Have you ever seen a ghost?

[BCBG]

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.

I'm glad it can be explained and I welcome polite explanations.

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

Seriously?

Our "tightly held rule" is a logical fact...one that should not have to be explained to any thinking adult.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to prove that something didn't happen. Very simply, here's why:

To prove anything about anything we need evidence

Only existent things, or events that actually happened, leave evidence

If something that did not happen left evidence then clearly it must have happened

So, events that did not happen DO NOT leave evidence

Since we need evidence to prove ANYTHING then we cannot prove that something did not happen

Why?

Because we don't have the necessary evidence.

I must say that it's always extremely telling that every god/ghost/bullshit thread on here turns into a kind of Poor Logic Bingo card.

That these things can only be supported by flawed analogies, dreadful logic and hurt feelings tells us an awful lot.

I agree with Lemon - societal acceptance and culture plays a HUGE part.

We live in a society with hundreds of years of ghost stories and programmes like 'ghost hunters' and Derek Acoras ghost programmes (where he was later exposed as a fake) so it's embeded in our culture that 'we don't really know, maybe there's something else'.

Only a couple of hundred years ago we were open - minded about werewolves, vampires and witches. We executed people because of it and dug up deceased people to drive stakes through their hearts. I've read contemporary accounts of exhumations where 'fingernails and hair was growing and there was evidence of freshly consumed blood'. I have no doubt those people believed that.

In Haiti there is still a belief in zombies. In many cultures curses, evil spirits, witchcraft and demonic possession are believed.

But not in our culture so if people were on here saying 'my neighbour has cursed me' or 'my child is possessed' or 'I saw a zombie' we would feel very, very confident in saying 'no, that's impossible, it's something else with a natural explanation'.

But with ghosts, because of our culture and our progression over time where we realised vampires and werewolves weren't real but ghosts MIGHT be. It's still offered as a possible explanation.

I think over the next decades/centuries we'll think of ghosts in the same way as vampires and werewolves.

Of someone came on here and said 'I saw a unicorn' we would be 100% sure in saying there's no such thing, they don't exist. But as our culture says ghosts might exist we have that doubt.

My mothers experience was not lame Lemon

Please don't attempt to use emotional manipulation on me. It will not wash.

In terms of spooky stories, yes, it is lame. Exactly the same as every other spooky story from every other human being who has one.

Who's feelings are hurt? Certainly not mine. Although good try with the name calling Lemon. I know what I saw, I'd love an explanation, I can't see it happening in my lifetime but one day I'm sure there will be. I am at peace with what I saw, although I won't be seeking a repeat.

My neighbour had a 'ghost'. She was incredibly stressed and lost a lot of sleep. She later found out it was just her fridge making odd sounds but this was after she'd got the local vicar in to bless her house who confirmed it needed a bit of blessed water being flung about. She had grown up in a culture that made her quickly attribute a spooky element for unusual experiences and if that had not been, she would have been less likely to have lost much sleep and not experienced the real worry she was having for her children at night. I was gentle and understanding with her when she confided in me but made it clear she had nothing to worry about. It wasn't until she realised it was her fridge that she stopped being so worried. And while I say all this about familial background setting the tone I was brought up in a non-woo family but both me and my siblings have been wooey at various points although I am not at all now but they still remain very much so.

Have I ever seen a ghost?

No.

Do I think ghosts exist? I don't think "spirits" exist, but I do think we will one day have a scientific explanation for ghosts. I don't think there is any particular link between ghosts and God, so not sure how a vicar could do an exorcism.

I have heard unexplained footsteps. Once when I was with DH, once when I was alone as a child. My mother also heard (completely different) footsteps in the same house. She doesn't believe in ghosts, but is adamant she's heard footsteps, and the next door neighbour also heard them, and asked who were the children running up and down the corridor in our house.

There has to be a logical explanation, as DH and I couldn't have imagined the same thing at the same time.

It's interesting to see the woo stories being challenged for once.

I am a real skeptic, but perversely enjoy reading these type of threads and love a good ghost story. I think that simple pleasure is quite a common human trait.

However it never ceases to amaze me how perfectly normal sounding people are so quick to leap to the assumption of a spooky occurence rather than seek out a more rational explanation, which although complex is much more likely. Its as if they are seeking "evidence" for a woo event and will dismiss any more logical explanation.

For example when I first started typing this my iPad keyboard kept freezing on me. It could be tempting to say it must be a ghostly presence impacting how I contribute to the thread, rather than just one of those things with technology.

The piano making noises in the night described by someone earlier is another example, old pianos do sometimes make noises as they cool down or warm up at night, I believe it's to do with the "dampers" getting stuck in a poorly maintained piano. Why would someone just assume it is a woo event?

My story. I met 'Ghost' one sunny spring morning in my garden when I was 9. A very unscary 5 or 6 seconds of a man, handsome smiling, foot tapping, doing up his shirt button.

I kept quiet knowing my naysaying parents would poopoo my experience. Later though, my frightened sister came to tell me that she had encountered a man in my parents' bedroom, doing up his shirt button.

We told our parents then, and my silly father came up all manner of explanations to diss what I had seen with my own actual eyes.

