So, who here actually...

[Bella the Ball 360]

I've been to Waverly a few times and spent the night there a couple of years ago. I actually fell asleep alone in a hallway. I didn't see anything while I was there, either. But I hope that I do see something, someday, that will convince me that ghosts are real. I used to believe but the older my mind gets, the more skeptical it gets.

Barb I seem to remember you having a couple of pretty good stories on the old thread from a few years ago.

 

[ebtbmom]

Yes, I believe in ghosts. I've seen ghosts, heard ghosts, many times throughout my life. They don't frighten me.
The soul is simply energy, and energy never dies. I don't claim to believe in any particular religion.

This idea actually intrigues me and makes me wonder if there is some sort of remnant of us left after we pass. Energy is never created or destroyed, just converted to a different form. So if we have energy, which obviously we do, how is it converted when we die? Of course, I'm not a physicist so I don't really understand the principle all that well.

DD wants to go with me on a ghost tour of Williamsburg near Halloween.

I do believe in ghosts, spirits. I've had a couple different events that I have written about on another "ghost" thread in the past.

Check out that tour on Trip Advisor, me and DH started to do it last year but the reviews weren't great. Don't know where you're located but Wilmington NC has fantastic ghost tours. Halloscream at Busch Gardens is really fun!

I don't know if I believe in ghosts, but I do believe in spirits. Most of my stories have to do with deceased family members.

One night me and my Mom were home alone and my Mom was in the kitchen and I was in my bedroom. She came in and asked me if I had just been in the kitchen, which I hadn't. She swears to this day that somebody threw a spoon at her. Later that night, we were in the living room watching TV and a lamp kept flickering on and off. Thinking that maybe the plug wasn't pushed in the outlet all the way I looked at the outlet, and the lamp wasn't even plugged in!! What is really weird is that without even thinking about it, I calmly said to my Mom, "Oh, it's just Grandma." Later that night my Mom realized that it was a year to the day my Grandma died. There's a little back story to the spoon too. Apparently, shortly after my parents married they went to visit my paternal grandparents. My Grandma was a bit of a curmudgeon. I guess she counted her spoons and one was missing. . .and she accused my Mom of stealing it. My Mom said why in the world would she want to steal one of her spoons? And everybody, knowing how my Grandma was, just blew it off. It probably just went missing, but I think my Grandma always thought my Mom had stolen it.

Another time, about a year after my Dad died, my Mom told me, "I saw your Dad last night." I asked her what she meant and she said he came to her in a dream. . .and I guess they had quite the conversation. Doesn't seem too odd. . .but she said come here and called me into her bedroom. It smelled like my Dad. . .A LOT. . .like almost overwhelmingly. He worked in the yard a lot and wasn't a big user of deo, if you KWIM. It totally smelled just like him.

Another one with smell. My ex DH's father died when my ex was 15. He was a one-match-a-day kind of chain smoker. Shortly after we moved into our house ex's Mom brought my ex things that belonged to his Dad (they divorced when ex was a baby and she had been saving those things to give him someday.) They are things like his dog tags, pictures, etc. We had stored them in a closet and sometimes it would just reek of cigarette smoke. . .and it was totally random. . .sometimes it smelled and sometimes it didn't. So weird!

Finally, my aunt's house is haunted. The ghost stays upstairs, mostly in what was my cousins' room. It moves the dresser and you can hear it walking around up there. I've never heard it, but her family has many times (she has 8 kids). Last time my Mom visited she slept up there (it's a spare room now) and she only lasted one night! She said she kept hearing somebody walking around in the room while she was trying to sleep, would get up and turn on the light and nobody was there. She stayed downstairs on the couch after that. There is also the infamous family picture. All the cousins were home for one of my cousin's weddings. They gathered at the front of the house to take a family picture and in the picture you can see a shadow of a man in the upstairs window.

What would be the different between a ghost and a spirit? I would assume they are the same thing? Do you have this picture? I'd love to see it!

For those that believe, if a ghost is energy how can it move things and make footstep sounds or voice sounds. Do you have an explaination for how it is able to effect physical objects or do you accept that it is a mystery and not really sure how they do it? This has been a difficult point for me to rationalize because without feet how does one make footsteps?

Cool stories so far, Thanks!

 

[epcot.girl]

No, but I do believe in hallucinations and mind tricks.

This idea actually intrigues me and makes me wonder if there is some sort of remnant of us left after we pass. Energy is never created or destroyed, just converted to a different form. So if we have energy, which obviously we do, how is it converted when we die? Of course, I'm not a physicist so I don't really understand the principle all that well.

Energy stored as heat will dissipate. Chemical energy stored in our tissues is taken up by decomposers (bacteria).

If you're cremated all the energy is transfered to heat and light.

