Ghosts and Other Paranormalities

[Kokay]

Ghosts... I can honestly say I am on the fence. I've had loads of personal experiences, but I remain unconvinced. I want to believe, but I want the proof before I do so.

 

Unlike some people, I'm not willing to believe until I've ruled out everything. Footsteps upstairs when I'm alone? Probably the house creaking. Cold front? Probably just the climate control kicking in. Animals looking around at things that aren't there? Animals are strange. Who am I to say that the animals are looking at something paranormal when it could just be a bug?

 

As for my experiences, I should probably believe by now. All of these have occurred recently. For my house, activity is rare so about a year old is recent.

 

First off, The flashlight experiment. The house was fully occupied with my two brothers and both parents. Not to mention, we had three cats upstairs, and our dogs were outside at this time. It was at about 9 at night. We were watching Ghost Hunters (meh, I don't like to admit it when I tell this story) and had gotten the idea to test if there was a ghost in our house. So, I took a flashlight. A cheap one, mind you. The ones you get from the dollar store. I pushed the switch to where it would take a small amount of force to turn it on and set it up on a shelf away from the rest of us. We turned off the lights and explained how to turn it on and off and asked a few questions. I then took my youngest brother into the other room to get a snack. I told my other younger brother to ask a question. As soon as he asked, he screamed and ran out of the room.

 

I didn't believe him at first. "It's on." Was all he would say. So, I walked back into the room. Indeed, the light was on. My heart jumped. I watched it carefully and asked it to turn the flashlight off. It turned off. I asked it to do the opposite a couple times and it did what it was asked.

 

But... It could be electrical interference from the T.V. Or maybe it was just a faulty battery?

[7Deadly$ins]

I think the flashlight experiment is a load of crap. It's like setting a light switch at the half-way point. The circuitry will eventually go one way or the other.

[Nine]

Whether I believe in that stuff or not, I can say with certainty that I am sick of seeing paranormal garbage filling up Animal Planet's time slots. Lost Tapes, Freak Encounters, Finding Bigfoot... seriously, is that supposed to convince people-- poor acting and the script writing of B-movies? Trying to dip into SciFi's target audience, eh? The only myth they're successfully propagating is that Animal Planet is now as lol-worthy as Bravo, pffft.

 

=) Anywho, if someone makes a thoughtful, rational claim about paranormal activity, I can give it some thought. Probably won't convince me, but I do my best to keep an open mind as long as you're not sourcing creepypastas and chain mails as facts.

 

Edit:

 

Or the History Channel.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Nine

[StormWizard212]

Unfortunately, I don't believe in this kind of stuff. I know there are a lot of people out there who have said that they've seen proof, but I still haven't. I really wish I would though, because I want to believe in this kind of stuff, like ghosts and everything... But I don't really.

 

And I definitely agree with Nine. There's so much really bad fake 'proof' out there that it gets kind of annoying. And for me, that just makes it even harder to believe to be honest.

[S9429183F]

Most youtube videos claiming of sighting ghosts or paranormal activity turn out to be fake or scammy.

[sparkdragon]

I haven't had any paranormal encounters but that is not to say I don't think there is something out there. I'm off the fence and on the side of They Exist but I'm always going to be hanging around the fence's vicinity until something definitive happens.

[ksew]

I think there are ghosts living in my flat. sometimes the light switches on by itself, so does the TV. I and my guests hear strange sounds and sometimes people saw som shadow figures O.o

[dragon rider]

The last house I lived in was insane. My sister kicked a hole in her wall while reading one night (don't ask how, I really couldn't begin to answer that) and I think that this might have been the trigger. I've heard that a lot of hauntings start if there's ever any modification to old buildings or, in this case, damage.

 

So I was laying in bed one night in a deep sleep when I suddenly heard someone shout "Hey!". I opened my eyes and it almost looked like the air was shimmering with energy. I really don't know how to describe it. Like little flecks of dark purple/blue/black light or stars, I guess. Standing at the foot of my bed was a man dressed in dark colors. When he woke me up, my whole body felt like lead and I could hardly move. I did manage to lift my head off of the pillow about a fraction of an inch though to look at him, then mumbled to him to just let me sleep, then I laid my head back down and went back to sleep. At first I thought it was a dream, but the position I had been at the time was a really uncomfortable one, and I was still laying in the same position when I woke up in the morning.

