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.

He was there. No trauma. I was wide awake, after breakfast, just before going to school. Nothing weird, apart from chappy appearing.

People are very uncomfortable with the idea that people occasionally glimpse something unknowable. But they do.

My little story couldn't be plainer. I saw someone from somewhere else. I didn't make it up, it wasn't a crime scene to be 'remembered', it was just a thing.

I am more interested in the naysayers. Why do you care so much about the ghosty stories if you can't believe in them? Ghosty stories won't make you immortal so why not relax?

I have seen ghosts or had some weird experiences. I am actual sceptical - looking for explanations but still....
First time - as a teen. One night I got up to to go to the loo and on the landing a man was walking towards me, didn't acknowledge me, just turned and walked through the wall. House is 200 yrs old, before the layout was rearranged that landing was part of a room and the wall wasn't there. I could have been dreaming but it didn't feel like that, felt very real. It could have been a time slip - I sort of believe that may be possible - a kind of imprint from the past. And it could work both ways.
(A friend had a very sensible, well educated, staid brother (in his 50s at the time) who with his equally sensible wife, both completely sober, one night they both saw 'UFOs'. Sensible brother if anything was embarrassed by his experience but it was so real he even phoned the MOD to try and find an explanation. I think that could be a slip the other way.)

Second time was my grandmother at her funeral. After the wake we had gone back to her house and I was in the kitchen making tea for my cousins. They had different amounts of sugar and I rarely saw them so didn't know and couldn't remember. My grandmother was stood next to me and I asked and she told me and then I realised that couldn't have happened and she wasn't there. I guess that could have been a buried memory from my grandfather's funeral just over a year before -the last time I had seen my cousins. Or maybe even a time slip.
Finally the one I have least explanation for - my DP's family are overseas and he rarely sees them, we don't really talk about them, think about them etc. One night I semi-woke up and saw a face - I thought it was DP and thought that's odd I never realised how much DP looks like his brother - actually more like his Uncle. It really felt important, significant - the first thing I did when I woke up was look at DP and think he really doesn't look like his Uncle. He actually he looks more like his dad (from photos - long dead, I've never met him) but his brother does look like his Uncle. It was so weird that I actually told DP . Two days later we got the phone call that his Uncle had died -the night I thought DP looked like him. I guess that could be a coincidence.
My DM has also seen a couple of things - my dad was sitting in front of the open plan stairs. She saw someone/thing on the stairs behind him - my dad was shocked because he had felt something, gone cold and had goosebumps before he knew she had seen something. (And he is very un woo).
One night she also saw her Uncle (dead for over a year) standing at the side of her bed. He told her she had to go and see her Aunt (his widow). She had been meaning to go and had planned to in a few days time. Because of that she brought the visit forward - and found my aunt collapsed on the floor, she would have died (a miserable death) if my mum hadn't gone that day. It could have been guilt and (a lucky) coincidence.
I don't believe in psychics etc - I do believe most are charlatans.
But my personal experience does make me more open to the possibility that we don't understand as much as we think we do.

"couldn't be plainer. I saw someone from somewhere else. I didn't make it up, it wasn't a crime scene to be 'remembered', it was just a thing."

So you're not prepared to consider any other explanation?

It's a fact that every single time a paranormal event has been properly investigated it turned out to be a it's turned out to be a natural event, a misunderstanding or a hoax.

Every single time Bert? That's a fact is it? So no "unexplained"? Can you prove that fact or is your statement just another example of hyperbole?

Bertrand you utter twit, I already outlined the weirdness of blokeyman.

Where did he come from and where hence did he disappear?

The storys on this thread are way more intriguing than my small tale.

For you silly Bertrand : Luverly tippitytappity chap pitches up awfully polite like only for several seconds fuckityfawk and then buggers awf right before one's eyes silly buggerist never mind tallyho.

Ah. No desire for a sensible conversation then. Fair enough.
Dione. Feel free to link to one that doesn't fit that pattern!

I think there is a wish and hope for everything to be ok. I hope for that.

Just made myself hurl, ignore,

Ah Bert, still working on the ancient iPod, so links are not possible. But that's not important.

I did not state anything as fact. You did and so I believe the onus is on you to prove your fact that "every single time a paranormal event has been properly investigated it turned out to be a natural event, a misunderstanding or a hoax."

That's what you said.
You said it was a fact.
It's up to you to prove that fact.

Otherwise what you have is an opinion. And that's ok. Opinions are valid (just don't get them mixed up with facts).

I've seen ghosts both in modern and old fashioned clothing. The last one was seen by me my daughters and my daughters friends, 5 individual people witnessed the same 'ghost' and described him the same.
Also my friend and her husband also saw a ghost and they are the most down to earth level headed least woo people you could meet but they saw something that they can't explain.

Oh, and what's the relevance of atheism?

As an atheist, I find this behaviour fucking embarrassing and it makes me want to start qualifying myself with statements like "I'm an atheist, but not one of the shitty rude ones."

I am currently trying to explain to my late teens son why it's not okay to be rude to people because you disagree with their beliefs or opinions, whether they be about religion, the supernatural, politics, or whether Kanye West is a genius or a knobhead. He's slowly getting a handle on it, so perhaps there's hope for some of these posters yet.

At what point in our evolution were we able to exist in some way after physical death but still look the same without a 'physical' body?

No, I don't think I have - I was convinced I had as a child but it was probably a vivid dream, and then when I was older I used to see a man standing around now and again, near where I lived, who I thought looked exactly like someone I'd known who had died.

