Origin - I was pointing out that to dismiss these things outright, when so many people have experienced them, appears to me to be a nonsensical standpoint to have. I'm not some gullible idiot and my post simply aludes to the fact that certain things I have experienced, along with others, do not fit anything that science currently understands as far as I am aware. If I dismissed these things out of hand then I would certainly be a fool myself.
Spadge: Have you got a photo on the woman in the shawl, or any other physical evidence of what you have experienced?
Firstly, what physical evidence would, for want of a better word, 'ghosts' leave behind? Ectoplasm maybe? In hindsight I'm quite glad we didn't get any of that stuff on the bathroom floor. It could have been a bugger to clean it up. Also, funnily enough she declined the offer to stand there posing while my wife ran to get the camera. She quite bashfully decided to vanish instead of electing to appear in one of the national newspapers. I don't know why. Maybe she hadn't had her hair done that day or maybe she couldn't stand the idea of being a celebrity. I can't say I blame her actually. Anyway, seriously, photos can be faked and, as I am sure that your are aware, there are a number of 'ghost' photos that have been taken down the years that have not conclusively been proved to have been faked but they don't provide evidence to the sceptics do they? Before we get into the usual, we need scientific evidence before we believe in these things, then I'd just like to point out that I was simply sharing the fact that these things have happened to my friends, family as well as myself. I don't even pretend to know what it means and I'm not making this up as I have a lot better things to do with my time. People can choose not to believe me (and all the other countless anecdotal evidence of hauntings) if they want but they are missing out on accepting what is undoutedly an important part of the human condition. How important a part of the human condition it actually is would be anyone's guess. People do see and experience 'ghosts'. Fact!
I dissagree and dismiss them outright. I have (unfortuantely) watched one or two of those ghost shows on TV and watched as those fools conviced themselves of all sorts crap. People are terrible witnesses. As I said people are terrible witnesses that is why science needs data and not feelings, impressions or fleeting images seen out of the corner of your eyes. I am sure that there are milllions of people that think they have seen, felt, or percieved ghosts and I think they are all wrong. Until there is hard evidence to the contrary I will continue to believe that.
So you're dismissing the entire subject on the basis of a fact that you've watched an entertainment show and the fact that you think people are terrible witnesses???? Is everyone a terrible witness on every single occasion? Personally I won't accept that. I didn't feel something, have an impression of something, or see something out of the corner of my eye. I was looking directly at this thing and I saw it clearly for a number of seconds. I know exactly what I saw and I saw it on three occasions, not just the once. I wasn't drunk, on drugs, just waking up, or just going to sleep on any of these occasions. My wife also witnessed the same thing independently of me on two separate occasions. You can sit there smugly knowing that you're right and continue to dismiss these things outright for as long as you like but it doesn't change the fact that you're incorrect about this. Maybe you'll experience something one day that will change your mind instantly. I've seen this happen to a freind of mine, a person who was the biggest sceptic going. He was completely terrified actually and he wasn't on his own. Now that little incident was videotaped.
I am dismissing the entire subject not based on a show but based on the fact that there have been beliefs in ghosts and monsters and demons from the begining of history, but there has never been any hard evidence indicating it is anything other than superstition. In short there is no good reason to beleive that it is true. People have visions, hallucinations and just plain weird experiences all the time - but they only exist in your head which makes sense why there is no hard evidence collected - there is none to be collected! I would love to see it. Typically it will turn out that the video was lost, or the subject is too scared to show it, or it was mysteriously erased - yada, yada, yada.
Not being able to explain something is not evidence for ghosts. I don't dismiss your experience, only your conclusions.
Incorrect. They experience something, but you cannot say that something is a ghost. What is a fact is that our perceptions can be influenced by what we expect to see, and what we believe exists.
I will solve the OP "weird" occurrences once and for all. It's called sleep walking or the feeling of being so sleepy you do things that doesn't make sense because your mind is 1/2 shut (so to speak). I've had plenty of times when I'm in front of the computer after being awake for 20+ hours and I'm dozing in and out and find myself awake on the couch or bed without ever remembering how I got to it in the first place. Sleep walk! That's the answer! Ghost don't exist! I believe it's another field of science we haven't explored into yet because we don't have the technology or a breakthrough in research. Everything can be explained once a logical answer has been found. I've seen unexplainable incidents that doesn't make sense, I just shrug it off as something I don't understand yet.
Spidergoat - I am not incorrect when I state that people experience 'ghosts' and I currently have no conclusions. You appear to be assuming that I use the term 'ghost' to mean a dead person or the like. Why do you think I chose to put the word in speech marks? If you read my posts you'll notice that I've never once said that I believe 'ghosts' to be dead people, spirits or whatever. I simply stated that the experience is real and unexplainable by current science. jayeeyee- I also think that science may one day find answer to 'ghosts'. Your sleep walking idea would only fit in certain 'ghost' experiences however. The one thing that does bother me about these types of weird experience is that there sometimes appears to be some sort of inteligence behind it. Yes, I'm fully aware of how crazy this sounds but I have seen this type of thing many times now. Sometimes the way this intelligence seems to manifest itself can be truly astonishing and sometimes even more than a little frightening. Even if the answer to this is down to something to do with the power of our own minds then it would still be something that we don't currently understand. This is why I am interested in the subject. There is something to learn here that we can't currently explain in a way that would fit all of the typical experiences that make up a true haunting. Origin - These experiences cannot all be put down to being hallucinatory or vision based in some way. This would only explain certain cases. It would not explain instances where objects move in a way that is completely impossible according to the laws of physics. We have real problems when this movement, as sometimes happens, also implies an intelligence.
There is no reason to have a supernatural cause for any case. Really? Then prove that it sometimes happens. You can't, because all of you evidence is anecdotal which is not trust worthy.
I never said I could prove it. I'm simply stating what happened. If you refuse to believe people who experience these types of things then that is your problem, not mine. You were not there. You did not witness it. I, and two others, did. There was aboslutely no possibility that this particular object (a heavy glass decoration with a totally flat bottom) could possibly move on its own in the way that it did. The object in question is simply too heavy and stable. Believe me, we did try to come up with a logical explanation but there wasn't any that were even remotely plausible. Sceptics will spout the usual line about annedotal evidence not being trust worthy, and I would have to say, in this particular instance that I agree. However, I was there and witnessed the event first hand.
The video tape only proves that the event did happen but unfortunately you don't get to see exactly how. Therefore, although interesting, it is inconclusive as proof. To be fair, I shouldn't have mentioned it.