 

A couple of days later, my sister told me that she thought that she had seen a ghost a few nights ago (assumed to be the same night it happened to me). She said that she woke up to someone shouting "Hey!" at her and when she looked up, there was a man in black standing in front of the hole that she had kicked in her wall. Instead of being able to shrug it off as I had, and she overreacts to anything so this is no accomplishment on my part, she ran down stairs in a panic and sat in the living room until she had calmed down enough to assure herself that she was dreaming and she was able to go back to sleep.

 

She didn't believe me when I told her the same thing had happened to me, but since she told me first, I know that it really had happened and that it wasn't just a dream. Afterwards, things got a little stranger. My mom started to get bad nightmares around this time and I had started to have a few of my own, always with the dark clothed man in it. He would sometimes appear near the foot of my bed, though it didn't happen very often. I got the impression that he wanted to steal my energy or something.

 

The scariest thing was when I heard someone moving around my room one night and there was a sudden bang like someone had just slammed their hand down on my desk really hard. The next morning I noticed some strange dark spots on the carpet. I thought that maybe my sister had spilled something in there when she was on my computer, though there was nothing on the desk. It took me a while to realize that these marks on the carpet were two full footprints and one partial, positioned as if someone had walked up to the desk to stand next to the chair.

 

Since I've moved to a new apartment, I haven't had anything like this, though I still have a few nightmares about it every now and then and we do have a mildly noisy poltergeist now. I called that ghost back in the other house "The Caretaker" because I got a sense of someone who was at one point overly obsessive of the house, which supported my theory that my sister damaging the wall was the trigger.

[Wookieinmashoo]

Most youtube videos claiming of sighting ghosts or paranormal activity turn out to be fake or scammy.

And laughably so. I also came across some images of "ghosts" in photos and anyone who knows anything about photography knows that's easily faked.

 

I used to watch Ghost Hunters years back. I recently saw an episode and I'm disappointed how cheesed up it is now. Like was mentioned before, all the other paranormal shows are irritating as well. People are trying to explain things that can't be explained. Yes you can debunk them, but why to we need a dozen shows of this?

 

I believe in ghosts, but I honestly don't care. I've done a little digging up on alternate planes and dimensions over the years and that's enough to satisfy me. I've had some personal experiences, but that's all they are. I don't share them with anyone because I see no point.

 

What I don't get is that people find visitors from other planets more plausible than alternate dimensions half the time. That's fine that you believe that, but I find it a little hard to find a reason for some race to keep spying on earth and pretty much keep doing nothing. Maybe they're just checking up on their giant petri dish.

[Ælex]

I don't believe in ghosts, and it's funny how I've never once experienced one's presence.

I mean, I've been in my share of creepy places, and not once have I seen a ghost or felt a ghost or... sensed a ghost in any way.

 

I'm unsure as to what to think of that, am I rationalizing these 'paranormal' experiences, dismissing them as perfectly explainable happenings?

 

Am I a ghost repellent of some kind?

 

Do I lack some kind of "gift" or "ability" to sense these things?

 

Or do ghosts really not exist?

 

...I stopped caring.

Edited June 13, 2012 by Ælex

[dragon rider]

I don't believe in ghosts, and it's funny how I've never once experienced one's presence.

I mean, I've been in my share of creepy places, and not once have I seen a ghost or felt a ghost or... sensed a ghost in any way.

 

I'm unsure as to what to think of that, am I rationalizing these 'paranormal' experiences, dismissing them as perfectly explainable happenings?

 

Am I a ghost repellent of some kind?

 

Do I lack some kind of "gift" or "ability" to sense these things?

 

Or do ghosts really not exist?

 

...I stopped caring.

I think that sometimes ghosts just tend to latch onto people with a certain energy. It could also just be paranoia or wanting to experience something so much that people think they do.

