Have You Ever Seen A Real Ghost?


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Share your ghost stories! Ever seen something you couldn't explain? Hear the things that go bump in the night? Driven to a lonely road to see ghost lights? I have personally never experienced anything like the things listed. But what about you? Share it with us for Halloween!


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Just watching Ghostbusters.


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I took a tour of the Spanish Military Hospital in St. Augustine Florida. It was a hospital where Spanish soldiers used to go for medical care, some of which died while in intensive care and were buried in the street outside the hospital.

I didn't think it was haunted until I went there during a night time tour which covered all the haunted locations in St. Augustine. While the tour guide was giving his presentation in the dimly lit medical ward I felt someone put their hand on my shoulder, and yet there was no one behind me or standing directly next to me. I stayed awake in bed that night.

From that day forward I never doubt ghost stories from locations that have a history of death.


Dot.

Liberty's Edge

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I have had an experience that defied any logical explanation. I lived in a house where mine & my wife's bedroom was right next to the living room, we tend to sleep with the door open. One night I awoke to the sound of my recliner squeaking as if someone were sitting in it. We have two children and one often got up and slept in places other than his bed. I got up and went to tell him to go back to bed. As I entered the living room I saw a vaguely tear-drop shaped blob of...well I am not sure what. Not light, but it was a sort of flesh-tone rather than a white light or mist. It streaked out of the living room faster than my bleary eyes could track it, so I figured it was still the boy and I had simply mis-seen it. I checked and both boys were in bed asleep. To this day I cannot figure out exactly what I saw.


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I don't believe in ghosts, but I believe in ghost stories.


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One night I was just laying down to to sleep when I noticed something outside my window. It was in a tree about 10' to 15' from my window. It was the...strangest creepiest thing I have ever saw. It was a darkness but I could distinctly make out hands and feet. The strange part was it was smoking a cigarette. I could see it glow brighter when it took a drag off the cigarette. It would move the cigarette from hands to feet...to the darkness that was it's face...and even if as the cigarette got brighter I could not see it any clearer. I must have sat there transfixed for at least 5 minutes till a voice in my head told me I to leave. So I had I got up with my pillows and blanket and went to sleep on my sister's floor.

Laying there I was trying to rationalize that it was a dream...or just a figment of my imagination...etc. Than I heard a sound come my from my a room... a sound that still sends chills down my spine. It sounded like a hand...claws?...running across from my window's screen.

To this day thinking of it sends chills down my spine and I keep my blinds closed at night.


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I have an experience I would like to share. Throughout my life I had experienced many strange things. I know many believe my stories, but that there are a few that don't believe simply because they don't believe in the unexplainable. What I will say before I continue is that these experiences were real and true to me. Enough of that let me get to the good stuff!

My experience in Belchite

Several years ago in 2006, I took a trip to Zaragoza, Spain to visit my family on my mother's side. Knowing how much I love the paranormal, my cousin Adolfo told me about a small town called Belchite. This town was destroyed during a civil war in the 1930's and was rumored to be extremely paranormally active. Belchite was a ghost town that was abandoned by it's people and they erected a new Belchite close by. Today the corpse of the old Belchite lies tainted, a ghost of it's former glory. I was told that the spirits of those who died call out in terror at night warning people to run and take cover from the bombs that were dropped overhead. A news crew tried to capture footage but were run off by the ghosts. They fled in terror after supposedly hearing the ghosts for themselves. Hearing all these exciting things I decided to go see for myself if these rumors were true.
With that said, my father and I took off to Belchite the next day armed with sandwiches and an adventurous spirit. When we arrived to Belchite, there was a fence surrounding the premises that was all twisted and falling apart. We chatted excitedly as we approached the old fence. We easily slipped through it. Once we entered, there was an eery silence that fell all around us. Despite the obvious decay and destruction of the town, at first glance the town looked ordinary. Except there were no children skipping down the streets, no old ladies were gossiping, no bread baking in the bakery nor were there any friends joined in a drink at the bar. Just silence. The town was a corpse void of any of the spark found in everyday town-life. These things that made a town lively in Spain were nowhere to be found. It looked like someone beamed up all the people and put the town on pause. As we drew closer we first approached the cathedral. I could feel invisible eyes watching me, even in broad daylight. I knew that people probably came to the cathedral expecting to be safe and never walked out. I walked inside of the beautiful cathedral and looked up at the large gaping holes where bombs were dropped from above. The elegant faces of angels still looked down at us from the corners of the ceiling. I couldn't help but wonder what these people felt cowering in there. We didn't stay long because we wanted to see everything we could before night fall because there was no electricity or street lamps. We moved on towards the center of the town. On our way to the center we explored the trees growing off to the side. There were fig trees growing large plump figs. It was odd to think that no one will ever pick them. As I was thinking this, I looked down at the gravel and spotted a small dirty shoe. It was once white and belonged to a small child. It was a shoe style from the time of the civil war. Along with the shoe were tiles that were beautifully painted and scattered about. My father and I collected the tiles and I pocketed the shoe as a keepsake of my journey to Belchite. For some reason we never thought of it as taking from a grave, and I would later regret this. From everything I was ever taught about paranormal investigations, it was to never take anything from a haunted location. Like a fool I didn't listen and I learned the hard way. Not thinking anything of what we had just done, we continued on to the heart of the town.

