Do you believe in ghosts?

Thunderfinger

Here is something that happened to me and a handful of others in the 90s.

I was working at an activity house that had been a school a few decades earlier. One evening while I was in the kitchen, I saw this stranger entering the cafe outside, and moving around the corner behind the desk. I walked out to see what he wanted, as customers had no business behind the desk. There was nobody there, and there is no other entramce or exit there than the one cafe door. I asked a few regular customers where the guy went, but nobody had seen anyone.

A week or two later, the exact same thing happened again, and I recognized the man as the same one. Short, elderly man with gray hair around the ears and bald on top, wearing blue janitor-like garments. Again, no one had seen him.

I told my boss about it the next day, and learned that the present janitor in the house had seen a man with the same appearance several times on the third floor. (cafe was on the first floor, btw.) He had also just suddenly vanished, and he had once felt a hand on his shoulder when no one was to be seen.

On one of my lockup rounds on that third floor, I looked into the cinema room to see that no one had stayed behind. While I so did, I heard a heavy rattling of the doorknob. I immediately walked out into the hallway, but could see no one. That was the one time I got a little freaked out, and hurried out.

A couple of other guests had also seen this man, and one of them had once entered the pool room where he saw a man with the same appearance sitting on a couch. The man looked at him and said "So there you are. I have been waiting for you." He turned around to see who he was talking to, but no one else was there. On turning his head back, the man was gone. No other exit or entrance to that room either.

A few nights after closing time, me and five or six regular clients would stay and play cards. On two occasions, the volume button on the stereo was physically turned to lower the volume. Everyone was a witness. On one of those evenings, we would all hear footsteps descending down the corridor outside the cafe, although we could see no one.

One of the girls who worked there thought it could be her Grandfather who had been a principal when the building was a school. I honestly don t know, but my theory (and that is all it is) was that this was a confused ghost, trapped in the environment.

A few years prior to this I worked in an old hotel where several guests had seen a "white lady" at night, on the forest road outside, but also in one particular room. There had been a murder at the place in the 1920s in a spiritist environment. I never saw this lady, but did see a couple of shadowy human forms (not shadows, distinctly three dimensional human forms without clear features) No idea what that was, but once while I was alone in the kitchen, a huge casserole suddenly jumped from the bench and landed on the floor a couple of metres away.

I am open to alternative explanations to these phenomena, but I also had other experiences of a more personal nature that have convinced me there is a parallell world, and that death is not the end. I am not trying to convince a damn soul here, feel free to doubt it all you want. I don t care, but spare me the constant ridicule, it makes you look like morons if I am honest.

tanaka123

TheWizardOfIce wrote: »

stag wrote: »

What has rejecting theological doctrine get to do with the subject in hand? Of course The burden of proof lies with both parties otherwise what happens when those who reject the existence of spirits have have their own claims rejected? The believer then becomes the rejector ergo the rejector in the first instance has then to prove their own claims!

That anyone who has the temerity to question the pack mentality which has sadly prevailed here themselves becomes an enemy is as obvious as it is disturbing.

The principles of law as you to which you pertain in your 'PS' has absolutely no relevance to this matter as it again drifts so far away from the actual initial question raised as to be completely irrelevant. Let's be clear I am speaking about whether or not ghosts exist.

Unfortunately that you feel that you are not obliged in anyway to justify your own points of view on the matter of whether ghosts exist or not by providing proof - and yes the onus is on you just as it is those whose experiences or theories you reject - means that your point of view has no more credence than those whom you wish to undermine.

Just for clarities sake I am not saying that you are wrong or the believers are wrong or you are right or the believers are right. I want you (the rejectors) and them to give me and other people who are neither one way or the other on the subject some evidence with which to back up your theories.

Your position is, frankly, ludicrous.

I take it you consider that all criminals should therefore be set free because clearly balance of probability and beyond reasonable doubt hold zero credibility in your world view?

Even if 50 witnesses saw a bloke hack someone to death with an axe that would be insufficient evidence as given we cannot disprove he wasn't possessed with the spirit of the devil or Hitler or Vlad the Impaler or whoever then we have to acquit don't we?