 

The area has some impact too, of course. Up until the gothic writing style became common, haunted places were only considered to be old castles and such. When the gothic style started, literature started appearing all over America about haunted places such as old battle fields. Since America didn't have any old castles, but it had had plenty of old battle grounds from the surplus of wars the young country had fought, this started a trend. Soon the gothic style had spread to other countries. This possibly created a mind set that would lead to reports of hauntings years into the future.

 

But yea, people with a firm belief that ghosts don't exist aren't likely to come across them. At least, until they find the more violent ones.

[PossumLover99]

Me, my sisters and my granny were having a kind of sleepover in my grandpas old house,we were all in separate rooms. It was about 1:30 am and I was feeling really sick so I propped myself up on my elbow thinking I'd read a book and I saw a pale whiteish figure of a man sitting at the foot of my bed looking at me, the bed was dipping down like a real person was sitting there. I think it was my grandpas ghost and he seemed to be smiling at me but I pulled the sheets over my head.a few seconds later I looked and there was no one there. I wasn't really scared though..

I think I was 10. It was a few years ago.

[HawktalonOfRiverClan]

I've had a few encounters, now that I think about it. But I was either really young or half asleep at the time for all of them.

 

When I was five or six, my family was driving past an old Civil War battlefield and she said she saw a man walk across the street in front of our car. We were going to hit him, but then he disapeared. I have nothing to speak of the event; I was asleep at the time. (My mom has a knack for seeing that sort of thing. She said she's seen her pets after they've died, too.)

 

Some time later, or maybe before (I can't remember but I was really young at the time), I was trying to sleep and suddenly I heard a voice yell either "Hey!" or "Mah!" (again, don't really remember) in my room, as though he (it was a male voice, I remember that much) was standing next to me. It freaked me out so badly that I started sleeping with the covers pulled over my ears (still do out of habbit). I would have simply denoted it to be some drunk guy standing in the parking lot (which was right next to my window), and that's what my parents told me it was, but they were up at the same time I had been and they should have heard it if it had been coming from the parking lot. But they said they hadn't heard anything. Which they wouldn't have if the voice had been in my room; the floors were really thick. I could haven just been hearing things out of exhaustion, but I wonder...

 

More recently, last year maybe, I was sitting in the window in the front of our house late at night, around midnight. Standing next to my neighbor's giant magnolia tree was a figure. A human figure, glowing brightly as though it were wearing that silver fabric that reflects the light from cars' headlights. No, it was as though it were made of reflective fabric, because even its head was glowing. It was a bright yellow light, impossible to miss. But it was there one minute and gone the next. It wasn't one of my neighbors walking their dog because there was no car coming and no streetlights, no light for it to reflect. Even if there had been, it was gone too quickly to have been human. I guess my tired eyes could have just been playing tricks on me. After all, what ghost glows? But again, I don't exactly believe that fully, and still wonder if it was something paranormal.

 

Also last year, I was just standing in my bathroom brushing my teeth, when I turned around. Walking behind me was a brown wolf, scruffy with a huge tail and yellow eyes. But it was really small, less than a yard tall. A few days later my friend was in the exact same spot brushing her teeth like I had been, and she too turned around and saw the brown wolf sitting on my bed, looking at her calmly. It looked, now that I think about it, like my dog, if she was a wolf that is. But she was alive at the time (still is for that matter). This I have no real explanation for, paranormal or otherwise. Unless she was dreaming or something and managed to end up in the physical world in her dream... but that's another topic entirely.

 

I don't know why I only see things like that when I'm half asleep. Also, when I'm walking down the stairs away from a big landing and standing at the sink with the door behind me, I feel as though something evil is going to creep up behind me. Does it have anything to do with paranormal activity? Or am I just being paranoid?