As we tread, the stone path looked ordinary considering all the bloodshed that took place on it. Belchite's was a beautiful town. Charming and rustic. We couldn't help but notice though that although everything looked somewhat normal at first, some of the apartments had the backs completely blown out. Holes lined the walls where artillery pounded through the bricks. The front would look normal but when you went around, it was almost like a stage prop. The front wall was intact but the back was collapsed and there was no way of getting to the top room because even the floors were gone. While my father and I were looking around, we started hearing faint explosions as if from a distance. They sounded like bombs. We continued to hear these "bombs" late into the afternoon.

By sunset we had already walked the entire perimeter of the town and were familiar with all the buildings and what their conditions were. We knew which ones were whole and able to be explored and which ones were only a shell or wall standing. As the sun began to dip down, my father and I noticed that the town began to look "different". We thought it was the light playing tricks on us. It was almost as if the town was coming to life and rebuilding itself. Buildings that looked gnarly by day started to fill out and look whole again. Although we didn't hear the voices we could still feel the invisible eyes watching from the doorways we passed. The soft echoes of bombs continued throughout the night along with the summer breeze. A full moon loomed over the town swollen and bright. It looked like something out of a movie. Although we had already been to the back of the town we were almost drawn to walk back one more time. We passed balconies where I fully expected someone to watch from overhead. Windows were pitch black and void of all light...That was when we saw it. At the third floor window was a light. It was the soft glow of an old fashioned lantern. It looked like someone was up there writing a last letter or tucking in for the night. There was only one problem. This apartment was one of the ones where the whole back and floor of the building was gone and just the face of the structure stood. We watched as the lantern glowed softly from the window. The color of the flame was warm and golden, a stark contrast to the cold dark building. As we stood there looking up, the light suddenly grew dim then was blown out. We walked around the back of the building and sure enough, there was no one and no way of getting to the third floor. Someone would have to either know how to fly or levitate.

We left Belchite completely awestruck. Never had we encountered anything like this. We came back telling anyone who was willing to lend an ear. We were believers. But my story doesn't end there. A few days later, my father was out exploring other parts of Spain while my sister, my mother and myself stayed in my grandmother's old apartment. I still had the child's shoe in my room. When I came back from Belchite, every night I would have nightmares about a dead little boy. He always appeared angry. Not putting too much thought into it, I continued on with my day as if it were just an ordinary nightmare. One night I decided to take a bath. As I was in the tub I suddenly felt a presence and every hair on my arms stood up. I thought for a moment that I saw a child's face begin to form in the water. I knew right there that I messed up by taking the shoe. I immediately got out of the tub, got dressed and grabbed the little old shoe. I told my mother and my sister what happened then I walked onto the balcony and chucked that sucker out the window. It landed silently onto a car that was parked below and I didn't care! Normally I would have felt horrible for having thrown something onto a car. I was so scared that I was just happy to be rid of the thing. My father and I will never forget that ghostly light in the window nor the sounds of the bombs. I hope you enjoyed my story.


