Ever seen a ghost?

[T@T]

Thing I notice the most is ever since everyone carries a camera with them nowadays ghost stories are becoming extinct.

[Calgary4LIfe]

Ghosts... I am unsure about. Demons, on the other hand...

[1stLand]

I believe in Sasquatch, Ghosts, Aliens, Demon's, but not Mermaids.

That's just silly.

[Redliner]

When I was in France in 1996, I was part of a travelling performance group for a couple of months, touring around doing shows in the southwest. We stopped in Bayonne for a couple of days, and the place we were performing was this old basque mansion that had been converted to a church. I got talking to one of the church members who had been there for a long time and when I commented what a neat building it was, she started telling me that the place was haunted. I laughed at her because:
1) I didn't believe in ghosts, and
2) This was France, where all the buildings are 800 years old. What isn't supposed to be haunted?
All the public areas were on the main floor, and the second and third floors were still just regular rooms. Apparently the church had tried having people live there before but had to move them out because all kinds of weird things kept happening: locked doors would open themselves, lights would turn themselves on and off, and it was impossible to regulate the temperature in the place - it would sometimes stay ice cold in there even with the furnace on in the middle of summer. At first they just wrote it off as being an old building with lots of quirks, but after a bit the "events" started getting a little more threatening. They would wake up in the morning to find that objects - even furniture - had moved around during the night, and a couple times they came back home at the end of the day to find their dishes smashed on the floor and pictures ripped off the walls. The place had an alarm, so it's not like someone was breaking in and messing with them - and nothing ever went missing, it was just moved around. She took us up through the upper floors and it felt a little weird, but I was never uncomfortable. You could tell the people had moved out in a hurry because there was still a bunch of stuff in there, almost like they were going to be coming back any minute.
We did the show and everything went great, nothing weird at all until we packed everything up and were leaving for the night. We set the alarm and were about to drive away when we noticed a light on up on the third floor. It seemed a little weird because the stairwell had a locked door on it and we didn't think anyone had been up there since we were earlier that day, but we thought nothing of it and went back in to turn it off. As we disarmed the alarm we starting joking about "oh, maybe the ghosts did it" and suddenly the whole place felt really cold and uncomfortable. As we were climbing the stairs my skin started to crawl and I had a really strong feeling that someone was staring at me - but of course the only people in the house were me, the local church group leader, (who had the keys) and another guy who was also with us. Of course I wrote it off as my mind playing tricks on me and we went and found the light, which happened to be in one of the 3rd floor bedrooms. We actually thought someone might be playing a joke on us so we searched the 2nd and 3rd floors and found nothing - we were definitely the only ones in there. We went back and I turned the light off myself, and we went back down, locked the door at the bottom of the stairs, re-armed the alarm, and went back outside. As we walked down the drive to our car I felt kind of weird again and turned around to look at the building - and saw that the same light on the 3rd floor - the one I had just turned off - was back on again. At that point I was seriously creeped out and we decided to just leave it on and get the hell out of there.

So yeah. Did I see a ghost? No. Could there be other explanations for what happened? Electrical problems, whatever? Sure, maybe. All I know is it sure felt creepy. I never really believed in ghosts before but I've seen and felt enough things between then and now to make me a lot less sure. What I do know is that there are a great number of forces at work in the world that I do not understand, and some of them scare the crap out of me.

[1stLand]

Okay, it is time for me to share:

I worked at Mynt Ultralounge in 2006/2007 and the particular building it was in had a long and colorful history. It was right in front of the Pennylane mall and the building itself was 100 years old.

I have never personally had a ghostly experience in the nightclub but was working on the same day 2 people saw a ghost at the same time.

A Heneiken Liquor rep and the assistant manager were opening up the club and ventured down into the basement bar area to begin setting up the bar and the promo's. One particularly spooky cold spot was downstairs coat check. That area in particular was always cooler than most spots and it was very dark. It did however have a light switch was was placed in an unusual spot which was difficult to find if all the lights were turned off.

As the story was told to me, the assistant manager and Heneiken rep needed to get something out of the coach check room so to find the light switch, they both shone their cellphone camera's into the room and this is where Sh*T gets scary.

Sitting on the floor cross legged was a young creepy looking woman who blankly stared at them.
They both got the hell out of there.
I came in to work about 1 hour after this happened and saw both of them, and they were creeped right out. The Heneiken rep was crying as he recounted the story and the assistant manager just remained quiet.

They recounted their story and caused quite a stir with the employees. The coat check girl came in and when she heard the story, refused to work downstairs.