But if it's disproving ghosts you're after I would point to the fact that no believer can come up with a scintilla of evidence beyond the anecdotal. I would assume that something humankind has been looking into for so many centuries might have gone slightly beyond 'I heard a noise when I was alone in the house once. And my gran died in that house. Ergo ghosts exist' if it had any basis in fact.

Whereas something like atoms were barely a hypothesis 200 years ago. Yet by 1945 we had proven their existence, split them and used the power to destroy cities.

The notion of ghosts has been around for thousands of years yet we still haven't managed to evolve beyond camp fire tales.

Agreed.

barryt007

15 pages of arguing (

Thunderfinger wrote: »

Here is something that happened to me and a handful of others in the 90s.

I was working at an activity house that had been a school a few decades earlier. One evening while I was in the kitchen, I saw this stranger entering the cafe outside, and moving around the corner behind the desk. I walked out to see what he wanted, as customers had no business behind the desk. There was nobody there, and there is no other entramce or exit there than the one cafe door. I asked a few regular customers where the guy went, but nobody had seen anyone.

A week or two later, the exact same thing happened again, and I recognized the man as the same one. Short, elderly man with gray hair around the ears and bald on top, wearing blue janitor-like garments. Again, no one had seen him.

I told my boss about it the next day, and learned that the present janitor in the house had seen a man with the same appearance several times on the third floor. (cafe was on the first floor, btw.) He had also just suddenly vanished, and he had once felt a hand on his shoulder when no one was to be seen.

On one of my lockup rounds on that third floor, I looked into the cinema room to see that no one had stayed behind. While I so did, I heard a heavy rattling of the doorknob. I immediately walked out into the hallway, but could see no one. That was the one time I got a little freaked out, and hurried out.

A couple of other guests had also seen this man, and one of them had once entered the pool room where he saw a man with the same appearance sitting on a couch. The man looked at him and said "So there you are. I have been waiting for you." He turned around to see who he was talking to, but no one else was there. On turning his head back, the man was gone. No other exit or entrance to that room either.

A few nights after closing time, me and five or six regular clients would stay and play cards. On two occasions, the volume button on the stereo was physically turned to lower the volume. Everyone was a witness. On one of those evenings, we would all hear footsteps descending down the corridor outside the cafe, although we could see no one.

One of the girls who worked there thought it could be her Grandfather who had been a principal when the building was a school. I honestly don t know, but my theory (and that is all it is) was that this was a confused ghost, trapped in the environment.

A few years prior to this I worked in an old hotel where several guests had seen a "white lady" at night, on the forest road outside, but also in one particular room. There had been a murder at the place in the 1920s in a spiritist environment. I never saw this lady, but did see a couple of shadowy human forms (not shadows, distinctly three dimensional human forms without clear features) No idea what that was, but once while I was alone in the kitchen, a huge casserole suddenly jumped from the bench and landed on the floor a couple of metres away.

I am open to alternative explanations to these phenomena, but I also had other experiences of a more personal nature that have convinced me there is a parallell world, and that death is not the end. I am not trying to convince a damn soul here, feel free to doubt it all you want. I don t care, but spare me the constant ridicule, it makes you look like morons if I am honest.

Well said...it's a typical human response..if you cant prove someone's belief is wrong then attack and ridicule it....sad....

TheWizardOfIce

Thunderfinger wrote: »

Here is something that happened to me and a handful of others in the 90s.

I was working at an activity house that had been a school a few decades earlier. One evening while I was in the kitchen, I saw this stranger entering the cafe outside, and moving around the corner behind the desk. I walked out to see what he wanted, as customers had no business behind the desk. There was nobody there, and there is no other entramce or exit there than the one cafe door. I asked a few regular customers where the guy went, but nobody had seen anyone.

A week or two later, the exact same thing happened again, and I recognized the man as the same one. Short, elderly man with gray hair around the ears and bald on top, wearing blue janitor-like garments. Again, no one had seen him.

I told my boss about it the next day, and learned that the present janitor in the house had seen a man with the same appearance several times on the third floor. (cafe was on the first floor, btw.) He had also just suddenly vanished, and he had once felt a hand on his shoulder when no one was to be seen.

On one of my lockup rounds on that third floor, I looked into the cinema room to see that no one had stayed behind. While I so did, I heard a heavy rattling of the doorknob. I immediately walked out into the hallway, but could see no one. That was the one time I got a little freaked out, and hurried out.

