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Ghost? Who believes in them....

Sandy G said:
This may or may not be a ghost, but it was MOST unnerving. About 5-6 years ago, maybe a little later in the year, say October, I took my sister to the store on Sat. afternoon, to get some stuff for supper. It was GLORIOUS weather, 70-75, I sat in the Mighty Valdez listenin' to the radio while she went in, drinkin' in the wonderful Fall day...I closed my eyes, but wasn't asleep...And then He showed up...A kid, tall & gangly, was RIGHT THERE, ALL AT ONCE in the driver's side window of my truck..."Please, Sir, Will you let me in, & take me to see my Mother ? Please, Sir, Let me in your Vehicle"...There was something VERY strange about this kid...And the day had gotten quite dark, like a storm was comin', but there were no clouds in the sky...And then I noticed it...HIS EYES WERE BLACK...Not just the pupils, THE WHOLE EYE, even the parts that were sposed to be white...I am normally NOT scared of much anything, but THIS freaked me out-I knew if I let this kid in my truck, that would be the end of me. I saw my sister coming out of the store, & told him-mumbling something about, sorry, but there was my sister, & did a "Casey Jones" around the parking lot...My sister got in & wanted to know why I did my Mario Andretti imitation around the parking lot...Of course, there was no kid to be seen, & I just kinda clammed up about it. That STILL freaks me out. The whole thing couldn't have been more than a half a minute, but it felt like FOREVER...And another thing, now that I think of it, HIS FACE was MOVING, kinda like it was liquid or something...Bizarre. And no, I DID NOT have anything to drink or smoke-altho I sure wished I had after that little encounter.
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Sandy, was this before or after you had read "It" by Stephen King?
 
just read " Ghost's Among Us" by James Van Praagh ( a popular Medium, or for those who are not familiar with Mediums...someone who has the ability to communicate with those on the Other Side)
 
Man, I feel like a ten year old again, I'd read this stuff get the heebeegeebee's but not be able to stop

I'm a man of science dammit, I will not be afraid!!!!

I'm going to bed......



....with the light on :)
 
so whats the spooky part?? sounds like one of you slipped up :yes:

fmueller said:
A lot of stories have been shared. So maybe it's time for me to throw caution to the wind and ad mine. When I grew up, my family lived in an old farmhouse in Germany that my granddad's granddad had built in 1877. The house had been owned by my family for all those years, and my grandparents had rented out rooms to people during WW2, so a lot of people had lived and died in that house. One day my brother and I were playing with some neighbor kids behind the house. We were running around when I stumbled, fell over, and lost a tooth. It had been loose for some time, so it was no great loss, but I ran inside and showed it to my mom. She told me if I put the tooth on my bedside table that night, a fairy would come and leave me a coin. I was doubtful, and so was my brother when I told him about this, but my mom was a very level headed, church-going woman, who wouldn't lie or joke about stuff like this.

My brother and I were anxious about this all day, and when bedtime came we made sure the tooth was prominently displayed on the bedside table. Some of the neighbor kids had actually suggested that my mom would sneak into our room at night and deposit the coin herself! To make sure this could not happen, and because we wanted to see the fairy, my brother and I stayed up all night. When one of us dozed off, the other one held watch, and so we made sure nobody could enter the room without us noticing. We can both swear to God that nobody but the two of us were in that room all night.

But here comes the spooky part - the next morning there was a coin on the bedside table! We had a close look at it, and it definitely was a real coin. In fact, we went to the village store the same day and bought some candy for it. We told the storekeeper our story, and he had a close look at the coin, but assured us it was real money. We also got our candy. Now you have to decide if ghosts were involved here, but examining all the facts, I can see no possible other explanation. The subject still comes up occasionally between my brother and I, and we both agree that the candy we bought that day was some of the best we ever had! :scratch2:
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spaceman said:
I wasn't going to reply to this, but it just hits too close to home, so I can't really just ignore it. I've never worked on "developing" it, but I guess I've always been something of an empath. Probably nowhere near the level of your friend, but enough that other people's feelings can make me really uncomfortable. Most people fall into the category of "average" people, basically good, but nowhere near perfect. And some are really good people, who are able to not only get through life, but help a lot of other people along the way. And then there are truly bad people, who can kill, steal, or otherwise harm others, without even thinking about it. Or even worse, they actually enjoy it. I imagine when people die, the good ones & bad ones know what the deal is, but the "average" ones can be either confused (as you mentioned), or misled. I'm not finding the right words to elaborate right now, and I don't want to start any weird religious debates, lol, especially when I'm not sure I'm saying what I mean clearly. ;)
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I liken it to hearing. If only one person in the population had ears, and they tried to explain sound and music to the rest of us, we'd think they were crazy. Humanity's arrogance in thinking that, at any given time we know all there is to know, has always been thrown right back in our faces. Even the greatest scientists on Earth will tell you that at some level, everything we understand breaks down and nobody really knows why.
 