Edited June 14, 2012 by HawktalonOfRiverClan

[FlowerOwl]

My friend is obessed with ghosts. She's always talking about different kinds (namely poltergeists). Though, I think she got it from the rest of her family since most of them are ghost fanatics (or at least that's what I think). She likes to visit all these haunted houses (I mean the real ones like the hospital kinds). Her uncle used to be on some ghost tracking tv show thing, the last time she went on a trip she went to this hotel where some people killed themselves or something (She kept on talking about this girl who hung herself in the room that her uncle was sleeping in while they were at the hotel and people seeing ghosts boys running down the halls) when she was moving her parents almost choose this big house that used to be a retirement centre (I think, my friend just said it's where old poeple go when they think they're about to die) and her mom and dad felt very cold+her mom felt like there were ghosts around. Though, it would have been awesome if she moved there since in it's down stairs there's a pool and trampoline. But still, creepy.

Edited June 14, 2012 by FlowerOwl

[Astralite]

I love the paranormal and creepy stories in general, but I usually find it best to look at things with a skeptic's mindset. I have always been interested in ghosts and monsters though, ever since I was a kid. My book shelf is littered with ghost stories and guide books and so forth. Though I love the idea, I'm not quite sure on the authenticity of most 'hauntings' and usually won't give the benefit of the doubt.

That being said, I have experienced things that could be considered paranormal or ghostly, but I don't think I'll ever be fully convinced. I went amateur ghost hunting at the old house of a friend. Basically walking around in the dark with three others taping and recording sounds. One weird thing was that when we walked up a light was on in the basement, and when it came time to go down there no lights were on at all. Also weird temperature changes and even three distinct taps heard in an upstairs bedroom. We thought it was a tree at first, but when we were packing up and saw there was none, it did kind of chill me.

My family even has a curse, or so says me grandpa. Old English, something with a black dog, not quite sure of it all.

[Varekis]

I avoid thinking about ghosts and the paranormal. Well, pretty much anything with horror or creepiness involved. In the case of ghosts, I acknowledge their existence ("Yes, ghosts exist") just so I don't jinx myself and inspire them to show up to prove me wrong, LOL.

 

I'm weak. ;_;

[CJ_The_Bold]

I swear there is a Friendly ghost in my house...

[Wookieinmashoo]

I don't believe in ghosts, and it's funny how I've never once experienced one's presence.

I mean, I've been in my share of creepy places, and not once have I seen a ghost or felt a ghost or... sensed a ghost in any way.

 

I'm unsure as to what to think of that, am I rationalizing these 'paranormal' experiences, dismissing them as perfectly explainable happenings?

 

Am I a ghost repellent of some kind?

 

Do I lack some kind of "gift" or "ability" to sense these things?

 

Or do ghosts really not exist?

 

...I stopped caring.

Some people do attract things more than others, but an "ghost activity" is a lot more rare than people make it out to be.

 

I have only encountered one thing that may or may not have been considered a ghost, yet I don't call it such. I just say it was something strange and move on. I go out looking for such things and have only encountered one thing that was interesting. Whatever it was was on my college campus, which people swear up and down is completely haunted. It's the oldest university in the state and was once a military training academy so people may have died there. There being a hospital there is probably an indicator people at least got hurt.

 

I feel a more dismissive attitude is better than one willing to believe anything. A lot of experiences don't hold enough evidence and can easily be dismissed. It's the people who keep jumping to the ghost conclusion that irritating and make all studiers of paranormal happenings look bad.

[Lord_Kishin]

From the day I was born till about age 12 my family and I lived in a low income apartment complex and our apartment was, no word of a lie, haunted by several ghosts.

 

There was one that we named Freddy (don't ask me why, my brother and I just randomly came up with it... maybe we got the idea from the movie "Drop Dead Fred") who liked to steal our toys. The toys would literally disappear for a few days up to about a week or two then out of no where we would hear a *thunk* somewhere in our apartment and when we went to investigate the toy would be in the middle of the floor of a room we use frequently but where we weren't in at the time and most certainly would have noticed our lost toy sitting in the middle of. Freddy was notorious for taking tennis balls and then rolling them down the hallway to the bathroom and bedrooms when he returned them.

 

That is not the only ghost but the only "friendly"-ish one we experienced.