A couple of other guests had also seen this man, and one of them had once entered the pool room where he saw a man with the same appearance sitting on a couch. The man looked at him and said "So there you are. I have been waiting for you." He turned around to see who he was talking to, but no one else was there. On turning his head back, the man was gone. No other exit or entrance to that room either.

A few nights after closing time, me and five or six regular clients would stay and play cards. On two occasions, the volume button on the stereo was physically turned to lower the volume. Everyone was a witness. On one of those evenings, we would all hear footsteps descending down the corridor outside the cafe, although we could see no one.

One of the girls who worked there thought it could be her Grandfather who had been a principal when the building was a school. I honestly don t know, but my theory (and that is all it is) was that this was a confused ghost, trapped in the environment.

A few years prior to this I worked in an old hotel where several guests had seen a "white lady" at night, on the forest road outside, but also in one particular room. There had been a murder at the place in the 1920s in a spiritist environment. I never saw this lady, but did see a couple of shadowy human forms (not shadows, distinctly three dimensional human forms without clear features) No idea what that was, but once while I was alone in the kitchen, a huge casserole suddenly jumped from the bench and landed on the floor a couple of metres away.

I am open to alternative explanations to these phenomena, but I also had other experiences of a more personal nature that have convinced me there is a parallell world, and that death is not the end. I am not trying to convince a damn soul here, feel free to doubt it all you want. I don t care, but spare me the constant ridicule, it makes you look like morons if I am honest.

I'm not going to cast any doubt on what you experienced or the probity of yourself or the other witnesses as I lack any data with which to do so but why do you happen to settle on the explanation that the guy is a ghost?

Why couldn't he be like Matthew McConaughey in Interstellar and be someone trapped in a black hole? Why couldn't he be Marty McFly back from the future or past? Or, infinitely more plausibly, why couldn't there have been some sort of ruptured pipe in that building that was accidentally releasing hallucinogenic gas affecting everyone in the vicinity?

I don't understand why the first hypothesis s ghosts and there is no willingness to row back from that position.

Sherlock Holmes said 'Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'

But the believer doesn't seem to even attempt to eliminate anything at all and just leaps for 'ghosts' as the answer like a bloke in the Sahara leaps for a bottle of Evian. The tragedy is that in both cases it's just a mirage.

patb

"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."
Christopher Hitchens

stag

Ludovico wrote: »

@stag You do not understand the burden of proof, how we investigate or how we establish truth.

Er I beg to differ. Again I point out that we are not in a court of law (I've been in a few in my time - have you?) but I am attempting to differentiate between why some people think it is acceptable for them to expouse their opinions (and that's all they are) without being willing or able to back them up but expect exactly the opposite of others.

TheWizardOfIce wrote: »

Your position is, frankly, ludicrous.

As is yours. I'm guessing you haven'y read my posts. Attempts to obsfucate to strengthen ones own position is never a good move. It's most interesting to note that a simple request to provide evidence can quickly create such a reaction from those who demand it of others?

Shame that what had the potential to be an interesting discussion was derailed so quickly.

tanaka123

He said, she said ...

patb

The difference between proving a positive and proving a negative is pretty obvious? Well, I thought so anyway.

stag

tanaka123 wrote: »

He said, she said ...

That's all it is. Nobodys opinion on this subject carries any more weight than any other because no one has proof of their argument.

barryt007

15 pages of ridicule and supposition...you lot might as well be arguing about politics...its an argument nobody can win .

patb

It must be a truely terrifying World to live in, to be open to the existance of anything, purely on the basis that someone has suggested it. So terrifying that I cant think that people live in that World.

tanaka123

barryt007 wrote: »

15 pages of ridicule and supposition...you lot might as well be arguing about politics...its an argument nobody can win .

My original post on this thread consisted of the word 'No' - I'm surprised this thread has run and run, thought it would die a quick death ...

BondJasonBond006

441 comments in 14 days.

On ghosts!

I suppose we are all bored to death and need something to fill the void of Bond-news-lessness.

But if we are bored to death aren't we all dead and therefore ghosts haunting this forum?

Thunderfinger

TheWizardOfIce wrote: »

Thunderfinger wrote: »

Here is something that happened to me and a handful of others in the 90s.

