Do You Believe in Ghosts?

[jessica]

How about this photo? There are no foil serving containers to be seen in this photo---plus I aimed high and not at the food. There is also a streak of light on the wall to the right:

[Earth 2 Chris]

Put me down as a believer, as I too grew up in a haunted house. My mother, father and sister have all seen our ghost up close and personal, but I haven't. I caught glimpses of her out of the corner of my eye, and felt her go past me, felt her watching me while I slept, and I've heard many unexplainable noises, but for some reason, I never saw her up clsoe.

We called her Greta. We are pretty certain she is/was my great-grandmother, who died young when my grandmother was only 13 months old. My mother first encountered her while she was a child at my grandparents house. My mother tried to tell my grandparents about her, but they wouldn't believe her. When my mother got married and moved out, my grandparents moved their bed into her old room. They stayed in the room one week.

She began appearing at our house (where my dad still lives) when I was around 5 or so. She liked to pull little mischevious pranks and take things and hide them for a time, and then put them in really obvious places. The first instance of this was with my pair of sneakers. We looked all over the house for them for a whole day, and then suddenly we came back into the living room and they were in the middle of the floor. Other things would happen like this over the years, and as time went on and I got older, my parents and older sister would be more open about "our ghost" until one day I figured out they weren't kidding. Whenever something would disappear, one of us would say "Greta, bring that (fill-in-the-blank) back". And eventually, it would reappear.

For years, my mother was the only one who saw her, and even communicated with her. She wouldn't say much to her, just short sentences. I would often see someone out of the corner of my eye, through our living room windows, walking down our street, and angling toward the front door of our house. Of course when I went to the front of the house, no one was there, and no one was along the street or in the yard.

My father saw her one morning walking through the shower wall. He turned away from the mirror and saw her back half sticking out of the wall. Up until this point, he was pretty skeptical, but this changed his mind.

We eventually concluded that Greta's appearances began after my mother received the spectrograph viewer that had belonged to my great-grandmother. My grandmother had it in her house for years, during the time my mom saw Greta at her childhood home. Were they connected? Not entirely sure, but I told my sister she could have that thing in the will!!!


Ever since my mother passed away, my Dad hasn't experienced much in the way of the unexplained. She used to like to jerk my parent's bedroom door open in the middle of the night. That was about the most "violent" thing she ever did.

Me, myself, the only thing I really "saw" was my cat, two weeks after he had been put to sleep (he had leukemia and was suffering). I saw him go past the doorway of my office in our old apartment, where he had lived. My wife saw him too. We saw him for about a week a few times, and then he disappeared.

For two years we lived in the house next to my grandmother. We knew the house had once been a furneral parlor and was well over 100 years old, so I was kind of expecting some kind of activity. Well, my wife, who was also pretty skeptical at that point, saw a man walk through one wall of our house and out another while watching TV in the living room one night. She came into me and looked like Lou Costello. Neither of us ever saw anything in that house again.

I dont' share these stories much, because for years I told NO ONE. I too know skeptics won't believe it, and that's okay. I've seen enough myself, and trust my family enough to know what I just told you was real.

Chris

[EMCE Hammer]

You people are freaking me out. This stuff scares the bejeezus out of me.

[jessica]

It scares me a lot, too, which is why I don't want to watch scary movies about ghosts and phenomena like that...but I can't help but relish reading through this thread and reading about other people's experiences. It's freaky but neat!!

[jayihdz]

I do believe, when my daugther was 3 years old seh used to get up in middle of the night to play with her "friend". The "friend" used to wake her up every night at the same time for 2 weeks until I got really upset and I asked the "friend" to stop doing it. After that it never happen again.

[imp]

Wow, this thread is way cooler than I ever imagined it could be. I was half-expecting public ridicule for even asking the question, so it's nice to read so many passionate, fascinating posts. Thanks to everyone who has shared.

It happened one night but when I rolled over to turn the radio off, I saw a small shadow figure pull the cord from the wall...and I almost pooped my pants. The next morning, when I woke up, I looked over at the radio to see if I was just having a dream but the cord was pulled from the radio just as I saw. I also found out that my best friend's mother died that very night almost exactly at the same time I remember waking up to turn off the radio.

It's creepy but in retrospect, I was asleep and only half awake when I saw what happened. I could have just had a dream and it is possible that in my dream the radio was on but really wasn't. The only weird part of it all was that my friend's mother did really die at the same time I saw or dreamed what happened which might have just been mere coincidence.

Now that is just plain creepy. My mother has shared some very similar experiences with me, and I get the heebs just hearing those stories!

Cool stuff.