When the Heneiken rep gained his composure he went back downstairs and tried communicating with the ghost and felt that the ghost's expression was that of an overwhelming sense of sadness.

Now this is where the story gets interesting, one of the managers told us all that a young woman OD'd downstairs many years ago. It might have been called a different night club or during the time the current club first opened. Anyways, as he was there when it happened, he described that she was layed out on the floor unresponsive right in front of coat check and later was pronounced dead.

As a tried to delve deeper into this mystery, I talked to a few bus boys and bartenders and they all recounted their strange experiences working downstairs. One bar manager was smacked upside the head (playfully he claims) when he was alone downstairs and bending over to grab something in the DJ booth.

Light Bulbs would mysteriously burn out, new ones, and electricians would be called in to check the wiring which was always working fine.

I miss that building, sadly 8th avenue place now sits where the nightclub used to be.

I am always curious, where do ghosts go once the building they haunt gets torn down?

[scotty2hotty]

nm

[Thor]

This is the thing, IF ghosts were real, sightings and evidence would grow with the advance of science, IE phones, cameras, etc.. But its not the case, in fact, its less now than it was 20 yrs ago.

Demon Haunted World.....

[Nage Waza]

Originally Posted by 1stLand

Sitting on the floor cross legged was a young creepy looking woman who blankly stared at them.

Not to ruin the story, did they ever catch the girl they saw in the coatroom?

[Calgary4LIfe]

For people who really enjoy these stories, I highly recommend the Calgary Haunted tour. Been to two of them - the Inglewood tour, as well as the Kensington one. Really interesting stories.

[Regulator75]

[AMG_G]

My girlfriend use to blow in my ear because she knows it makes me giggle uncontrollably. The night we had her funeral I fell asleep on her parents coach downstairs when all of a sudden I was woken up by a someone blowing into my ear. I was startled and looked around but there was no one in the room except me. At the same time her car alarm went off. I was seriously very scared at that moment. I haven't felt or sensed anything since. This was 15 years ago. She died from an inline skate accident at 21.

[Hockey_Ninja]

Alrighty here's my Mom's story. About 4 or 5 years ago she was having a nap, this was a few months after summer and during the summer me and my brother went to the US to visit our grandfather on my dad's side, he was very sick and in the hospital. Anyhow during her nap in a dream she got visited by our grandfather and he told her that he had passed on. After she woke up the phone rang and my mom assumed that it was our father telling her the news and it was. I still don't know weather or not to believe my mom, she's been telling me all of these stories of her and the paranormal for years and i just usually nob along until she's done. But for some reason this story really seems to stick out to me the most.

[PIMking]

After my nephew and dad died within a few months of each other I would always feel an extra presence in the room and would see shadows or images walking past my room. Creepy at first but rather comforting.

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by AMG_G

My girlfriend use to blow in my ear because she knows it makes me giggle uncontrollably. The night we had her funeral I fell asleep on her parents coach downstairs when all of a sudden I was woken up by a someone blowing into my ear. I was startled and looked around but there was no one in the room except me. At the same time her car alarm went off. I was seriously very scared at that moment. I haven't felt or sensed anything since. This was 15 years ago. She died from an inline skate accident at 21.

That sucks dude, sorry to hear.

[AMG_G]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

That sucks dude, sorry to hear.

Yeah it sucked big time but I still have a close relationship with her parents. I got her little sister a job in my company so we can maintain that friendship. My wife is awesome because she supports this and never once questioned it.

[icarus]

My old house in Sydney was haunted, I'm convinced. It was right beside the Sydney Harbour Bridge and in the oldest colonised part of town dating back to the 1790's, so lots of history there. The Sydney ghost tour used to come down our street and sometimes even stopped outside the house but I went on it a couple times and they never had anything in particular to say about our house. Anyway all of the housemates who lived there have had several experiences, all in the same part of the (the stairs and upstairs corridor). I had about 4 or 5 of my own in nine months of living there.

Once, just after I moved in, my housemate Ryan and I were upstairs chatting. TV wasn't hooked up so the place was quiet. Our third housemate was in Melbourne at the time but in the middle of conversation we heard footsteps at the top of the stairs moving into the hallway and along with a female voice. Ryan and I both heard it, and stopped our conversation assuming Alyssa had come back early and was coming toward us talking on her cell phone. We called out but there was no one there and we scoured the house looking for an explanation but there was none. The strange thing is we both heard the exact same thing at the same time. Never experienced anything of the like in any other home I've had.

