that sounds like 1930’s dance tunes..

Does your ds know anything about his property’s history?

Goldfishbowls · 02/02/2022 20:14

Like you, OP, i’m not a believer but some of these events are weird. When you exhaust the rational, scientific explanations for scissors falling on the floor without reason then it does get you wondering…

Swipe left for the next trending thread