The other ghost experiences were a bit unnerving. We lived on the top floor of the apartment building and the roof access was padlocked and chained so there was no access to the roof at all. Frequently we would hear heavy foot steps across the ceiling walking back and forth over the bedrooms. When we would go check the roof access it was still locked and one time we even called the police (the police station was only a couple blocks away so they were there in about a minute). The police did a search to see if any of the other buildings roof access had been broken while one officer went onto the roof to see if there was anyone up there. They found none of the access' had been used and nobody on the roof.

 

Whether this was one of the previously mentioned or a new ghost I do not know, I use to have a big walk in closet in this apartment and would be in there getting something from near floor level (I was too short to reach the shelf) and stuff off the shelf would get tossed at me. Luckily we kept mostly stuffed animals up there so I was never injured. Also, I would take a bath every night and some nights the lights would randomly go out all by themselves (I was probably about 7 or 8 so old enough to bath by myself) and then the drain plug would get pulled out of no where. I can't count the number of times I screamed like a girl (high pitched) and ran from the bathroom.

 

Those are my experiences with ghosts. My mom has seen alien activity. I wouldn't say she saw aliens because she didn't see a figure of a body just a weird occurance.

It was about 9 or 10pm sometime during the summer last year, she let her two dogs (her protectors since she lives alone) to go do their business when suddenly they ran to the back fence (chain link so visibility was good) and they started going nuts. When the dogs approached the fence the sensor light my mom attached there came on and she saw nothing there so she was about to call them back in to stop them from barking when suddenly she saw, at the same level as the top of the fence, two light beams of greenish color start equal to the top of the fence and then made a sweeping motion down over the dogs and back up again before disappearing. After that happened and the light beams where gone the dogs suddenly stopped barking as if now there was absolutely nothing there anymore.

Isn't that just freaky?!

I was on the phone with her when all this happened and it made me scared for her. lol.

[SelenaPoole]

I have not seen anything super spooky or weird, but that does not mean that there arent weird things out there. Anything is possible. Cause we dont know everything.

[pinkieseb]

My dad, has now passed away (Siggy)... But he died because of hepitidus C it had been building up for 40 years since his heart operation. In operation, he was basicly dead for a few hours..... When he woke up, he screamed and said he'd seen his dead dog, and his dead next door neighbour. Because of that i believe:

HEAVEN AND GHOSTS ARE REAL! But they dont kill people Their all nice.

[Saruwatari]

I'm a psycic..

I've had so many stuff happening since I was eight there's no way I'll be able to name all of them.

Most of the times I just see spirits however living in the house I am now we ended up needing a cleansing cause there were physical problems... I ended up getting scratches all over my body.

The spirits that are here now are just annoying ones who open and close doors or will move stuff (poltergeist stuff yeah) but that's nothing serious... I can keep it under controle :3

[NightLovesFantasies]

ghosts are real. no question.

 

i've had an experience with one when i was just a little kid. you might say its fake but i remember it as if it happened a day ago. but not getting into that,

 

this isn't the only dimmension with living energy. mabye ghosts are not souls, but it's the energy we had all of those years, it's a hard concept to grasp i don't even fully understand it. the ghosts have the same memories they had as humans, they remember where they died where they live. where they rest, some souls/ghosts may have not been able to pass onto the heaven and some demons might have escaped from...well you know. a demon and ghost are different, demons are bad spirits meant to hurt and already have. ghosts are spirits not able to pass on, or rest easy. for reasons like not being set to rest properly, something kept them from passing on, ect...

 

as for other paranormal creatures, it's still in question. if aliens count as paranormal then there is most likely aliens somewhere, mabye not to far from us. but earth can't be the only planet with living organisms on it. in the ENTIRE universe. with galaxies and solar systems we don't even know about.

[Dauntingale]

Back in middle school, one of my good friends told me that she was about one-eighth paranormal and that her aunt or someone was paranormal. She told me all kinds of stories about ghosts and different types and bogies and their intentions such. I found it fascinating and truly believed her at the time. I'm not sure about now, but I do believe in supernatural things.

[renton]

I've haven't had an experience with anything paranormal but I don't doubt that ghosts could possibly exist. It's one of those experiences you need to see to believe, well for me anyways. :]