Believing in ghosts

[StupidFaces]

I used to, now I think it’s ridiculous. People have been trying to prove the existence of ghosts for over 150 years and yet not one scrap of credible evidence to suggest they exist. I wish they did, I’d love it to be real but it just doesn’t make sense for them to exist does it?

Surely if ghosts were real, abattoirs would be haunted to fuck by the ghosts of dead cows? How come nobody ever sees a ghost dressed in trackies and Nike trainers? Why are they only ever dressed in Victorian/medieval clothes etc?

Do people think ghosts of fish haunt the ocean?

For those that do believe … what do you think about the above scenarios?

For those that done believe … would you be happy to spend a night alone in a supposedly haunted castle?

Believing in Reiki is as ridiculous as believing in ghosts.

I was reminded of something an ex told me last night which suits this thread. In the suburb where we both live, and grew up, is a small wood with an adjacent playing field and my ex told me that when he was about 18 he was walking through these woods on his way to the pub (not from the pub!) one evening and his path was crossed about 20 feet ahead by an Irish Wolfhound, but he said it was as if it were transparent. Closely followed by what looked like a roman soldier, again he could see through it. He stopped dead and watched both disappear into the trees ahead of him and then ran to see where they'd gone and there was no sign of them, nowhere they could've gone. He is an ex Royal Engineer sergeant, slight head case (hence him being an ex) and not at all given to fairy stories but he said this 100% happened. If it did happen, then its slightly believable as we are surrounded by roman roads where we live.

Of course ghosts don't exist. Its ridiculous that people still think this and call themselves intelligent.

Anyone honestly claiming to see a ghost is either deliberately lying or under a very grave misconception.

Its actually pretty common to see things that you cant immediately explain, and the human brain is evolutionarily programmed to attribute experiences to a 'thing' rather than just natural noises/light patterns etc.

The fact that photography has existed for over 120 years and yet not a single photograph or video of a ghost has ever been produced that can stand up to scrutiny tells you all you need to know.

For everyone who thinks they live in a haunted house or have a 'ghost', there is a simple solution, just get some cheap 4k video cameras spread around your house and start filming. One of two things will happen, either you will capture video footage of your 'ghost' and then become world famous as the first person to prove that ghosts are real, or the ghost will never put in an appearance ever again and you are free of it. Win-win surely?

Of course ghosts don't exist. Its ridiculous that people still think this and call themselves intelligent.

That's just rude isn't it?

Ok, so in the house I live in now people see something. They all describe exactly the same thing happening repeatedly. A dark spot about the size of a tennis ball. They always describe this...
It only happens in the sitting room.
It is always below waist level.
It travels at speed and covers about two feet.
It always travels right to left.
It happens at all times of the day, night, year and in all light levels.
I have seen it myself many times. It's not frightening.
It's not a rodent as occasionally it travels above ground level and also we have a jack russell terrier in the house!

I'm not unintelligent, nor delusional. I'm a very down to earth, practical, ordinary person. I'm also not lying. The people who have reported this include an optician, an HGV driver, an electrician - all different people, none of whom knew other people had said anything.

Perhaps I should try the camera idea.

I think there's a line to tread between 'nope, don't exist and everyone who thinks they do is deluded' and 'I've always been a bit psychic and I've seen....'

Dismissing everyone who's ever seen anything anomalous as deluded or hallucinatory or mistaken is to make assumptions. Dismissing everyone who doesn't believe in such things as close-minded and stupid, is also wrong.

I think adopting an open minded position, which acknowledges that some sightings will be misperceptions, misunderstandings and the human brain just being a bit weird, and that things sometimes happen which have no (current) scientific explanation is best.

It's just a bit narrow minded to think that we know everything there is to know about the natural world, the brain and its functions and physics. So surely a watching brief is most sensible?

Yes please set up a camera, if it happens that often then sooner or later you should catch it on camera

I've seen the ghost of a dog that had been pts the week before. I don't know what ghosts are, but I definitely saw it and many people report they've seen one.

My DP believes in ghosts but has never seen one. I on the other hand have seen a ghost repeatedly and yet don't believe in them.