 

[LilyWDW]

For those that believe, if a ghost is energy how can it move things and make footstep sounds or voice sounds. Do you have an explaination for how it is able to effect physical objects or do you accept that it is a mystery and not really sure how they do it? This has been a difficult point for me to rationalize because without feet how does one make footsteps?

Cool stories so far, Thanks!

I'll answer this only for myself.

I believe in two "main" types of hauntings: Intelligent and Residual.

An Intelligent haunting is where the spirit/ghost/energy knows what it is doing and can interact with others. This is often when you see objects moving, get responses to questions on EVPs, and feel like you are being touched.

A Residual haunting is sort of like when you replay a specific part in a movie. The energy has stayed, but the spirit/ghost/energy does not know that anything has changed. They simply seem to replay the same scene in their life over and over again. A lot of times when you hear footsteps it is a Residual haunting and you are hearing the "echo" of what happened.

When it comes to HOW these things happen, I don't really think anyone can say they "know". Paranormal research is a field full of questions that have yet to be answered. Those who do work in the field are trying to come up with evidence one way or another. Like I said, I believe in the POSSIBILITY of the paranormal. However, I will be the first one to come up with a normal explanation for a photo or experience. If we don't throw the obvious out, we may never find any real evidence.

What do I THINK it is? Simple manipulation of energy. If a spirit/ghost uses enough energy, then it can move an object or "speak" to someone.

 

[pixiefairy]

I do..I always have believed, ever since I was little. Too many strange things I've seen or feelings that I've had.

My children have said and done some strange things. My daughter used to be afraid of the "man who walked on the walls" upstairs and the bats. We live in a now 10 year old townhome. No previous history of the land, but I'm sure it was farmland. We never saw it, but she talked about it a lot. My ds6 was about 4 and was sitting on the toilet and started giggling like a loon. I went to ask him what was so funny. He said that 'man' (pointing at the closet door) was making funny faces at him. He kept doing it, then suddenly stopped. I tried to get a description, but he was done talking about it, lol. It freaked me out a little, but that was more the randomness of it. I also smell cigarette smoke once in awhile. No one smokes in our home, the windows are closed, so it's not drifiting in. When I was pregnant with my youngest, my uncle passed. He was a smoker. I smelled smoke on and off for the last few months of my pregnancy, and then in the delivery room. Once he was here and safe and healthy, it went away. Then it returned a few times after that when he was a newborn and randomly over the last few years. We used my uncle's name as my youngest ds' middle name to honor him, as he had no kids. I like to think he's just checking on him.

My dh and I have also heard male and female voices, two seperate times, while we were alone in a quiet house. Those I wrote off to outside sounds, but it sounded right in our living room. I also came home once after dropping off my son at the bus stop to find my attic door popped up. We'd lived here for about 6 months or so, and it had never done it before....we thought maybe air pressure might have caused it, but it never happened again. I'm sure that there's a reasonable explaination for that though....just don't know what it is!

 

[ReneeA]

Our last house was haunted. Just a few things that happened:

The tv used to mute itself, the volume used to go up and down on it's own.

The tv remote slid on several occasions across the floor...from the chair to the loveseat.

The radio channels would change on it's own, from one of my channels to a country music channel.

My washer would stop in the middle of a cycle all the time...thought it was the washer, got a new one...the new one did the same thing.

We always heard footsteps in the attic before it was finished into a bedroom.

My sons room was so cold that you could see your breath, even in the summer months when it was hot. His toys would move across the room by themselves, and they would turn on when nobody was in that room.

DD came to me when she was 2 and told me that "an old man" lived in DS's closet. She said he talked to her. I asked her if he scared her, she said no.

The doorbell would ring at all hours of the day and night, nobody at the door. I popped the batteries out of it, and it still would occasionally ring.

Toys in the toybox would go off, dolls would talk, the doorbell would ring...some sort of noise...every night at exactly 3:06am. More than once I would be up pulling batteries out of things in the middle of the night.

DH saw an outline of an old man sitting on the end of DS's bed one night. The kids and I were out of town, and it really startled him. Especially since he like to insinuate that we were crazy because he was rarely the one to see/hear anything unusual. Couldn't be because he worked 70-80 hours a week, slept like a rock, and we were home all the time, could it? He stopped denying my experiences after that and a few other things he saw.

You used to be able to feel a cool breeze brush you, almost to where your clothes would be ruffled.

Lastly, I know that my next door neighbor's mother died in our house right after giving birth. I don't think it was a female spirit, but my neighbor always said that her dad was super attached to my house, even after building the house next door. He meant to have it knocked down to build a garage, and when the crew came to knock it down, he sat on the front porch and cried. He sent them away, and kept the house. He eventually rented it out, but always carried a strong attachment to it. He died 25 years ago, and I really believe it might be him.