Ryan still lives in that house and when he visited London last year he updated me on all the continuing weirdness going on at the house.

[driveway]

I am a hardcore skeptic and out-and-out atheist. I have twice seen the same ghost.

Anyone who works in or around theaters will probably have a few good ghost stories, they're all 'haunted.' Both of mine were at the University of Victoria. I once watched a guy - who I thought was a friend of mine at first glance - walk along the control level, where the lighting and sound booth is located, and disappear behind it. I went up to get him, 'cause I thought it was my friend, and when I got to where he'd been there was just a dark hallway and a cold spot.

The second time was in one of the other theatres in the building. I was working late one night, just putzing around with some lighting instruments when my mind started wandering over who else might be in the building. I went through the list of people who could be there are shortly realized I was probably alone in the building. I got totally creeped out and started to get the eff out quickly. I got into the back hallway and watched as the same blonde guy I'd seen the year before walked down the hall away from me and then into the dressing rooms. Without opening the door.

When I spoke to one of the profs about it, she described - without prompting - the appearance of the guy (even including the line "he looks a lot like Tanner, actually" the friend I'd initially mistaken him for) and said "Oh that's ______. He was a student here when he died. I like that he still comes around."

Other theatres I've worked in have pretty classic haunting stuff going on, the night janitors always complain that the folding seats (in rows they aren't standing in) will go up and down while they're trying to clean. At the MacPherson there is a room the janitor will straight-up not go into. The Mac ghost is, by all reports, foul-tempered.

The best story happened to a good buddy of mine. He was working at the Belfrey, a converted church. He's working away pretty much right under the main stage one night when he hears this heavy-ass dragging sound above him. He goes up into the theatre and checks on the set. The set for this show was a huge trunk filled with costumes and props which weighed several hundred pounds when full. Around the trunk the stage was dusted with sand which was swept and raked into japanese-garden patterns every night after the show.
The trunk had been dragged five feet across the stage and there wasn't a footprint leading to it or from it.

I do not believe that there are spirits of dead people haunting theatres, however the prevalence of theatre-ghost stories has led me to a hypothesis. Modern physics has demonstrated that 96% of the universe is invisible to us (dark matter and dark energy). It stikes me as likely that we interact with this material and energy in some way. When you consider how closely out physical make-up matches that of our planet - and subsequently the universe's (inset Tyson's "most astounding fact" video here), it seems implausible that we are utterly cut-off from the vast majority of the energy and matter in the cosmos.

Ghosts frequently manifest in places and situations where people have or are expending large amounts of energy: old buildings, places of tragedy, theatres. The most plausible explanation that I can come up with is that this energy can - from time to time - result in seemingly unexplainable phenomenon or perception of phenomenon: unexplained motion of objects, changes in temperature, unusual feelings or sensations, sounds, or even apparitions.

Do I think I saw the spirit of a deceased student? No. Am I prepared to accept that my ocular nerves were stimulated by a swirl of dark energy which my highly-evolved brain resolved into a familiar pattern and that the consistency of experience of this pattern between separate brains has more to do with the brains than the pattern? Yeah, I'll buy that for a dollar.

That is my un-testable, unprovable, materialist explanation for ghosts so I can sleep at night.

tl;dr: Seen ghosts, decided it's dark energy. Otherwise I get the heebie-jeebies.

[OBCT]

Originally Posted by Thor

This is the thing, IF ghosts were real, sightings and evidence would grow with the advance of science, IE phones, cameras, etc.. But its not the case, in fact, its less now than it was 20 yrs ago.

Demon Haunted World.....

Couldn't it simply be that we've become less aware of "ghosts" over the past 20 years due to increasing inundation from distracting stimuli?

An example is icarus' account. He and his friend both heard the same female "ghost" (for lack of a better word) say the same thing. They might not have noticed anything if the house was set up: TV hooked up, radio on, headphones on, whatever.

On average, I feel like the average Westerner has far less quiet/alone time now than we once did, and that's the most common setting for these stories (silence, isolation, etc). Why that's the case is another question.

It seems outlandish and somewhat unsatisfying at first blush, but maybe driveway's hypothesis has merit.

Fascinating thread; I love these stories!

[_Q_]

I'm usually pretty sceptical about these stories, but this one still freaks me out.