I had a period of about a year and a half where I kept spotting a figure in my house out of the corner of my eye that would then disappear before I could get a good look at it. Only happened at home, never anywhere else. Sometimes it would show in the window as I was walking to the front door, or it quite liked to stand in the hallway so I'd jump out of my skin as I came out of a room. I also had one evening home alone where a spoon kept jumping off the kitchen counter onto the floor. I'd been living in the house for about 10 years when it started, and after about a year and a half it just... stopped.

Coincidentally enough, I was going through a period of huge stress. My Mum was dying, it was looking like I was going to be made redundant at work, along with a couple of other issues.

DP thinks that the stress caused the ghost to act up, whereas I'm firmly in the camp that he only thing acting up was my own mind.

Drives DP nuts that a.) she never saw it, and b.) I did but am still decidedly sceptical about anything woo. Leads to many an entertaining argument.

I’m a sceptic. There is still so much we don’t know about the human brain and how environmental conditions affect it.

That said I love ghost stories and listen to loads of paranormal podcasts. Also have recently discovered Beyond Belief - an old TV show on Amazon Prime featuring dramatisations of alleged supernatural events and really weird coincidences. They tell you at the end which were real and which fictitious.

Some extremely rude comments on here.
If you don't believe, fine, but please refrain from calling the rest of us idiots.
I personally feel sorry for anyone with a totally closed mind.

I've never seen a ghost and I don't think I believe. I do keep an open mind, but I think it's mostly people hoping there is more to existence than just dying and that's it and linking to happenings to that. I really enjoy paranormal horror though, but don't believe in it.

My mind isn't closed at all, far from it, it just requires evidence to open it.

There is no evidence for ghosts of any kind that cannot be better explained in other far better and much more likely ways.

Delete - 'your closed minded',

insert - 'I'm credulous and gullible'.

Sounds like they have seen something they cannot explain.
Nothing to suggest they have somehow seen a dead person, nor this mysterious 'spirit' we are told continues to exist somehow.

Not just a photo, why not a video ?

Hear hear .

Perfectly put, thank you.

I quite agree. But what could it be? I'd love to know and am going to look into the camera idea.

I don't think anyone is saying that we know all there is to know about the universe therefore its impossible for ghosts to exist. That would be a silly and narrow minded position, but I don't know anyone who holds it...

However, when something being proposed defies the currently known laws of physics and has absolutely no objective evidence to support it, then the default position of anyone sensible is to not believe in it, until such time as compelling evidence can be provided to show otherwise.

Its really not that complicated...

I don't believe in ghosts and never have.

My mum died last year and I remember lying in bed having second thoughts and thinking maybe she'd pop back as a ghost and say hi!

But then I started to worry - if ghosts were real, or dead relatives were really 'watching over you' all the time, that means they could pop in or see you anytime!! I wouldn't fancy seeing a gohst when sitting on the toilet, or my mum springing up to 'watch over me' when doing the business with DH!!

I don't think gohsts exist, and if they did how would they know when it's ok to appear or when you need your privacy - they'd only know that because they'd already spotted what you were doing, and I don't like the idea of that!!

"known laws of physics".

Yep. And there may well be many unknown laws of physics that account for many of the things that people see.

There might be, just as there may be herds of specially adapted elephants wandering around on the bottom of the oceans of the world and we just haven't discovered them yet.

But until any evidence whatsoever can be produced to support that proposition, then the sensible default position is to not believe in it.

Oh Christ, the sexy voyeur ghosts are the worst kind

I find this kind of thing really interesting.

it’s obviously not an individual ‘deluded’ person.

and it’s completely unexplained.

doesn’t mean supernatural, of course, but the fact that it’s obviously not a common phenomenon shows that just because you haven’t seen something with your own eyes, doesn’t mean anyone who has is deluded!

It is really interesting actually, I'd love to get to the bottom of what this is.

Setting up a camera is obviously the first step, then starting to look at different variables and remove them one by one to see if that makes a difference.

But...

I feel very confident in saying that there will be a simple explanation to this, because of Occams Razor. What is more likely, that the known laws of physics are being defied in a very specific way in one persons living room in the UK in a way never seen before and for no discernible reason, or that this is just an unusual shadow or lighting effect caused by something very specific to that room?

In the same way that he Collosi of Memnon were believed by the Romans to be magical statues that 'sang' to them, however we now understand that the noises they made were caused by temperature differences in the statue forcing air to whistle as it flowed through the cracks.

Completely supernatural and un-explainable, until it was explained and turned out to have a really sensible and mundane cause. 🙄