Benjamin

[jessica]

I know this is not really ghost-related...but when we were in highschool, my girlfriends and I used a Ouija Board and we solemnly swore to each other that we would not fool around with each other, that whatever it spelled out was what it wanted to spell out. So, we decided to see what it would do when one of us asked a question that had "no" as a definite answer, while the other person asked a question that had "yes" as a definite answer. After a few seconds, the thing started to spell this: S T O P....and then the clear plastic thing went around in circles--it was literally pulled out of our hands as it motioned itself in wide circles and flew off of the board. Needless to say, we did stop immediately. The Ouija Board is wrapped in newspapers in my mother's basement. We are afraid to throw it out in case it "reappears" in the house.

[Mikey]

My mom had a priest come to bless our house.

The incidents still continued even after the blessing.

One thing though, all the ghostly incidents seemed to never be related to us living in the house.

Like someone mentioned on a past post, it was almost like the ghosts didn't even know -- or care -- we were there.

They seemed to just go about their own business oblivious to us.

[jessica]

I forgot to say that the apartment we used to live in San Francisco was haunted. I lived with my sister, and as girls, we ALWAYS locked the door. Always. Made sure it was slammed shut. One night, the lever of the doorknob was pushed down and the door slammed open. It was not a windy night. There is no way to open that door without pushing the lever down first. We were already in bed about to retire, and we heard the lever click down and the door bang open onto the doorstop. I was terrified and I ran to the door and closed it. My hands were shaking as I shut the door.

Also, when we were seated together with a group of people in the eat-in-kitchen, my sister and I saw the butter knife levitate from the stove top and fly to an arc onto the refrigerator completely opposite to the stove top. The distance between the stove top to the refrigerator is about four feet. It clattered to the floor. This was in bright daylight.

[csxernie]

i absolutely believe. I'm very religious and growing up in an old house there were always some sort of friendly spirit that you would catch out of the corner of my eye and swear it was a person there. as for ufos' yes i have seen them.2000-UFO Collides with Train in Kentucky and will never forget it that dark night on the big sandy division.

[RG]

our house was built by my dad in 1979 and we are the only people that have lived in it. a few years ago my Mom who was up early saw a small blond haired girl in a white dress crawling up the stairway, and at first thought it was my niece, but when she went to look there was nothing there. about a year later, I walked into the kitchen and saw a little blonde girl in a white dress playing with my niece's toy then poof she disappeared right in front of my eyes ... I was more than a little freaked. then a year later my sister saw her by the stairway. Each time it's about Christmas time and we never see her any other time and we never see her face.

I don't know if it's a ghost or if maybe just our minds thinking we are seeing her, it seems real, but I'm not really ready to say I've seen a ghost. Thinking back about what I saw .. and what I think I saw the only thing I know for sure is I saw white, and that could have just been my eyes messing with me. My sister can be fooled easy ... but my mom is the one that's hard to explain.

One thing that was kind of fun is after seeing a show on ghost hunting my sister wanted to go take pictures of a graveyard at night ... So I went with and snapped a few pictures ... Got a bunch of those "orb" things but I have a feeling some of that was the shine off of the headstones. .. Or I had a ghost like 2 feet from me. Either way my sister just about pee'd her pants

here's a picture from our graveyard visit

[jessica]

Russ, did you see the orbs on my photos? They look just like the orbs on your photo!! Yours looks like it's snowing. There's nothing on headstones to shine back like that. I think what you have are orbs! Freaky! Neato! I love this stuff!!

[Dr. Phibes]

I personally can say I believe in a creative power(I know we aren't supposed to bring up religion in our threads) that I guess would be God. I dont know if things in previouse replies are ghosts, spirits or what. I dont believe in the Devil per say since good and evil are interlinked-just like life and death. So... I believe we experience things we cant understand and that scares us as people. I dont think we are alone in the cosmos or on this plane of existance. I would like to think the people I loved that have passed are in a better place and not scarring some poor kid half to death, but like most of you have mentioned, most of us have experienced "unearthly" happenings. For the most part after my rambling I would have to say I believe in "something"... but I cant lable it.

[livnxxxl]

As a long time an avid Horror film fan it really fascinates me by reading all of the stories here so far. Good stuff. Although I am still not scared as I have yet to find a horror movie these days that would actually scare me like some did when I was a kid. Still interesting stuff to read here none the less. Please keep the stories coming.

[RG]

Russ, did you see the orbs on my photos? They look just like the orbs on your photo!! Yours looks like it's snowing. There's nothing on headstones to shine back like that. I think what you have are orbs! Freaky! Neato! I love this stuff!!

really there are a lot more smaller ones in the picture, but the resizing I did to it to make fit better, made the smaller ones not show up. The headstones in the picture are old ones like from the late 1800's