I used to be a tour guide at the Tolly Cobbold Brewery in Ipswich. It's an old Victorian building and has seen a few daeths over the years.

After the tour was finished it was the guides job to go round, turn off the lights and lock up.

Often as I had to go through the bottling room I'd hear footsteps moving across the floor above, even though I was alone in the building and had just locked everything on that floor.

On about the third or fourth time this happened I went back up to check no-one was there. Can't say I saw anything more than shadows but I felt a massive temperature drop and all my hair stood on end so much that I got the hell out of there and never went back to look again.

I could have sworn I heard someone laughing as I dashed down the stairs and headed for the exit too.


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My experience is similar to Tiny Coffee Golem's: With the paranormal (ghosts, UFOs, etc.), it's always the people who want to believe, or who already believe, who seem to see things.

When my wife and I traveled Europe, we vastly enjoyed going on the underground "Ghost Tours" of the various cities. It was a great way to learn the city's history, see some of the seamy underside the aboveground tours didn't show you, and get a bit of a thrill.

Trouble was, we never saw a ghost, or even felt anything. The guide would say, "Stand here and you'll feel a chill."
Everyone else did. I didn't.

I never heard noises. I never felt chills. I never saw mists. I believed I was being receptive to the idea of ghosts, but maybe not.

It was so bad that my wife and I started joking that I was an "anti-ghost force", and caused ghosts to flee my presence.

Same thing happened a couple of years ago on a San Francisco ghost tour -- we were miraculously the only group that didn't see ANYTHING out of the ordinary. And there were other groups around us talking about neat things THEY'D seen. I must be a "psychic sink".

THEN came the kicker.

We were driving along with one of our "believer" friends, and she suddenly got VERY excited and pointed to the sky. "Look at those red lights! They're not moving like anything I've ever seen! They must be UFOs."
"Er... they're radio towers. See how they're red, and blinking in unison?"
"No, they're too high in the sky to be radio towers! Pull over! Pull over!"
"No, I am not pulling over to stare at radio towers."

To this day she still talks about the day we were driving down the highway and saw a "fleet" of UFOs flying in formation and flashing in unison.

And every time I drive down I-5 at night, that same fleet is still there, in the same place. Blinking the same way.

To say she makes me a bit more of a skeptic is an understatement.


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A bit of a side note on peer pressure and belief, which I found incredibly fascinating:

I took part in a psychology test, where I was put in a booth with a glass window and pair of headphones, including a microphone. 5 other "participants" were on a common line so I could hear them and they could hear me, but we couldn't see each other. And we were not allowed to socialize or interact.

Then they flashed slides of various colors, and we were supposed to name the color. "Red", "Green", "Yellow", etc.

After a couple of minutes, one of the participants called a clearly-red slide "orange".
As the test progressed, more and more of the participants started referring to red as orange.

Then, it happened. The red slides started having a slightly orange tint.
Eventually, I relented and admitted that you could call one slide "orange".
As soon as I did that, most of the slides were dead orange.

And yes, as you might have guessed, there were no other participants. It was a test to see how peer pressure affected perception. The colors on the slides never changed.
Yet I clearly recall seeing the red slides as brilliant orange because my "peers" kept calling them orange.

As someone upthread said very well: If you view ghosts as something extraordinary someone experiences, then yes, I absolutely believe in ghosts, because I have personally experienced that your perception can be modified by expectations.
But if you view ghosts as a measurable extrapersonal phenomenon, then I have to say that the lack of concrete evidence is damning: We have hundreds of millions of documented encounters, and not a single shred of acceptable concrete evidence?

It's an interesting thread, and I am loving the stories. Keep 'em coming!

EDIT: And yes, now I really want to go to Spain and steal that shoe and see what happens to me... :-P


perception is everything


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Reality is not as firm as we think, or want to think, it is. It is enough to be tired to see illusions, i.e. False sensory input building on something real. This is the twig against the window you see as a hand from a bit away. Even more strongly, hallucinations (genuine false sensory input) happen often to people falling asleep and waking up. Add in drugs, various reactions to sensory deprivation (listen to enough white noise and you WILL hear voices, especially if you expect to), various traumatic experiences, severe anxiety disorders, light versions of psychotic disorders, and so on, and you will realize that there is more than ample opportunity for the human brain to use the canvas we call reality as a sounding board. If we expect to see something, stand to gain from doing so, or want to see something, that is what we will see.


