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Tuna-Salad

Believe in ghosts?

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What strange things were they?

The trouble is that people want to believe in ghosts, often to the detriment of common sense.

I think the way to treat a 'ghost' sighting is to put it in a list of all the possible explanations for an apparently strange experience - then arrange that list in descending order of likelihood. Unless you've already some other reason to believe that ghosts exist, then I would say the manifestation of a dead person's spirit would end up pretty low down the list. No matter how unlikely some of the other options might seem, they're still more likely than that one.

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Myself and old roommate were talking about strange things seen in our old apartment and he described almost identical to what I saw without me telling him first.



Not a believer never seen anything or heard anything i could not explain. Just to Fill out on this i do urban exploring. Have been in some unhappy places you would expect/suspect there would be ghostly activity. While taking pictures. Walking through mental asylums or in morgues to get a picture never met anything. I tend to think when i hear a noise in the Dark i think security ! police ! explorers Neds/vandals :D:D

In saying that was exploring a semi derelict asylum and a patient screamed a blood curdling scream from the live section Guess they had a nightmare. My exploring companions girl looked like she had seen a ghost told her not to worry and continued taking photos :)

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I don't believe in supernatural phenomenon as a concept. In my opinion anything that can happen is a natural phenomenon and they simple are either know phenomenon or unknown/yet to be explained phenomenon. The concept of supernatural is just absolute hogwash to me, I don't even know why it exists. If it can happen then its just a natural event, possibly undiscovered event, but still just a natural event.
Your rights end where my feelings begin.

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The strange things were seeing human shadows move across door ways or the ceiling as if crossing from one room to another, doors opening and closing on their own. I saw what appeared to be the outline of a human figure out of the corner of my eye at the end of my bed once while walking to the bathroom. He described a feeling once not being alone in the room and a sense of extreme anger and often felt he was being watched. Which in that particular area of the house I would get the same feelings also. These strange things happened for about a year.. We never personally saw any doors close or open on their own but knew neither one of us had opened or closed it before and heard it latch on several occasions. The events all seemed to be located in 1 particular area of the house. Known my friend for almost 17 years I know he is not lying.
Millions of my potential children died on your daughters' face last night.

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I wrote this elsewhere, years ago, but it more or less explains my opinion on most (if not all) supernatural stuff:
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In the late 80's I moved in to a "haunted" apartment. One morning I awoke to see a bluish figure standing by my bed. As he(?) faded, I noticed a strange noise- the wall heater -which I'd never touched- was running.
Other weird things happened when I lived there. Once I opened the door and found a plastic bottle rattling by itself. A tabloid sitting on a dresser would be turned to different pages when I returned to the room, once to a page that read "Amazing proof of life after death!" A phone would ring by itself even when it was disconnected. During a visit with my upstairs neighbor, the front door drifted open. Someone made a joke about the ghost, and it slammed shut!

Before someone calls the ghostbusters, lets look at this a bit closer

Waking up to someone/something standing by my bed?
People sometimes see (or hear, or feel) weird or wacky things during sleep paralysis which, simplified, is when you're dreaming with your eyes open, perceiving both real life details and stuff from your dream. The supernatural traditions of ones culture determines how these dreams are interpreted. A medieval person might think they were being visited by a witch, demon or incubus. A 21st century person might think they were seeing ghosts or aliens. Keep in mind that, while these are technically dreams, they seem very real, and the fact that they're infused with real life details (the time on your clock radio, for example).

The heater that turned on by itself?

I'd moved in during late summer, and the heater incident happened in the fall. While it's true I'd never touched the thing, the previous tenants obviously had set it to turn on when the temperature dropped. That morning was probably cold enough to set it off.


The tabloid that turned pages by itself?
The apartment was very drafty, and opening and closing my bedroom door sent a mild gust that affected anything left on the dresser. Any tabloid or magazine I sat there would have its pages turned in the breeze. Yes, one time it did happen to turn to "Amazing Proof of life after death", but pages with stupid adds like "Lose weight! Cure baldness! Get rich!" were just as common. (Either that or the ghost thought I was fat, bald and cheap).

The phone that rang when unplugged?
This freaked me out until I realized what was going on. It was a very cheap model with a wimpy, squeaky sputter of a ring. One moonlit night I unplugged it and within minutes it was squeak-ringing again and again. I stuffed it in my sock drawer (this was before you could auction your haunted crap on e-Bay), returned to bed, and the squeak-rings continued.... except they seemed to come from the corner of my room... it was my freaking parakeet imitating the phone!