Nice Job

JohnVF said:
Even the greatest scientists on Earth will tell you that at some level, everything we understand breaks down and nobody really knows why.
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That's very well said! (and what I was going for in one of my earlier posts on this thread, although I didn't quite get there). Thank you.
 
Scoff at my story all you want. I offered it up, make of it what you will. Prolly it WAS some jackass kid w/those crazy "full eye" contacts, looking to scare the daylights out of somebody. Anyhow, it WAS unnerving at the time.
 
JohnVF said:
I liken it to hearing. If only one person in the population had ears, and they tried to explain sound and music to the rest of us, we'd think they were crazy. Humanity's arrogance in thinking that, at any given time we know all there is to know, has always been thrown right back in our faces. Even the greatest scientists on Earth will tell you that at some level, everything we understand breaks down and nobody really knows why.
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I couldn't agree more.

I have (as I mentioned earlier) a natural tendency towards skepticism, which has served me well over the years. Protecting me from con artists, crooks, and bad situations in general. This extends to skepticism of my own recollection of certain events and happenings. The story I relayed in my previous post happened nearly 40 years ago, during a particularly stressful time in my young life. My Grandfather and I were very close, and I missed him terribly, still do. There's a distinct possibility that my memory of those events may be faulty, and colored by time.

However: Considering the amount of scorn commonly heaped upon people who relate stories of ghosts, paranormal encounters, and UFO sightings, my tendency is to give the benefit of the doubt to the person recounting the event. There is no profit in being thought strange, or odd. Could they be mistaken? Surely, and they often are. Could they be seeing what they expect or desire to see? Absolutely. But logic alone cannot explain away, many of these sightings and encounters.

A certain amount of skepticism is of course healthy; but like anything, moderation is also important. It's healthy to be cautious, but maintaining a certain amount of wonder in one's person is also healthy. IMO, skepticism and cynicism are as dangerous (if not more) than gullibility.

Regarding Sandy - I've known Sandy for many years now, and I believe that the story he relayed is accurate to the best of his recollection. There are many possible explanations for what he saw, some more logical (and earthly) than others, but I have no doubt that he saw it.
 
JohnVF said:
I liken it to hearing. If only one person in the population had ears, and they tried to explain sound and music to the rest of us, we'd think they were crazy. Humanity's arrogance in thinking that, at any given time we know all there is to know, has always been thrown right back in our faces. Even the greatest scientists on Earth will tell you that at some level, everything we understand breaks down and nobody really knows why.
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Great point...


"Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible laws and connections, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in fact, religious."
-Einstein

I think that guy had a pretty decent grasp on science and physics. He also realized that there are things in this world/universe that can not be explained. Just a thought! Hope that I don't get this too far off topic.

Back to the stories!!
 
uxwbill said:
That's very well said! (and what I was going for in one of my earlier posts on this thread, although I didn't quite get there). Thank you.
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When I look at the explanations people are coming up with now to explain what we don't know, it really really seems to me that they are throwing in the towel, or just grasping at straws. The multi-verse/meta-universe theory (our universe is perfect simply by chance, because there are an infinite number of universes, each with its own random chance to get the laws/dimensions right, and we only see ours as perfect because it had laws which lead to our creation) is chief among the ideas which has lead me to call BS on, say, Stephen Hawking for example. That's right Stephen! I'm calling BS on you! Its moved beyond observation (maybe because we are not equipped to observe everything) into just making stuff up because nothing else they can come up with will explain what they can no longer explain. When you have the most celebrated thinkers of our time coming up with something like the Multiverse theory, because it is the only thing they can think of which doesn't slip into the realm of almost supernatural chance and behavior...then it makes me believe that we are simply too small, and too ill-equipped from a sensorial standpoint to really truly make sense of everything. We are bugs crawling on a tennis ball, trying to explain the yellow fibers that hold it together, with no idea that it's just a small part of something grander. I don't mean for this, at all, to dive into religion or whatnot...just that anybody who thinks that we are equipped to sense all that there is to sense in this universe, with only 5 known senses, is, to me, bordering on arrogant at best, delusion at worst. I think we are handcuffed by our senses....we can't even see but a small spectrum of visible light, and hear but only a small part of sound. Infrasonic..infrared..what about things to observe that fall completely outside of our known senses?