I was working at an activity house that had been a school a few decades earlier. One evening while I was in the kitchen, I saw this stranger entering the cafe outside, and moving around the corner behind the desk. I walked out to see what he wanted, as customers had no business behind the desk. There was nobody there, and there is no other entramce or exit there than the one cafe door. I asked a few regular customers where the guy went, but nobody had seen anyone.

A week or two later, the exact same thing happened again, and I recognized the man as the same one. Short, elderly man with gray hair around the ears and bald on top, wearing blue janitor-like garments. Again, no one had seen him.

I told my boss about it the next day, and learned that the present janitor in the house had seen a man with the same appearance several times on the third floor. (cafe was on the first floor, btw.) He had also just suddenly vanished, and he had once felt a hand on his shoulder when no one was to be seen.

On one of my lockup rounds on that third floor, I looked into the cinema room to see that no one had stayed behind. While I so did, I heard a heavy rattling of the doorknob. I immediately walked out into the hallway, but could see no one. That was the one time I got a little freaked out, and hurried out.

A couple of other guests had also seen this man, and one of them had once entered the pool room where he saw a man with the same appearance sitting on a couch. The man looked at him and said "So there you are. I have been waiting for you." He turned around to see who he was talking to, but no one else was there. On turning his head back, the man was gone. No other exit or entrance to that room either.

A few nights after closing time, me and five or six regular clients would stay and play cards. On two occasions, the volume button on the stereo was physically turned to lower the volume. Everyone was a witness. On one of those evenings, we would all hear footsteps descending down the corridor outside the cafe, although we could see no one.

One of the girls who worked there thought it could be her Grandfather who had been a principal when the building was a school. I honestly don t know, but my theory (and that is all it is) was that this was a confused ghost, trapped in the environment.

A few years prior to this I worked in an old hotel where several guests had seen a "white lady" at night, on the forest road outside, but also in one particular room. There had been a murder at the place in the 1920s in a spiritist environment. I never saw this lady, but did see a couple of shadowy human forms (not shadows, distinctly three dimensional human forms without clear features) No idea what that was, but once while I was alone in the kitchen, a huge casserole suddenly jumped from the bench and landed on the floor a couple of metres away.

I am open to alternative explanations to these phenomena, but I also had other experiences of a more personal nature that have convinced me there is a parallell world, and that death is not the end. I am not trying to convince a damn soul here, feel free to doubt it all you want. I don t care, but spare me the constant ridicule, it makes you look like morons if I am honest.

I'm not going to cast any doubt on what you experienced or the probity of yourself or the other witnesses as I lack any data with which to do so but why do you happen to settle on the explanation that the guy is a ghost?

Why couldn't he be like Matthew McConaughey in Interstellar and be someone trapped in a black hole? Why couldn't he be Marty McFly back from the future or past? Or, infinitely more plausibly, why couldn't there have been some sort of ruptured pipe in that building that was accidentally releasing hallucinogenic gas affecting everyone in the vicinity?

I don't understand why the first hypothesis s ghosts and there is no willingness to row back from that position.

Sherlock Holmes said 'Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'

But the believer doesn't seem to even attempt to eliminate anything at all and just leaps for 'ghosts' as the answer like a bloke in the Sahara leaps for a bottle of Evian. The tragedy is that in both cases it's just a mirage.

You just skimmed through it, didn t you?

barryt007

BondJasonBond006 wrote: »

441 comments in 14 days.

On ghosts!

I suppose we are all bored to death and need something to fill the void of Bond-news-lessness.

But if we are bored to death aren't we all dead and therefore ghosts haunting this forum?

That actually could well be the reason !!

TheWizardOfIce

Thunderfinger wrote: »

TheWizardOfIce wrote: »

Thunderfinger wrote: »

Here is something that happened to me and a handful of others in the 90s.

I was working at an activity house that had been a school a few decades earlier. One evening while I was in the kitchen, I saw this stranger entering the cafe outside, and moving around the corner behind the desk. I walked out to see what he wanted, as customers had no business behind the desk. There was nobody there, and there is no other entramce or exit there than the one cafe door. I asked a few regular customers where the guy went, but nobody had seen anyone.

A week or two later, the exact same thing happened again, and I recognized the man as the same one. Short, elderly man with gray hair around the ears and bald on top, wearing blue janitor-like garments. Again, no one had seen him.