The door opening and slamming shut?

The windows were open, and changing drafts could easily nudge an almost closed door open or shut. Had the doorknob turned on its own and the door swung wide, I'd have been more impressed.


While my story doesn't disprove ghosts (or aliens), it shows how everyday oddness can be misinterpreted to as paranormal. If I met a ghost/alien/fairy/monster in person, while fully awake (including no sleep deprivation), with witnesses, I'd be much more inclined to think it was real, compared to the 'phenomena' I experienced in the haunted apartment


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The Ghost Hunters show done by the plumbers is well done, IMO. They go into a place to debunk first, you know, try to find an explanation for the things that are going on. Most of the time they do and it wasn't supernatural at all.

Ghost Adventures seems to be more of a dramatic show as the guys seek out the most haunted places and try to catch anything they can on video and audio.

My wife works in an old building that used to be a tuberculosis hospital and morgue back in the 1920s-1930s. She told me about having to go down to the basement, where the morgue used to be, to get something (without knowing the history of the building) and although it was well lit, she did not feel comfortable in there. You know the feeling like you're being watched? Yeah, it felt creepy in there. She told a co-worker about it and got the history lesson. Apparently most of the people who work in the building has had an experience or something they can't explain.
"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

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I dispute all of those things listed. Both of us were wide awake at these times as we worked 3rd shift so on days off 3am was as casual as 3pm to you so none of us woke up seeing anything or even had the slightest idea or reason to have anything like that in mind. Had not watched horror movies or any ghost documentaries or anything for any of us to have the mindset to be looking or suspecting. My roommate actually said he was glad I asked him about strange things because he thought I would think he was crazy.

Also I know about vacuum and doors closing on their own when another is opened etc but that does not happen with a fully open door.
Millions of my potential children died on your daughters' face last night.

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Still I'd have to ask: is it more likely that these are supernatural events, or that they're perfectly natural events that you just don't have an explanation for?

Why would a ghost cast a shadow? Why would a ghost open and close doors?

As for the 'feeling' of not being alone, or of anger - well, that's about as subjective as it gets. We already know how susceptible the human mind is to all sorts of stimuli. Under the right circumstances we literally jump at our own shadows.

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I understand your point, but if your mind is nowhere in that set of expecting to see something then there should be no good reason to imagine it if you are not nor have any reason to think about it.
Millions of my potential children died on your daughters' face last night.

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Subconscious thoughts aren't something you'd be able to pick up on though nor control, and the desire to see supernatural events has been and is something that has existed in humans inherently for centuries now.

We live in a world where humans have sought meaning in everything, and while doing so they ended up creating meaning in things that they didn't understand. Thunder becomes the actions of a god, fire becomes the wrath of a spirit etc.

This has inherently been a part of man kind for almost as long as we have existed.

People see things that are in their subconscious, maybe buried so deep they didn't even know they knew it.

But an example would be religious people 'seeing' figures that are related to their religion. Why would they not be seeing things related to someone else's?

People underestimate the mind and how it interprets information and stores it. There are vast amounts of data in your subconscious, ready to come out at any time. It's the same with dreaming, you don't always dream of things that you have reason to dream about, but the fact that you did dream of it tells you that the concept was already in your subconscious somewhere.

As mentioned above, ghosts wouldn't cast shadows. As a spiritual being or form of energy, they would have to use some sort of power to cast shadows, or close doors - surely they would have better things to do with that power than to use it to enforce stereotypes on what a supernatural encounter is like ;)

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I believe there is a supernatural realm or being(s) beyond our understanding or desire to understand.

My sister and I had an experience when we were younger that confirmed that belief for me.



Please elaborate.


You picked up on the "my sister and I had an experience when we were younger" bit too did you? Pervert! (Conundrum, do please free to go on though) ;)

To answer the OP - No, it's bollocks.

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I believe there is a supernatural realm or being(s) beyond our understanding or desire to understand.

My sister and I had an experience when we were younger that confirmed that belief for me.



Please elaborate.


You picked up on the "my sister and I had an experience when we were younger" bit too did you? Pervert! (Conundrum, do please free to go on though) ;)

To answer the OP - No, it's bollocks.


I'm not the pervert, here. You are!! :P

Honestly, I just wanted to hear a ghost story!!

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