1. Back in the 1980's I was in my backyard with my dog (now deceased) and I heard someone walking trough leaves, I looked up and saw a black shadow walk right through the fence with it's hands up in the air. From then on I never go into my backyard at night.
2. I teach International Folk Dancing, and one Monday night when I was teaching at a local synagogue I saw a woman dressed in the period of 1900's floating toward a closet in the back of the room. A house once stood on the site where the synagogue now stands.
3. In Riner, VA I saw a man wearing a waist coat floating toward a tree. This property is haunted by Civil War soldiers.
That was interesting!
Thanks for the stories!
I have none that I have seen myself- well, Stef has one, Heard!. After our father died she answered the ringing phone and swears it was him!
There is a book out about such phenomenon called "Phone Calls From the Dead."
Did your dog react to the shadow in the yard?
I'd also think there would be common sightings of the Civil War dead, but I haven't read of a lot.
I am a skeptic, but I have a theory that such an experience (if genuine) may be a kind of visual and/or aural echo of previous events, not involving sentient beings (though I would like to believe otherwise).
One thing I've always wondered: If there are any ghosts, they ought to be all over the place and should be seen and heard much more commonly than they apparently are. Well, why aren't they? Any ideas?
Because these windows are narrow portals and don't just pop up everywhere, else everyone would have experienced it.
Kind of like : You have to be in the right place in the right time...
Kat
I never have personally had any experiences, but there is something that happened in our family that has me puzzled. Some years ago my father collapsed and died in the house where I was raised. Two days later I came home for the funeral with my children. It was the night before the actual funeral and my mother and I didn't feel like cooking, so we all went out for dinner. After we left, my cousin (who is a very down-to-earth person and not prone to nonsense) called the house to find out the exact time of the funeral. No other person except my mother had the key to the house, and the house was empty. My cousin heard the phone ring, and then she heard someone pick up and say "hello" in a deep voice like my father's. She was confused, so she said "is this the S----- residence? And the voice said "yes." And then the line went dead. She was so rattled she ran a few blocks to her friend's house to tell her what had happened because she was terrified she had heard my father's voice. We have never been able to explain that one.
Well, I guess the answer can't be something improbable. Therefore, it must be something impossible.
Seriously, though, one thing that occurs to me is: How uncommon is your family name? Could it have been a wrong number that just happened to belong to someone of the same name? Or could the person have misheard?
Angel, that happened in my family when our father died.
I wasn't the one to answer the phone or be on the phone, but I was standing there when it happened.
There is a book called Phone Calls From The Dead.
I don't know why I think this is so creepy, but I do.
I still say that the most likely explanation is that a wrong number was dialed. The man who answered may have been half asleep or bombed out of his mind and just gone along with whatever he heard on the other end.
I don't know about another's call, but this one either called us, or came into the line we were on. I seem to remember that "we" were on the phone and this voice came on after the original call.
Anyway,
I was wondering last night if we think we leave a residue of ourselves after death which = a haunting, do we also leave a residue of ourselves while we are alive?
I think it would make sense that live people could haunt as well as dead- both should apply?
I think you can have live hauntings as well as dead ones. When I was in France some years ago I had several frightening/bad experiences and my remedy at the time (after I had gotten out of the situation) was to call my mother in Australia and she would calm me down. With the time difference this was not easy and there were times I called in the middle of the night. Every time I called that I really really needed someone to listen, she would already be awake at that time before the phone rang... could I have been haunting her?
It is also interesting that this ties in with the psychic/telephones link- What is it about the telephone that makes these things occur?
Also from my experiences, I had a series of disastrous relationships for a while... on several occasions when I was emotionally very worn down I would develop some sixth sense about things- I would know when there would be a message on the answering machine that I didnt want to hear... I would know when something was going to end very badly (and no it wasnt *always* bad!!!). Later I went through a rough patch with my current partner and we spent some time apart- one night away I woke up in bed and felt him cuddled around me. I didnt try to rationalise it I just let it be- the next day he told me he wanted to try again and we've been together ever since.