Turns out, I learnt decades later, that he had encountered himself the very same button man, I wouldn't tell us for fear of scaring us. I wasn't scared at all, I was delighted with this apparition.

It's also interesting how a number of events occur when people are in a heightened emotional statement, particularly around the time of a bereavement.

The human brain is a complex organ, responding to chemicals, hormones and electrical impulses. Anyone with a passing experience of stress and depression can tell you how the mind can perceive experiences very differently when suffering these conditions. Adrenalin, triggered by stress, in particular heightens all your senses.

Who's feelings are hurt? Certainly not mine. Although good try with the name calling Lemon. I know what I saw, I'd love an explanation, I can't see it happening in my lifetime but one day I'm sure there will be. I am at peace with what I saw, although I won't be seeking a repeat

Pretty much every woo mongerer/apologist has attempted the "hurt feelings" defence on this thread - what else is the "why do people have to be so rude?" rubbish about?

You'd love an explanation? Would you really?

Recount your story then. We'll give you a rational explanation. You won't accept it, of course, thus proving that no, you wouldn't actually love a rational explanation.

My story. I met 'Ghost' one sunny spring morning in my garden when I was 9. A very unscary 5 or 6 seconds of a man, handsome smiling, foot tapping, doing up his shirt button

Explanation?

There was a man around the house and garden faffing with his shirt.

Several trillion times more likely than that the undead paid you a visit.

Why are the most likely explanations dismissed in favour of the least likely? It's most odd.

This isn't a thread about science. It's a thread about ghost stories. I fail to see how a MNetter who says she encountered a ghost damages science or has any discernible impact whatever on others. My choice of Tayto cheese & onion, Walkers salt & vinegar or Jo crisps at all has more of an impact on others than a poster's belief in a haunted mirror.

Lemon, you still haven't explained the relevance of your posting that men would laugh at the women on this thread? Why should any woman on MN care what random men think? Do you think that men
are more intelligent/logical than women? Do you think that women should self censor in case men laugh at them?

This isn't a thread about science. It's a thread about ghost stories

Good grief. What a silly thing to say. Have you not noticed the person calling herself "ghoststory" trying to use quantum mechanics?

Lemon, you still haven't explained the relevance of your posting that men would laugh at the women on this thread?

I reply to what I want to, not what you tell me to.

But this isn't a thread about 'ghost stories ', it didn't say 'tell me your ghost stories', it said 'have you ever seen a ghost?'.

So of course many people will say no and explain why.

If there was a thread saying 'have you ever met an alien?' or something much more mundane as 'have you ever eaten coal when pregnant?' or 'have you ever committed a crime?' would result in a certain number of people saying no.

in my/our experiences in the old house, neither of us believed in ghosts, spirits or anything supernatural until a whole sequence of events started, involving our children as well as people unrelated to us who knew nothing of what was going on (builders)
All I can say to those who scoff and sneer is that over a period of several years DH and I have never been so baffled and increasingly scared.

And perhaps they can therefore explain why, after the house was blessed, the whole atmosphere changed and nothing else ever happened in the following 7 years before we moved?

I presume the Bishop of Well's office would hold records?

Dione, you only have to watch Mystic sally on tv, or clock any tarot reading/psychic/palmistry nonsense at the fair, to see that it's patently obvious that women are far more invested in this rubbish than men.

You may not think it's harmful, but I cringe in my office when women are reading out the horoscopes during a break, whilst the men roll their eyes. And the women protest at the men's indifference and tell them how there's definitely something in it! It's demeaning to all women.

Do I think men are more intelligent, no. Do I consider them to be more logical thinking, well when it comes to this kind of tripe, 100% yes.

If you have Sky tv, there's a psychic channel, where you can call in for readings (at about £5.99 a minute). Turn it on any time, it'll be a woman calling in. I can guarantee it. And I don't need any woo powers to make that prediction.

It does indeed say "have you seen a ghost". Back in February. Not surprised there has been a lack of response from the op.

And perhaps they can therefore explain why, after the house was blessed, the whole atmosphere changed and nothing else ever happened in the following 7 years before we moved?

Placebo effect. Like giving someone with a headache a Smartie and telling them it's Iboprofen, and their headache disappears.

Your Smartie was the exorcism. You believed it would help, so it did. All it proves was that the events you speak of were all in your mind in the first place.

The clue is in your words, "the whole atmosphere changed." I assume you don't mean the mix of oxygen/nitrogen/hydrogen in the house was altered. An atmosphere in the sense you mean is a vibe, a feeling. It's not tangible, it's all in your mind.

Smarties curing headaches??? Now I know your theories are a bit, er, odd.

Smarties curing headaches??? Now I know your theories are a bit, er, odd.

Placebo effect, scientifically proven to help with pain relief. Or don't you do science?

I have seen a ghost. I am uninterested in the opinion of anyone else. I was present for the encounter. Name call all you wish, I am not bothered in the least.

"Smarties curing headaches??? Now I know your theories are a bit, er, odd."
Have you never heard of the placebo effect?

Well, I know what we and others saw and heard over those years, and it was too real enough.

Those companies making pills, tablets, potions will soon be out of business then. Right?

Same here SilverNightFairy, the comments and name calling is water off a ducks back to me.