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Philosophy/religion

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Have you ever seen a ghost?

323 replies

BCBG · 10/02/2015 21:16

Serious question - have you ever seen a ghost? If so, why are you certain about what you saw? Could it have been a natural phenomenon? I ask because something I saw is preying on my mind. I was driving through a village on the East Sussex border one afternoon last year, thinking of God knows what, radio on, when all of a sudden the car filled with the smell of fuel (which makes me feel ill ). I then realised a plane was flying very low left to right across the road, so low that I thought it would crash. I couldn't see any markings on the plane but I remember the shape very clearly. I don't remember whether or not there was any noise, but I was so shocked I brought the car to a standstill and looked back across the road. I realised that to my right the land fell away very sharply, so it would have been possible for a plane to fly over me and then clear the trees heading off over the valley (i think) except that I couldn't see any plane. I honestly stood there and listened for an impact. I could still smell this incredible odour of aviation fuel (like when you are crossing the tarmac sometimes on a small airport and the wind catches you, only much stronger). Never thought about ghosts before, but I still wonder what exactly I saw that day.

OP posts:
DioneTheDiabolist · 12/08/2015 17:15

What is your case TTWK? What does it matter to you what consenting, capable, intelligent adults believe they experienced in the privacy of their own homes/heads/fields/mirrors or haunted mansions?

People are telling their stories, no one is saying that you have to believe them.

BertrandRussell · 12/08/2015 17:15

And an atheist is just somebody who doesn't believe in God. Doesn't say anything about anything else they might believe in.

Writtenbyme · 12/08/2015 17:23

I have. Twice.

As a child (regularly, same room same ghost) and more recently (a family member years after they passed away).

I have zero explanations for what I saw. I just accept some things can't be explained.

DioneTheDiabolist · 12/08/2015 17:24

YY Bert.

Comingfoccacia · 12/08/2015 17:40

Well I heard one. Heavy footsteps up the back garden path. No access apart from through locked gate. Looked out, nobody there. It was in this house I had four horrific nightmares, never had them before or since. The cats used to go mental as well on occasion. Plus the lights used to go on and off...
In another place I saw the shadow of a ghost, you know when someone passes past a door and you see a shadow? I was a guest in the house and the people that lived there saw I had noticed and explained it was "Sylvie" the ghost of an old lady who'd lived there. When they did some renovations they left plans out for her to view!

Pedestriana · 12/08/2015 17:56

What I meant, Bertrand was that today's "supernatural" may end up having an explanation at some time in the future.

LemonCream · 12/08/2015 18:11

It's a cog in a dangerous wheel. Failure to challenge supernatural bullshit leads to people accepting it, and then it's a short step to psychics and worse. It's not harmless. Children get murdered because their stupid parents believe they are inhabited by evil spirits. It's all interrelated

Spot on.

There's nothing harmless about gullibility and refusal to see reason. Nothing.

Thinking you saw a ghost plane, and refusing to acknowledge the extreme unlikeliness of this is no different to believing that your granddaughter is possessed by devils which need to be beaten out of her.

These so called harmless stories, with people queuing up to "respect" them lends a very dangerous credibility to nonsense.

Because that is what they are - nonsense. If that offends people, then that's their problem.

It's pretty obvious you're far too invested in this. I am still quite firmly on the fence on this subject, but I get very weary of people bullying others because they feel they know better

We do know better, that's the point. Telling people they are wrong about something is not "bullying" - but the holier-than-thou amongst us (like you) will chose to take it that way because it validates your high opinion of yourself.....or at least you think it does.

You quoted my post TTWK, but you still haven't explained how posting racist and homophobic views are similar to a thread recounting ghost stories FFS - it's pretty bloody obvious what she meant. She considers racism harmful AND she considers facile bullshit like ghosts harmful. That's why she challenges both. Pretty obvious what she meant.

LemonCream · 12/08/2015 18:14

What I meant, Bertrand was that today's "supernatural" may end up having an explanation at some time in the future

It has an explanation now it's just that none of you like the explanation, in spite of the wealth of evidence supporting it.

People are either genuinely mistaken or they are mentally ill or they are lying....or a combination of all three.

No investigation into any ghost story has EVER (in several hundred years of scientific searching) turned up a different explanation. Not once.