It wasn't him; it shook me up a bit when I saw him because of the resemblance but later I figured out he was someone completely different who just looked a lot like the other man.

I find it very difficult to believe in anything like this considering our minds and bodies are so capable of deceiving us.

All the times I have seen 'faces' in the curtains and in clothes and so on, I can pin it down to being dehydrated and too hot. Like when your body wakes you up with a nightmare, when it's summer and you're somehow under a duvet and stifling.

The feeling of fear and dread can be overwhelming but it is just physiological.

At the time though it felt very strange and unexplained.

'As an atheist'

you're not affiliated with someone because of a non-belief though are you. Make sure you explain that too, that atheism is just a non acceptance of religious claims and nothing else. It's not a movement or lifestyle.

When posters accuse others of screaming etc it reminds me of the ONE time my husband told me to calm down when I was calm

There are a couple of posters who do get quite heated on the subject of the paranormal. It so happens that at least one of them also gets quite heated on the subject of religion.

The problem is that some people of faith and some believers in the paranormal seem to share a point of view that any question or challenge or alternative point of view is offensive and disrespectful.

Belief in the paranormal is not a religious belief. Many atheists believe in the paranormal- and many people of faith don't, except in as far as it is represented in their particular faith. So even if you believe that religious beliefs deserve special respect, belief in the paranormal most certainly doesn't. There are perfectly reasonable explanations for things that people perceive as paranormal. It is not disrespectful to point them out. It's not ideal to be rude about it- but if you think, as I do, that such beliefs are damaging to individuals and to society and have the potential to be actually dangerous then perhaps the heat is sometimes understandable.

It is also understandable that people get cross when their "myths" are challenged. But if you post them on a thread on a public forum then that's going to happen. Thinking about and questioning a belief should either make it stronger or make it disappear- because it had no foundations after all. Both good outcomes, surely? Thinking about stuff is always good.

Discussing it is one thing, calling people "feeble minded" because they possibly believe in something that you don't is just unnecessary. Because that's where you cross the line from discussion to rude and intimidating. Continually ridiculing other posters is not necessary for discussion.

There are a number of things that I do believe in, and a number of things that I don't. I don't feel it's necessary to get nasty to get the point across.

When someone proves one way or another that is or isn't such thing as ghosts, then I might examine it further. But it has not been proven either way, so I'm happy to keep an open mind. I hardly think a few ghost stories are going to cause that much harm. You may disagree, and that's fine. But I can guarantee that belittling people and acting aggressive are not going to win the argument. It just underlines that you are hostile and not willing to listen to any viewpoint but your own. Anyone that has that mindset, IMO, is not someone I would be swayed by. Those that stated that no, they don't believe in ghosts, but are willing to admit that there are some things that are unexplainable and therefore could possibly be outside the realm of science as we currently know it? That IMO is someone that is willing to state that they don't know everything - and much more believable.

As I said, there are a couple of posters who get very heated. Feeble minded was an... unfortunate...choice of words (although if I remember correctly, it was only one of a number of suggestions about why people hold to belief in the paranormal) but we have got to the point where even polite challenge or question is interpreted as aggressive and shrieking and frothing and all the other mumsnet words. For example, I am prepared to bet you think I have been rude and disrespectful and aggressive on this thread. If you do, can I ask you to have a quick look and see if you can find where I have been?

I don't think you have been rude and disrespectful at all Bertrand. There are two who have as far as I'm concerned. Crass and immature of them, to say the best.

It's also important it remember that even if somebody is rude and aggressive that doen't mean they are also wrong!

I'm not certain if you personally have been rude (I'd have to go back and look tbh), but you mentioned that discussion can get heated, so I responded. There have been two in particular that I know have been unnecessarily rude and aggressive.

The moment people start on with "you have to believe me because I'm clearly more educated than you and I'm right and you're wrong and obviously stupid or feeble, and I can come up with an explanation for everything. But oh wait, I don't actually have an explanation for that or that, but I'm sure there is one that supports my view I just don't know what it is, so of course I'm still right and you're wrong...." well, that's just ridiculous. And there has definitely been some of that kind of attitude on this thread.

It's a shame, really. It could have been an interesting discussion. Instead, a few vocal people felt the need to use it as a platform to push their own views to the exclusion of anyone else's.

It's also important it remember that even if somebody is rude and aggressive that doen't mean they are also wrong!

It doesn't make them right either. It just means they're rude.

Exactly Alice rude, obnoxious and arrogant. Fantastic traits to show . Still a quick name change and no one will be any the wiser.

I doubt it is ever done with a child. I used to know a retired exorcist. He said that of the 100 calls he received 99 could be explained away such as night terrors

Coming back to the topic of exorcism, although the CoE seem reluctant to exorcize children, the above post confirms that many parents believe their children to be possessed by evil spirits. I wonder what effect this has on the children concerned? Is it a good thing that children have parents who believe they are possessed? Do you think growing up in such an environment is healthy?

Of course not all branches of Christianity share this reluctance. In London where I live, we've had a few cases within the West African christian community of children's torsos turning up in suitcases thrown into the river and suchlike. Killed because they were possessed.

I wonder if the "it's all a bit of harmless fun" brigade have a view on this.

And MNHQ, shame on you, for your suggestion that is we don't believe in woo, we have no interest and shouldn't comment. Utterly disgraceful.

There you go again TTWK making things up. Mnhq didn't say that.