:smoke: puff puff, exhale.
 
Now we have some people who declare they 'don't believe in the laws of physics' and some that wildly quote Einstein. As a scientist, I can't help but comment, futile as it may be.

Nobody believes in the laws of physics - nor are you supposed to do that. The 'laws of physics' are not a dogma to be believed, or rules that prescribe what you should and shouldn't do. The laws of physics are a description of the world to the best of our abilities at any given point in time.

Millions of scientists worldwide check and challenge these laws as we speak. It is the job of any research scientist and the goal of any scientific experiment to check if these laws apply to any conceivable situation. If a situation is found to which the law does not apply, the law has to be changed to cover that situation. When this happens, for the scientific community it is not a disaster, but a breakthrough. Any scientist who discovers a situation to which an establish law does not apply will be celebrated - as will a scientist who manages to formulate a new law that takes a newly discovered situation into account, as well as all other known facts. This is how scientific progress occurs, and this is how we increase our knowledge as a society.

It would be the death of this system if we accepted that there are things that can not be explained. A scientist relies on the fact that there are things that the current laws of physics can not explain, but he hopes to be able to explain them in the future. That's what's being a scientist is all about.

That said, this system can never offer absolute truth. If you have ever watched Law and Order, you might notice that whenever the expert scientist witness is asked: "can you confirm with absolute certainty...", the answer is always "no", because tomorrow a situation could be discovered to which the current laws of physics don't apply, and the law has to be changed. A scientist can state something with a very high level of probability, but he can never be 100% sure.

At the same time, it is an integral part of the scientific method that as long as you can explain an observation using the laws of physics as they are at the time, you do just that. For example if you feel a cold draft of air in the attic at night, you don't just throw out the whole system and blame it on ghosts, but you have to go back and check. That can include returning the next day and replicating the exact conditions. You'll have to show that all windows were indeed closed, there were no cracks in the old walls, the door was shut, there was no fan running and so on. If you can still feel the draft of cold air, you can show it to others, and all explanations based on the laws of physics have been excluded, then we can consider an explanation involving ghosts.

So far nobody - and I repeat NOBODY - has ever met this level of proof with regard to any supernatural phenomenon. A million people relating a one time experience in which they did not go back to check is no more proof than one person doing the same. However, one person going back and collecting evidence would be enough to convince all scientists in the world.
 
I believe in ghosts, although I haven't seen one. As for Sandy, I thought he was putting us on. Sorry, Sandy.
I have a friend who lived in a house that was haunted. Something was strumming her guitar in the middle of the night. She heard footsteps and doors slamming in an area of the house where there used to be a door, but wasn't anymore. She cleaned out a basement storage room and the floor was completely clean. She came back into the room and there was an old boot sitting right in the center of the floor. She found furniture re-arranged when she got up in the morning, and food missing from the refrigerator and cupboards. She lived alone and there was no sign of entry, forced or otherwise. Workers left alone in the house refused to come back unless someone was there with them.
I was over there, and didn't see or hear anything odd. It felt a little creepy but that could have been because I knew about the ghost.
 
Old hospitals are often full of paranormal activity. The old hospital here closed over 20 years ago, but things are still seen and heard there. My landlord now onws the place (I'm negotiating to buy it) , and I've been in there a couple times, and I always feel like I'm Being watched in the building. Others have heard screams, footsteps, babies crying and some have felt a hand touch their shoulder. Nothing malevolent though.
 
Caseworker said:
I guess I wildly quoted Einstein there? :)
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Indeed. I don't want to turn this into a religious or philosophical debate, but the Einstein quote you posted is virtually reversed in its original meaning through a combination of skillfully cutting it out of a longer paragraph and taking bold liberties in the translation. I am sure you posted the quote with the best of intentions, but I would treat the source of that quote with the utmost suspicion.

I believe it originally stems from Einstein's "Mein Weltbild", where he suggests that the attempt to 'penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature' has engendered religion. He identifies with the search for explanations and the admiration of beauty, but then immediately distances himself from any irrational approach. He finds strong words in this context, but enough said or else it will surely become a religious debate, which of course must be avoided in this forum.
 
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