BertrandRussell · 12/08/2015 18:15

"
What I meant, Bertrand was that today's "supernatural" may end up having an explanation at some time in the future."

So we say "Oh, that's interesting- something we don't understand yet." We shouldn't say "It's a ghost"

BertrandRussell · 12/08/2015 18:17

"People are either genuinely mistaken or they are mentally ill or they are lying....or a combination of all three."

Or being lied to. Often for money.

pocketsaviour · 12/08/2015 18:17

I love how in a discussion like this, people who seem hugely invested in the viewpoint of "There are no ghosts because there just aren't la la la can't hear you" seem to forget their usually tightly-held rule that you can't prove something didn't happen.

Witnessing the cunty way atheists behave on this board makes me really want to not identify myself with them.

ThroughThickAndThin01 · 12/08/2015 18:20

Oh, that's interesting- something we don't understand yet. We shouldn't say "It's a ghost" I don't disagree with that Bert, although possibly 'ghost' is just a shorthand way of saying all of that.

AliceDoesntLiveHereAnymore · 12/08/2015 18:23

No point even trying to discuss the OP, because of the small amount of rude and aggressive people that are determined to derail any discussion about it.

ABTwife · 12/08/2015 18:25

No. Because there is no such thing.

The human mind is an amazing and complex thing. Read Oliver Sachs books on hallucinations (in the absence of psychosis) and other amazing neurological or psychological phenomena.

Google somataform or 'conversion' disorders. If the mind can cause you to feel pain, have 'seizures' or become 'blind' then it can make you think you've seen something that wasn't there.

Neuropsychiatry is fascinating!

ThroughThickAndThin01 · 12/08/2015 18:26

Yep agree Alice I'm thrilled to have been told to 'grow up' and that I'm a liar or mentally ill. Nice.

lauren222 · 12/08/2015 18:26

If i didn't believe in this sort of thing i would simply pass this thread by without comment. It is a shame that some people perceive people having a different world view as a fundamental threat to their personhood.

Comingfoccacia · 12/08/2015 18:40

All most peculiar

DioneTheDiabolist · 12/08/2015 18:40

It's not obvious Lemon, I still don't know how a MNetter's post that they experienced a ghost is harmful?

Earlier in the thread you said said that men "largely laugh at this crap. Quite rightly."
Do you think that the fact that some men might laugh at them should stop the women on this thread from relating their experiences?

LemonCream · 12/08/2015 18:43

Or being lied to. Often for money

Well, that's not an explanation for why they believe it...or why they are consulting psychics in the first place.

Societal acceptance of this sort of think leads to a mistaken belief that there "may be something in this...we can't know everything, can we?" etc.

The people on this thread recounting their "experiences" (which are all ludicrously lame, without exception) are the reason why desperate, grieving mothers pay money to charlatans....and they ought to be ashamed of themselves.

pocketsaviour · 12/08/2015 18:47

I notice OP hasn't been back to this thread (wonder why...) but if you're lurking, OP, I'd love to know whether this happened near Lancing village, perhaps on the A27?

BertrandRussell · 12/08/2015 18:49

"I love how in a discussion like this, people who seem hugely invested in the viewpoint of "There are no ghosts because there just aren't la la la can't hear you" seem to forget their usually tightly-held rule that you can't prove something didn't happen.

The reason I don't believe in ghosts is the simple fact that there has never, ever, been a case of anything paranormal being properly investigated that didn't turn out to be either perfectly natural, misunderstandings or fraud. Not a single one. In lol the years of paranormal investigation

Witnessing the cunty way atheists behave on this board makes me really want to not identify myself with them.

Atheists can be as cunty as anyone else. However, atheism is a complete red herring on a thread about the paranormal. Atheists don't believe in God. That doesn't mean that they can't believe in ghosts, dowsing, homeopathy or any other form of pseudo science

Littleham · 12/08/2015 18:50

My mothers experience was not lame Lemon. Angry

DirtyDeedsD0neDirtCheap · 12/08/2015 18:54

love ghost threads

shameless place marking

BertrandRussell · 12/08/2015 18:55

Littleham- it was obviously very meaningful for her and not lame at all in terms of personal experience. But in terms of paranormal experiences it is very easily explained and not very mysterious at all.

CalmYourselfTubbs · 12/08/2015 18:57

yes i have.
it came out of the wall and screamed at me, right in my face.
i'll never, ever forget it.