Dead Haunting:
When I was 11 my parents renovated our house- not a particularly old house, we were only the second family to live there. My room was being totally demolished so I was sleeping in the living room on the sofa bed. One night I woke up and through the light made by the gap in the curtains I could see there was a blue, as if drowned or very cold, human hand next to my pillow. I shut my eyes and willed it away but when I opened them again it was still there. I didnt check if it was attatched to anything else, and I ran to the kitchen and stayed under the table for some time, then returned to the sofa and it was gone. I didnt see it again until last year when my partner and I were staying in the house again. I'd left my handbag by the front door and needed something out of it so I came downstairs to get it before I went to bed. A dark male figure, no more than a shadow but visibly wearing an old fashioned hooded oilskin jacket crossed the hall coming from the direction of the living room and vanished through the wall. This would have been the only direction the first ghost could have taken from the living room that I would not see him leave from the kitchen. Is it possible he returned? I researched the land- Before the house was built the area was used for horse agistment- the oilskin?
Besides being shocks to the system, I have never been hurt by any ghostly occurrence and I feel I've let them continue with their business and they have done the same for me. In my opinion I have had far too many unexplained psychic events to believe that the world is as simple as it appears- skeptical as a child these events have totally changed the way I see these things.
Hmmm. Interesting stories!
You've had a lot of strange experiences. Thanks for recounting them.
Recently I have been wondering about alternate realities and whether or not I could be co-existing with myself in other dimensions and other time frames. Like 3 of me, 2 in other separate dimensions with time irrelevant (no past, present or future- or one each in past, one in present, one in future). But then I thought why just 3 (tho I did just think of 3), why not an infinite amount?
2. As far as your "live hauntings" are concerned, they seem to me to be nothing more than an unusual sensitivity on your part and your mother's to patterns of human behavior.
3. The "dead" ghost seems to me explainable as a hallucination. I know I was not there, but did you find any tangible evidence of his presence (a wet pillow, for example)? Your research into the history of the house seems to have turned up nothing especially relevant.
I wouldnt believe it either if I wasn't there to see it.
I went to Port Arthur in Tasmania and did the night 'Ghost' tour there which was really a farce if you ask me. At the end of the tour we were all up on the top of this hill and the guide was pointing out some 'ghosts' that were walking around the top of the fort there. A lot of people on the tour were saying they could make out the forms of them- it was so far away though theres no way in hell you could have, even if they were there. To some extent i think people do see what they want to (or dont want to) see regarding ghosts, but other things are definitely still unexplained if you ask me!
Here is a picture I found today that gave me a shiver. In the background is what looks like a little girl in turn of the century dress, hugging a tombstone. There are zooms that show it more clearly --
Very interesting ! Is there also some kind of 'orb' to the immediate right ? Or maybe is that from a camera flash ? Although, I would think anyone taking a picture in the daytime would not use a flash. A very interesting picture nonetheless. Thanks Tina-Kate !
I raised my eyebrows at that orb too, Tracy. One thing tho -- why are orbs so predominant these days? I never used to hear about them years ago. I also noticed looking in the middle photo, she also seems to be wearing period style boots & is standing on the ledge/base of the stone. Creepy.
“I am innocent. I leave it to my counsel to speak for me.”
—Lizzie A. Borden, June 20, 1893
"In the background is what looks like a little girl in turn of the century dress, hugging a tombstone. There are zooms that show it more clearly --"
__________________________
Clear as mud, if you ask me. Even if there were a girl there, it would be impossible to tell what period her dress is. I cannot see it as anything more than an optical illusion. (The "dress" is just sunlight shining through the branches of a tree.)
(By the way, did you notice the grammatical gaffe at the top? ("Visiting the cemetery of a friend whom passed away a few years back." (!!!))