About 12 years ago after my parent's divroce, my mom and I moved into a newer house here in Calgary. Since my mom was getting everything ready for her new life, she decided to buy a new car. After checking out a few vehicles, she kind of settled on one car, but wanted to think about it for a bit because things just didn't feel "right". My mom, is somewhat religious, so after seeing the car, she asked God to give her a sign to help her make the decision. She went to sleep that night with the intention to make the decision the next morning. What happened though was I heard a scream in the middle of the night (maybe at 2am), I quickly ran into my mom's room and I sat there and watched my mom freak out about what she saw. In her bathroom, her hair dryer was suddenly plugged in and turned on and the lights were switched on but set to the dimmest setting, as to make the lights look like little red balls of fire. That totally freaked us out and needless to say, my mom ended up buying another car instead. Strangely enough, nothing weird like that has ever happened since in that house.

[Pacem]

I had an experience of sorts. I personally don't believe in ghosts. My mom is a believer and has many stories to tell about the places we lived in. She has a storey for most of the houses we lived in. We moved around a lot growing up so we got to live in a bunch of different old house.

I would not be the least bit surprised if humans found out some spiritual realm of some sort that may appear ghost like. Or at least be able to explain ghost like stuff, or define it.

A few stories that stick out thru my life time.

My mom got a bit obsessed in this one house. She felt a ghost was there, and felt compelled to do something about it. She went all CSI on the house and started ripping up corners of the carpet and lino in this one particular area of the house. It was the back door. She pulled away some wall paneling. She eventually found what appeared to be a lot of old blood, under something she ripped up and followed the trail, to a big old pool of it. Keep in mind this is well before the internet was cool, so doing research or knowing anything that happened in your town involved reading old newspapers. Remember those slide things at the library that had old newspaper articles, lol. We moved around so much, it was highly unlikely my mom knew something ahead of time. She could have sub conscientiously have known about what happened. In any event, talking to some neighbors and talking about her discovery, they finally let her know that some elderly woman was sexually assaulted and brutally beaten to death in the house. Her badly bloodied and beaten body was left where this back door was. We were not the first people to live in the house since the murder took place. Neighbors or the owner of the place were not too forthcoming to share that info. My mom insists it was the spirit that compelled her to dig around. Meh, I think my mom has a bit of OCD and just can't let #### be. I do have to say, she did do a good job figuring it all out before she actually found out what had happened. I remember her taking me over the whole thing prior to us finding out the real story.

My Aunt fought cancer for 5 years and lost. She very much believed that her mother was with her. She spoke fondly of her mother being with her and giving her the strength to fight. My Grandmother also lost a battle to cancer. Very much a "mind tricking you" scenario. You are going thru the same battle as your mother did, being a non believer it is pretty easy to dismiss her feelings thoughts and stuff as just mind tricks. Then a photo pops up. A digital camera was used. Its on the photo on the memory stick and the one they printed up. It was a family get together that my Aunt was at. Many pictures were taken that night. One nice picture with my Aunt, my Dad and my Uncle together and there is the shadow smokey like figure in the front. I haven't seen the pic in a few years, but the shape reminded me of the "The Scream" painting without the hands to the side of the face. I can't explain it when I look at the photo I just assume that there is a reasonable explanation.

And then the final scenario involved me as a child.

I was 10 or 11. We lived in a great big old house. I was the oldest so I got the rec room as my bedroom, it was a partially finished basement. I always slept with the light on, because I read a lot before I went to bed and the light switch was at the end of the room and I hated getting up to turn it off. I finished reading one night. Pulled my blanket up got all snuggled in and at the time I liked to have my arms over the covers and i'd press them down on either side of my body so my blanket was nice and snug across my body. When I did that this night, I was looking straight up afterwards (the roof) and I felt something on my chest (very light pressure). I looked down and on my chest was the imprint of a left hand. I still remember it clear as day. Back then I freaked the hell out and ran up stairs screaming bloody murder. My Mom and Step Dad were still awake and met me at the top of the stairs. My Step Dad gets the heeby jeebies when he tells the story because I was just not the type of kid to make this type of stuff up or get scared easily. It didn't traumatize me, after a couple nights on the couch I was back to sleeping in the basement again. There has to be an explanation. I didn't really have a creative imagination and it wasn't dark.

Again I don't believe and just assume their is an explanation. My mom had many stories while growing up. A lot of hogwash if you ask me, but these 3 scenarios stuck out to me.

Oh and thank you for linking Sleep Paralysis! That has just explained soooooooooo many things for me. I haven't had one in awhile, but that awake while your sleeping #### is about the most terrifying thing I have experienced. I've woken up trying to grab at stuff because it felt so real.