I told my boss about it the next day, and learned that the present janitor in the house had seen a man with the same appearance several times on the third floor. (cafe was on the first floor, btw.) He had also just suddenly vanished, and he had once felt a hand on his shoulder when no one was to be seen.

On one of my lockup rounds on that third floor, I looked into the cinema room to see that no one had stayed behind. While I so did, I heard a heavy rattling of the doorknob. I immediately walked out into the hallway, but could see no one. That was the one time I got a little freaked out, and hurried out.

A couple of other guests had also seen this man, and one of them had once entered the pool room where he saw a man with the same appearance sitting on a couch. The man looked at him and said "So there you are. I have been waiting for you." He turned around to see who he was talking to, but no one else was there. On turning his head back, the man was gone. No other exit or entrance to that room either.

A few nights after closing time, me and five or six regular clients would stay and play cards. On two occasions, the volume button on the stereo was physically turned to lower the volume. Everyone was a witness. On one of those evenings, we would all hear footsteps descending down the corridor outside the cafe, although we could see no one.

One of the girls who worked there thought it could be her Grandfather who had been a principal when the building was a school. I honestly don t know, but my theory (and that is all it is) was that this was a confused ghost, trapped in the environment.

A few years prior to this I worked in an old hotel where several guests had seen a "white lady" at night, on the forest road outside, but also in one particular room. There had been a murder at the place in the 1920s in a spiritist environment. I never saw this lady, but did see a couple of shadowy human forms (not shadows, distinctly three dimensional human forms without clear features) No idea what that was, but once while I was alone in the kitchen, a huge casserole suddenly jumped from the bench and landed on the floor a couple of metres away.

I am open to alternative explanations to these phenomena, but I also had other experiences of a more personal nature that have convinced me there is a parallell world, and that death is not the end. I am not trying to convince a damn soul here, feel free to doubt it all you want. I don t care, but spare me the constant ridicule, it makes you look like morons if I am honest.

I'm not going to cast any doubt on what you experienced or the probity of yourself or the other witnesses as I lack any data with which to do so but why do you happen to settle on the explanation that the guy is a ghost?

Why couldn't he be like Matthew McConaughey in Interstellar and be someone trapped in a black hole? Why couldn't he be Marty McFly back from the future or past? Or, infinitely more plausibly, why couldn't there have been some sort of ruptured pipe in that building that was accidentally releasing hallucinogenic gas affecting everyone in the vicinity?

I don't understand why the first hypothesis s ghosts and there is no willingness to row back from that position.

Sherlock Holmes said 'Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'

But the believer doesn't seem to even attempt to eliminate anything at all and just leaps for 'ghosts' as the answer like a bloke in the Sahara leaps for a bottle of Evian. The tragedy is that in both cases it's just a mirage.

You just skimmed through it, didn t you?

I've read your post several times and the only 'evidence' that I can see that couldve lead you to the conclusion that your experiences were a ghost rather than any of the random hypotheses I suggested above is that some woman had a dead grandfather who once worked there or the murder of some woman (although you admit never even saw her ghost).

Well by this logic shouldn't hospitals be teeming with ghosts since most people die there?

And if you take any building over 50 or 60 years old it shouldn't be too difficult to find someone who once worked there who has since died.

Thunderfinger

You really have a simpleton s view on these matters. And you still haven t read it properly.

stag

patb wrote: »

It must be a truely terrifying World to live in, to be open to the existance of anything, purely on the basis that someone has suggested it. So terrifying that I cant think that people live in that World.

I would have thought it more terrifying to live life in a cage of one's own making. Even more terrifying to have the compulsion to mission creep, in that instance someone else has summed up the situation better than I could........

Quote: "you don't believe in ghosts and you are determined to make people who do feel as foolish as possible."

I don't even have to hand you any rope.........................

patb

I did not make up the concepts of evidence based research, logic, reason, peer review, rationality etc etc. These were established by better people than myself many years ago and they have since served us well. They help us create a whole wealth of "stuff" that makes our lives better and they will serve us well in future.