We moved into a new house and both kids asked if this one was going to be as spooky as the last one...so far it hasn't.

 

[dandave]

Energy stored as heat will dissipate. Chemical energy stored in our tissues is taken up by decomposers (bacteria).

If you're cremated all the energy is transfered to heat and light.

Exactly. Energy transfers and changes form continuously in nature. It does not ever completely cease to be, however.

 

[ddstratton]

Apparently, I spoke with a ghost as a child -- around 4 years old or so. I don't remember this, buy my Mom does. I was at an aunt's house, playing upstairs with two cousins. Several times, we would come downstairs and tell the our parents that "that man upstairs" was talking to us again. We described him quite clearly. I guess they thought we were playing a game or something, though. That is, until my aunt was visiting a neighbor and talking about our "game". The neighbor showed her a picture of a man very closely matching our description. It was the previous owner of my aunt's house.

 

[SallySkelington]

I personally have never seen a ghost, but I do believe in spirits and such.

After my uncle passed I used to smell his cologne through out a specific part of a the house that he built for my aunt, now supposedly, you can't smell it since she got married this past April, but I haven't been to the house to experience that. He's also supposedly the reason a man was forcibly removed from my aunts bed before, but that story is completely hear say.

I did ask about the cologne, to double check that my cousin (my uncle's son) wasn't wearing it or anything last time I was there, and I was told that my aunt wasn't stable enough for anything pertaining to my uncle to be around her though it had been years. Sometimes she can't be in the house either.

 

[hereyago]

Did the ghosts of Williamsburg not a great tour more a historical tour than a ghost tour.

The ghost tour is based on a book/books by a local ghost telling author, L.B,.Taylor who came to DD's school last year. I wanted to try that tour first, I think there are a couple more, but I'm kind of scaredy cat.

I actually live 30 minutes from the "Burg" ,so closer to NC., but thanks anyway. actually DD goes to N.C. more then I do with her friends-family so that may be something they can do.

Busch Gardens: DD goes to Hallowscream more then I, I am more of a MNSSHP girl

 

[erincon23]

When I was probably 11 or 12, we went to Springfield, IL with my Camp Fire group. We toured Abe and Mary Lincoln's home, and I saw what I was sure was Mary Lincoln standing at the top of a very steep staircase.

Last week, I got to talking to a man while I was waiting in line. He was a retired fireman. I don't know how we got on the subject, but he said he once worked in a haunted firehouse. The first night he stayed there, he heard what sounded like kids running back and forth upstairs and laughing. Then after he had been asleep for a while, he woke up suddenly when someone was trying to pull him out of bed. He opened his eyes, figured it was the other firemen "initiating" him, but he couldn't see anyone. He couldn't move, either. When he came downstairs, the other guys asked if he had met "the chief." They told him that many years ago, a school burned next to the fire house, and several children died. The man who was chief at the time died a few years later, and the firemen assume that the spirit who tries to pull them out of bed was that chief, since the kids and the other spirit seem to manifest about the same time. They frequently hear kids laughing, and will sometimes see small black "clouds" floating around the firehouse, and often a child's face will "pop out" of the cloud for a brief second. Nothing malicious, just curious.

 

[DisneyBamaFan]

You know, I believe that there are some things that we can never be sure of - and this is one of them. But I still can't help but chuckle at some of these stories.

I think that some people just want to believe, even need to believe.

 

[MsPeggySue911]

My DD believes in ghosts. Someone saying that by not believing in ghosts that they won't reveal themselves to you is a load of BS. That's the same crap they say about hypnosis. You have to believe in it for it to work. NO, if it worked it would work no matter what I believe. Hypnosis is a load of crap as well.
However my DD11 firmly believes in ghosts. She watched every ghost show that comes on TV. Ghost stories, Celebrity ghost stories, Ghost adventures...and so on.

 

[SCHBR'smom]

I can't say that I do or that I don't believe. I'm another one of those who smells cigarette smoke. My dad smoked up until he died almost 13 years ago. My husband smells it periodically, too. Neither of us have ever smoked. I am unable to explain it, but I always think my dad is checking up on us. I've never really thought of the smell as being ghost related, though.

My dd4 used to tell us about a monkey ghost that lived in her room. Yes, monkey ghost. It would go from her room across the hall to the baby's room. That's it. DD4 was telling DH about it as he put her to bed one night. He asked her where it was, and she pointed toward her kitchen. He told me I was going to think he was crazy, but he saw something. He said he told it to take care of the girls, and that was it. As she's gotten a bit older, now my dd2 talks about it, and dd4 has stopped.

A few other unexplained things have happened, our lights turning on in the middle of night and a cup suddenly falling off the counter even though it was no where near the edge. All strange. I have no explantion for any of it, I simply don't know. I'm also no particularly concerned about it either.