What I've always felt was fascinating is how all of it, every possible human experience, already exists within the mind, that is if you accept that all experience is ultimately reduced to a pattern of physiological behavior of the organism that is the mind (the brain). So not only is every experience already present in an "unshaped" form within your mind, but every conceivable invention, every achievement, every thing imaginable, already exists within your mind, you just need to put it together in the right way, and bang, you'll know what it is.


There is a gentleman from Central or South America that has been collecting fur samples from Chupacabra sightings and attacks. One of the paranormal investigation shows offered to have all the samples DNA tested if he would agree to accept the results. Every sample was identified as a known animal. That gentleman is looking for someone to test all of his samples because they are Chupacabra hairs.


So, my very favorite ghost story scared some of my friends / co-workers bad enough that they left work early...

As the story is told:
It was late night on a weekday, well after closing hours at a local eatery. The four people working late were cleaning up and doing prep for the next day, something they do all the time. As you would expect the lights were dimmed and it was a cloudy night.

Three of the four were near the front of the kitchen, looking past a counter to the seating area, where they see two people dressed quite formal like walk into view from the small side area. They came from near the back door to the front of the place and stood in the shadows, silently looking into the kitchen over the counter. This unnerved the workers a tiny bit.

One of the four employees went to check the back door as it was obviously left unlocked, but shortly after called to the others who leaving one person (me) to watch the two "guests" standing in the dimly lit seating area. The three found that the back door was locked, and I'll point out that it takes a key to lock/unlock that door even from the inside.

Walking to the front through the side area to the dim seating area, they found the two "guests" had vanished right in front of the poor guy they left watching them. The three of them checked the front doors and they were indeed locked just like the back door! This proceeded to creep them out enough that they just shut off the lights and all went home. To this day the story of the two ghosts who stopped in to watch the late night cleanup crew is sometimes told. With particular detail to how they never said a word, dressed oddly (more oddly with each telling) and walked through walls.

So, what actually happened?:

It was after hours, I was responsible for locking the back door and forgot... two people wandered in, a bit tipsy from the local bar looking for something to eat. Soon as I heard the door open I slipped back and locked it behind them then went behind the counter... After people went to check the back door, I hopped the counter explained we were closed and let them out the front, locking the door behind them and then returning to my work once again over the counter.

All I said to my co-workers when asked about the guests was, "they were just there!" and that let us out early for the night. :)


Vod Canockers wrote:
There is a gentleman from Central or South America that has been collecting fur samples from Chupacabra sightings and attacks. One of the paranormal investigation shows offered to have all the samples DNA tested if he would agree to accept the results. Every sample was identified as a known animal. That gentleman is looking for someone to test all of his samples because they are Chupacabra hairs.

Didn't they do the testing already and it turned out to be a dog or something? Maybe that was Bigfoot. Same concept though.


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EDIT: And yes, now I really want to go to Spain and steal that shoe and see what happens to me... :-P

Hahahaha good luck! Left me scared to death of children's shoes. I will never make that mistake again!


I've never seen anything myself, but my wife tells a story (and it’s the only story like this that she tells, she is not prone to them) about when she was a teenager, riding in the car as her mother was driving through the Pine Barrens (in NJ) on a lonely road at night. There was a fog that night, and as they were driving along, moving across the road was a tall, pillar of a wispy form that seemed to have a human shape, and it stopped in the middle of the road as the car approached. Her mother swerved to avoid it and kept going. My wife asked her mother “What was that?!” and her mother said, “I don’t know,” but drove a little faster. They both laugh about it now, but my wife tells me at the time, it freaked her out for several days.


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I once saw a terrifying Japanese ghost angrily killing a bunch of innocent people. I was afraid!

Of course, where I saw it was on TV, didn't make it any less scary for me though!


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Never seen a ghost myself, but my family's old hat shop has been claimed to be haunted so many times it's not even funny.

It's a 1850's building (my great grandmother bought it in 1912 when she first arrived from Asturias, and it has been functioning as a hat shop ever since), built over the foundations of a Dominican winery from the early 1600's.