Beliefs that threaten these principles need to be challenged and, IMHO, more vigorously than we have in the past. If, as an off spin of that, it leaves some feeling upset or offended, then its unfortunate but he have to "stick to our guns",

the human species is going to make little progress staring into the bottom of empty tea cups or creating fictitious spirits who have decided to turn the lights on and off.

Ludovico

@Stag There is a reason why the burden of proof is on the person making the positive claim: because we are trying to establish what the truth is. In a court of law or elsewhere, especially since we are talking here of the nature of reality. And reality is not whatever one wants it to be.

@Thunderfinger your experiences have a lot of equivocal (at best) phenomenons and involve a lot of percepitions... And confirmation bias. How do we go from a shape and some noise to the spirit of the dead?

DarthDimi

I suggest we don't get worked up over @Stag. Future generations will refer to people like him in history textbooks. "Remember the New Middle-Ages?", they'll mockingly say. "Remember when physics had figured so much out but failed to reach so few? Remember when people actually clung to silly beliefs?" And next to the caveman who worshipped the god of fertility, and the alchemist who tried to find the elixir of life, they'll print a picture of the 21st century Homo Superstitious.

Thunderfinger

I explicitly said I have no proof. I even said I am open to other explanations. Nobody saw that?

I just shared a couple of freak experiences in the spirit of this thread, the way I see it anyway. Those experiences never actually convinced me either way. It is the total sum of everything I have experienced, read and heard that did that.

I will repeat that I am not trying to convince anyone at all. This thread has taken the hue of pseudo-religious debate.

tanaka123 wrote: »

Sorry to burst the bubble but ghosts DO NOT EXIST.

Here is an example of immature fanaticism if I ever saw one. There is a difference between saying you do not believe/are not convinced, which is fair enough, and dealing out absolutes like this, or worse, ridicule and denigrate people with a different perspective.

barryt007

tanaka123 wrote: »

Sorry to burst the bubble but ghosts DO NOT EXIST.

Your proof to state that fact is....?

Ludovico

The problem with those freak experiences is that they are ambiguous at best. I am not saying they were not troubling but troubling is no evidence, even for yourself (Because yes I know you said you have no evidence to show), of supernatural.

Thunderfinger

Skepticism is healthy. Narrowminded fanaticism isn t.

Ludovico

How does one go from "I saw some funny shapes and heard strange noises" to "that was a confused ghost? ".

Dragonpol

DarthDimi wrote: »

I suggest we don't get worked up over @Stag. Future generations will refer to people like him in history textbooks. "Remember the New Middle-Ages?", they'll mockingly say. "Remember when physics had figured so much out but failed to reach so few? Remember when people actually clung to silly beliefs?" And next to the caveman who worshipped the god of fertility, and the alchemist who tried to find the elixir of life, they'll print a picture of the 21st century Homo Superstitious.

@stag is a friend and perhaps the reason people here are getting so worked up is that he is an ex-policeman of many years' experience and he speaks of the burden of proof from said experience. In other words he's been in a court of law many times in his career and he actually knows of what he is talking regarding the burden of proof. But then that doesn't fit in with the simpleton image you are unfairly trying to paint of him here.

Anyone ever heard of a reverse burden of proof? No, I thought not.

TheWizardOfIce

Thunderfinger wrote: »

I honestly don t know, but my theory (and that is all it is) was that this was a confused ghost, trapped in the environment....

...I am open to alternative explanations to these phenomena, but I also had other experiences of a more personal nature that have convinced me there is a parallell world, and that death is not the end.

I think it was these statements that might have confused people into thinking you have ghosts credence.

Thunderfinger wrote: »

I explicitly said I have no proof. I even said I am open to other explanations. Nobody saw that?

I think all we 'fanatics' want to know is why did you settle upon ghosts as a theory for your experiences?

Thunderfinger

Like I said,that s just a guess. An impression. It is hard to describe those happenings to someone who wasn t there. Funny shapes and strange noises doesn t quite cover it, though. You may think I am an imbecile incapable of interpreting the world around me, a psycho whose senses and mental capabilities cannot be trusted. Fine, that s just what it is then. Satan tricked me.

Dragonpol

tanaka123 wrote: »

Sorry to burst the bubble but ghosts DO NOT EXIST.

Woahhh! We better close my thread then. The Voice of Authority has spoken. I'm sure the compelling evidence you have compiled will follow this forum post...