Do You Believe in Ghosts?

[jessica]

Is it possible that the orbs are just picture development problems? I remember taking photography classes in High School and although we used black and white as a medium, sometimes the film would get a little messed up if it had the slightest exposure to light or sometimes the developing chemicals would give similar orb like appearances on the picture.

Maybe. It's all digital and the pictures I have taken with this camera have never had those orbs before the party. And I haven't seen any orbs anymore with my newer shots.

[toys2cool]

I AM SOOOOOOO FREAKED OUT! I wonder if that's why my mom HATES to go to the basement of her house--she says she feels creeped out down there...I don't know how to get it out of her house...Thank you for this information!! I only pray I am brave enough to get it out of her house now.

wow,I too believe in the Ouija Board,my grand mother was always using it.It use to freak the hell out of me.I remember someone in the neighborhood calling the police on my grandmother for animal abuse,knowing that she didn't abuse them(she'd just take in all the abused animals from the neighborhood,that people would leave on her doorstep) they thought it was her doing and she ended up getting arrested at almost 70 years old for something that she didn't do,she could'nt even hurt a fly.But w/e she started asking ??'s on the board and the person told her it was the guy across the street...She asked if there was something she should do? it said NO and didn't answer again.The next day the guy died of a heart attack,call it what you want but I don't mess with that crap

[jessica]

This experience is 100% ghost-related. I've researched the topic of Ouija Boards for many years, played with the Parker Bros. board as a kid, constructed homemade boards, written articles on the topic, and personally witnessed a case of "Ouija Possession." The talking oracle is not a toy and should not be taken lightly. In addition, it should never be used at parties when alcohol or drugs are being consumed. I don't even recommend storing one in your basement or attic. I've seen the planchette (pointer) move on its own without any fingers touching it. I've seen the planchette fly up in the air and shoot across the room. I've witnessed the pointer move so fast for minutes at a time that we needed a person to stand overhead and call out letters while someone else wrote them down. It moved quicker than two people could possibly move it as a hoax. After pages of letters, we would decipher the words and messages. I've read messages from spirits who spoke with obsolete words and no longer used expressions. And most frightenly, I saw a spirit enter the body of a close friend while "playing" with the Ouija. I saw his demeanor change, his facial expressions contort, and his attitude and behavior worsten. I was a participant in a semi-exorcism in which we successfully freed my friend.
Yes, the board was burned. Years went by before my fingers touched another board, and no, there is not one in my house at this time. Remember, the premise of the "Exorcist" is based on a true story. For those of you who don't remember the beginning of the movie, Linda Blair is communicating with a spirit via the Ouija Board. The Ouija served as a portal between two worlds. It was a door for the possession to occur. Jess, I'm glad you listened to your first messge: S-T-O-P. I do believe!!!

I AM SOOOOOOO FREAKED OUT! I wonder if that's why my mom HATES to go to the basement of her house--she says she feels creeped out down there...I don't know how to get it out of her house...Thank you for this information!! I only pray I am brave enough to get it out of her house now.

[Manspider]

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.

This experience is 100% ghost-related. I've researched the topic of Ouija Boards for many years, played with the Parker Bros. board as a kid, constructed homemade boards, written articles on the topic, and personally witnessed a case of "Ouija Possession." The talking oracle is not a toy and should not be taken lightly. In addition, it should never be used at parties when alcohol or drugs are being consumed. I don't even recommend storing one in your basement or attic. I've seen the planchette (pointer) move on its own without any fingers touching it. I've seen the planchette fly up in the air and shoot across the room. I've witnessed the pointer move so fast for minutes at a time that we needed a person to stand overhead and call out letters while someone else wrote them down. It moved quicker than two people could possibly move it as a hoax. After pages of letters, we would decipher the words and messages. I've read messages from spirits who spoke with obsolete words and no longer used expressions. And most frightenly, I saw a spirit enter the body of a close friend while "playing" with the Ouija. I saw his demeanor change, his facial expressions contort, and his attitude and behavior worsten. I was a participant in a semi-exorcism in which we successfully freed my friend.
Yes, the board was burned. Years went by before my fingers touched another board, and no, there is not one in my house at this time. Remember, the premise of the "Exorcist" is based on a true story. For those of you who don't remember the beginning of the movie, Linda Blair is communicating with a spirit via the Ouija Board. The Ouija served as a portal between two worlds. It was a door for the possession to occur. Jess, I'm glad you listened to your first messge: S-T-O-P. I do believe!!!

[Bo8a_Fett]

When I used to work at Hampstead tube station myself and another member of staff...my supervisor...were closing up for the night...part of which included shutting off the old lifts.
This entailed going up to the machine room and physically throwing ye olde type circuit breakers to shut off the current (the entire machine room used to look like Frankensteins laboratory..lol). Anyway after shutting off the power and locking the circuit breakers in place..padlocked for saftey. we would shut off and lock all the other lift equipment such as the domes (they were man operated lifts with heavy set handles that you had to pull up to the top of the dome to operate the lift). We sat down to have a cup of tea before leaving and to our suprise we heard one of the lifts moving down towards the platform. We ran upstairs to find the main gates locked (as we'd left them) and No. 5 lift at the top landing with its doors open and the handle in the up position (difficult as its own wieght would make it fal back to the safe position). Further more when we went upstairs the circuit breakers were still padlocked in the off position...the lift had made 1 trip down and up...seemingly with no power!!!!
As an aside to this no 5 lift at Hampstead was where I met my missus and when they demolished it..I kept the wrought Iron ornamental grating as a keepsake of our first meeting.

[Earth 2 Chris]

I can't say I'm very convinced by "orbs" in and of themselves. With what I and my family have experienced, I'm not in a positiion to discount them completely, but I think they are over-diagnosed as ghosts when they could be just random tricks of lighting and photography in many cases. A lot of the "ghost hunting" TV shows lead you to believe every dust speck that flies by the camera is an orb/ghost. That's why I like the TAPS guys on "Ghost Hunters". They try to find more quantitative evidence and dismiss much of what they find that others would use as proof.

Chris

[Adam West]

Is it possible that the orbs are just picture development problems? I remember taking photography classes in High School and although we used black and white as a medium, sometimes the film would get a little messed up if it had the slightest exposure to light or sometimes the developing chemicals would give similar orb like appearances on the picture.

[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

[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.

[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.

[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!!

[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

[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.

[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.

[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.