 

[Princess_Meghan <3]

I believe in ghosts- we have a family friend who's a ghost hunter, so we go do investigations at Dr. Mudd's house.

The first time I went, the carpet moved by itself. the edges of the runner were moving in little waves. we tried everything to recreate it without touching the edges of the runner, but we couldn't. There was no breeze running through the house, either. Someone we couldn't see just decided to move it to let us know that they were there.

another time, we were upstairs in the children's bedroom trying to interact with them. I thought I felt something behind me, but thought I was being paranoid, because I'm not sensitive (meaning I have a harder time feeling if there's a ghost nearby- my sister can walk into a room and be like, there's a ghost in here, take a picture, and capture a picture of an orb, which is the most common manifestation of a spirit). I was sitting in the middle of the floor away from the walls, and hadn't leaned on anything all night. When I got to the gift shop for a break, the curator asked me what had happened to my back- I had red scratches all over it. Apparently, one of the little ghost kids had been trying to climb on my back, but had accidentally scratched me. It really freaked me out, and I made everyone close out and leave early, lol.

There are so many more things, but those two are the major ones.

also, just because you don't believe, doesn't mean that they won't show themselves to you. they'll show themselves to whoever they want, however they want. I had a friend who didn't believe at all, who was sitting in her dorm room studying, when all of a sudden she heard really loud crying from the other side of her room, in the little hallway of her room. No one was there and she went to see if it was her neighbors- they weren't there, and no-one lived above or below her.

 

[Diznygrl]

Sometimes I smell cigarette smoke randomly too, but I don't know anyone who smokes or anyone who died who used to smoke. I think it's just a weird miscommunication thing happening between the nose and the brain, really. Not once have I ever thought "ghosts".

 

[LilyWDW]

There are some skeptics that wouldn't believe in a ghost even if it walked right up to them and introduced themselves.

There are some believer that think anything and everything is a ghost.

I have yet to see an orb picture that could not be explained. To me, orbs are the number 1 false evidence that is out there. I have seen a handful of apparition photos that I have not been able to explain. I would say, on average of all photos I have taken, analyzed, or seen, about 99% can be explained. It's that 1% that keeps me looking though...

 

[WDWBarb]

Barb I seem to remember you having a couple of pretty good stories on the old thread from a few years ago.

I did have a LOT of experiences when I was a child. I had zero doubt that ghosts existed - they were just a part of life. But as I get older, I start to doubt myself...

I do have one that recently came up in my family I'll share...

I used to stay with my grandparents all of the time (in the summer I was almost always at their house). My grandmother had portraits of her parents that she had hung in the room where I slept, side by side, just above the bed. I recall hearing them argue (seriously!) all night long, bickering and back and forth between them. It didn't scare me but it absolutely aggravated me.

One day I came down to breakfast and finally told my grandmother that George and Mary were keeping me up all night and that I wished Mary would cut George some slack and quit nagging him all the time. And when she nagged, he would just say, "yes, dear."

My grandmother nearly passed out. Turns out that I had used her parents names (and at the time I didn't know their names, nor did I realize that they were her parents) and described their relationship perfectly.

So I moved to a different room and I never heard them again.

Flash forward years later, we are cleaning out my grandmothers house after she recently passed away. I'm frantically looking for my great-grandparents pictures because I want to keep them and we can't find my great-grandmothers anywhere. I ask my mom and she tells me that my grandmother got rid of it way back when because I scared her so badly. I'm bummed the picture is gone but I swear I can remember every detail of it.

 

[muffyn]

No, but I do believe in hallucinations and mind tricks.


.

ok, question to those of you who do NOT believe in spirits/ghosts. what IS your explaination for all that the others of us experience? do you figure we are dellusionaL/psychotic/deluded?

how do you explain very obvious physical phenomenom happenings, like 'chair stacking' others have mentioned or even photographs?? how do these things happen?


I have a story.
i took care of my mom before she died in our house ( she had alzheimers).
we went through her chest of drawers in her room several times, sorting things out, & it had been moved several times previously.
one day (months after her death) my daughter had a kitten in the empty room, rehabilitating ( it was a brand new found kitten dumped off at our farm ) (my mom loved cats, had several, but since my hubby was alergic , we placed her live in cat after she died)
anyway, we check on the kitten, she was batting around something on the floor. it was a OLD roll of negatives. they were of my mom taken in about 1940.
the ONLY thing in that room was the chest of drawers(closed, mostly empty) & tight against the wall ( if someone thinks the film was taped underneath....... highly unlikely , since as i mentioned it had been moved several times.)
there was no way that roll of film was there when she moved into our home.

 

[dandave]

Does anyone know anything about a phantom herd of horses or pack of dogs? The sound of them galloping or running, pounding the ground with nothing to be seen?
Just wondering.