Yeah I have heard a lot of ghost stories, and have had a few strange experiences but nothing close to ghost/haunting stories. Ghost stories/hauntings tend to be divided into three categories:
1. seeing the outline or shape of a person (why rarely ever animals?) moving from one point to another, sometimes utlizing landmarks or building fixtures that are no longer around
2. sensing a presence, seeing an orb, or otherwise getting a creepy or cold feeling or feeling of being not alone
3. household objects or locks toyed with, windows opened or shut, or other such nuisances.
I like to hear about the 1st category most of all because I do also wonder if there is something about our experiences that can echo throughout time. I know there are moods to places that have to do with what events have recently affected the area, but I wonder sometimes if certain random experiences get stuck in time, like a weak spot in the fabric...funny enough it seems to be usually just moving from one location to another, or war experiences. I dont think of these stories as any indication that the dead are still alive in another dimension or what have you, because they really arent animated just moving from one point to another, and I really wonder if they can see you, but i doubt it. One curious question is, why do they often only occur when only one or two people are around? Why not in the middle of the street in broad daylight and business traffic? Would it not be noticed that some lady was walking down stairs that arent there anymore?
I dont really give much creedance at all to the 2nd category because people scare themselves senseless all the time. We have very keen senses and we really are only conscious of about 1/4 of what our senses are picking up, if that. But it could still go along with the 3rd category. I think the 3rd category, when not altogether questionable due to fraud or misperceptions, is possibly down to creatures whose existence we really havent explored in depth, even when taking on the forms resembling loved ones of ours who are now dead. I think its ridiculously arrogant to believe we know everything about every creature on this world.
So I dont believe in ghosts myself.
The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way.
unknown
With animals (pets), I have, and others have told me, that they/we tend to see them out of the corner of the eye.
This happens to me a lot, since I've lost so many kittys.
I *see* them in their favorite spot. I could never see them straight on tho.
I have read, also, that it is likely that if there is a presence
*haunting*- what you call *passing back and forth* that
it is happening on the sidewalk or in some populated area but people don't especially notice. The fellow walking ahead of you on the sidewalk may not be solid after all...
I agree with Kat,...i belive that certain events occur. kind of like a ghost is stuck in time. I believe sometimes this happens because this person's life tasks were not completed, or something strange surrounding their deaths. They hope to finish things. Maybe this sounds too much like a movie, but I personally believe it.
Personally, I don't want to see anything.
But I have smelled aromas reminiscent of a loved one.
It is a loving, calming feeling to smell my father's after- shave around me when he's been gone 15 years.
When I was swimming next door all last summer the house was empty but my friend who had passed had smoked cigarettes and I would feel like I was being watched and then I would smell cigarette smoke! (In the back yard by the pool!)
I think I must be more open to the sense of smell.
I found it disillusioning to realize that the smells you associate with loved ones have no exclusive connection with them.
I remember that, walking home from school a few days after my grandfather had died, I could smell his favorite cigar. I didn't want to realize that this was because a man near me was in fact smoking such a cigar.
Years later, I came to realize that the smell I associated with my other grandfather, also deceased, was just that of any old flower shop.
Well I am talking about in my home where my father lived.
He wore Aqua Velva after shave and since I am now allergic to things like that, no one comes over with smell on.
Especially that smell! I don't know of anyone who still uses AquaVelva, but I've smelled it..
So when you say "Smells you associate with loved ones.." you mean you, not me...
Something did happen soon after he died besides that phone call I told you about.
It's hard to describe, so I left it out of the discussion.
We have hand-shaped oven mits hanging in the kitchen. One always hangs from the little hook on the wall facing one way and the other hangs on it's own little hook right next to it, another way. One night I noticed they were hanging so that the thumb parts were together and they were sticking out away from the wall like hands in prayer.
It was the oddest thing and it's never happened since.
I agree with Kat,...i belive that certain events occur. kind of like a ghost is stuck in time. I believe sometimes this happens because this person's life tasks were not completed, or something strange surrounding their deaths. They hope to finish things. Maybe this sounds too much like a movie, but I personally believe it.