The list of stories is pretty long, but some of my favourites include:

-The Haunted Mirror: There are several old mirrors in the shop, the oldest one having been bought from a wealthy family in the 1920's; the mirror itself was made in Venice in the XVII century. Up until the 1950's, there was an old man who visited the shop almost every day and just sat there looking at the mirror. He said he saw dancers inside the mirror and that he could hear them whispering music. The man simply vanished one day (probably died), but people kept looking at the mirror with a mix of doubt and awe.

-The Mysterious Tunnels: In the late 90's, my grandmother decided to renovate one of the bathrooms in the first floor. However, just when work started, one of the contractors accidentally caused the floor around the toilet to collapse, ending inside a tunnel. It was later discovered the tunnel ran for several blocks, starting underneath the old Dominican church next block. Dozens of bones were found, along with barrels. Apparently, the tunnel was built in the 1600's to move wine in and out of the monastery, and during one of the native attacks on the city several monks were trapped and killed inside. Ever since, people claim to see ghostly monks drinking wine around the shop.

-The Possessed Automaton: In 1915, my great grand-uncle purchased a wondrous mechanical man built in France. He looked like a hotel valet and was a clockwork miracle, being able to gesticulare, move his arms and fingers, etc. He was programmed to knock on the display windows on the front of the shop with a cane, hailing people to come in. People in town were not accustomed to such things back then, and it was so life-like that locals started saying the automaton was visiting them at night. One lady claimed it was possessed, and a priest was even asked to check on it. Though he explained everyone that it was simply an incredible piece of machinery, it did little to calm the most superstitious (it was great for business, though). The automaton has been knocking on that same window for the past 99 years, and the great grandchildren of the first customers still go check him. A couple of years ago, while inspecting some of the old rooms of the third and fourth floor (some of which hand't been opened in half a century), a hidden chest was found underneath a pile of boxes. Inside, my aunts found a smaller version of the automaton, but it was painted completely black. No one knew abou that thing, not even my grandmother, so it's thought it might have been bought alongside with the other in 1915 and left forgotten upstairs. When news of a "dark twin" of the automaton got out, people freaked out and the same stories of a possessed machine resurfaced afer one hundred years.

The family doesn't really like to spread those rumours and my great grandmother usually scolded customers for being so naive as to think any of that was true, but they certainly have helped create an aura of mystery around the business that has perdured through generations.

I love that shop.


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Can we all agree that ghost stuff isn't scientifically proven and everybody who was compelled to point this fact out is real smart or whatever and just do ghost stories?


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Spanky the Leprechaun wrote:

Can we all agree that ghost stuff isn't scientifically proven and everybody who was compelled to point this fact out is real smart or whatever and just do ghost stories?

This is my vote for the rest of the thread even though I'll be declining participation.


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I believe in the possible existence of ghosts. I don't suppose they could ever be conclusively proven to exist, since doing so would require actually catching one in a bottle. (Given modern tech, photo and video evidence can't be considered conclusive in any case anymore.)

I have never seen anything with my own eyes that I thought was a ghost. I have gotten a few video captures on a ghost cam (Ordsall Hall in the U.K.) that look an awful lot like detailed human figures to me. Could be matrixing, but it's awfully detailed matrixing if it is.

My grandfather died when I was 12 years old. The whole extended family gathered in his house (a big 19th century stereotypical "haunted house" on top of a hill... although I stayed there many times and never saw or heard anything suspicious).

The whole extended family gathered in the house for the funeral. The women and girls were given the beds, so all us dudes had to camp out on the floor. My father and I slept in sleeping bags on the dining room floor. It was the same room where my grandfather had spent his last few weeks, in a bed that had been set up there so my grandmother could look after him without having to climb the stairs all the time. He didn't die in that room though, or that house... he died in the hospital.

While I was lying there trying to fall asleep, I heard my name whispered very clearly, right in my ear. There was nobody there. My father was several feet away in his sleeping bag. It's wasn't my grandfather's voice, nor my father's. But it scared me enough that I spent the rest of the night sitting on the sofa in the other room with my eyes wide open, jumping every time the refrigerator came on.

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