Vinnie

Debunking that is.

Anyone know of any good ones?

Vinnie

GrandpaMithras

Ghosts are real. I saw them walking the streets earlier tonight.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum

Vinnie

and my girlfriend saw a ghost at lake george and her sister was with her and both of them saw him have the same alfit on.

and another friend saw a ghost then had a friend who know nothing about it sleepover an they saw the same thing

and on and on and on....


though refuting claims of multiple independent eyewitness testimony like this is very difficult. Lacking belief in them is a little easier but one does need to come up with an overarching theory to explain their prominence and supposed corroberation stories...

does not seem easy....

why shouldn't i believe in ghosts?

Vinnie

i just realized it was halloween earlier. makes more sense now :notworthy

Clivedurdle

Tectonic Strain Theory?

satur9poet

Well, I posted my experience in another thread, but it bears repeating here, because I recently learned some new information about the origins of what my mother and I saw a few years ago...

One day I was sitting on the sofa, watching TV (this was in the middle of the day) when something caught my attention out of the coner of my eye. I looked over, and in the hallway, and what loooked like a white wedding veil materialized out of the wall and floated down the hallway, disappearing into another wall. I freaked because I KNEW I wasn't imagining things. Later that night when my mom came home from work, she saw the same thing, the wedding veil, and possibly a woman's head inside, materialize in the living room and glide out of our patio doors into the night. Where it went, who knows? I was sleeping on the sofa at that time, and my mom's scream woke me up. By then it was too late, the "thing" had already gone, but it confirmed my experience when my mom watched it, independent of my earlier experience.
Shortly after that, my mom was in the lobby of our apartment building when she saw a young woman in an old-fashioned blue dress come down the stairs and towards the door. Thinking it was a real person who was coming to open the door, my mother stepped to the side to let the woman pass by. Well, as she reached the door, this woman disappeared into thin air! The thing she saw looked as solid as a real person standing there, and she wondered why she was wearing such old-fashioned clothes. But nobody was there...

I always wondered about these incidences, as I'm an atheist and they don't mesh with my beliefs, or rather, lack of beliefs. But I knew what I saw, I wasn't hallucinating, and we consider ourselves rational people. Plus, what we saw was very clear, not like the weird "mists" or "floating orbs" others claim to see.
And here's the kicker--a few months ago I bought a book about the history of the area where I live. It turns out my apartment building was built right in the middle of what was once a very popular picnic and recreation area owned by a historic church a few blocks away, where parties and wedding receptions were held. I learned this history years after we witnessed the 2 "ghosts" or whatever they were, and it all seems to fit--the woman with the wedding veil, the young lady in the blue dress.

Maybe the land stored magnetic energy from the people who came before us, maybe ghosts are real, I have no clue. :huh:

javarush

The brain is a marvelous and subtle instrument that we don't know enough about. But something, whatever the source, activated the detectors in your head and your mother's. In this case, the only common denominator is the location of the events.

My closest experience is second-hand but still unnerving. We were at the family niche at a columbarium when my 5y.o. nephew got fidgety and began looking around just as he does at the mall or waiting for an appointment; his eyes were definitely tracking things. My sister asks him what's he looking at. His answer was: "Everybody". We were the only ones there..... Because of that, until I have more trustworthy data either way, I keep an open mind about such things.

David B

This http://skepdic.com/ghosts.html

and the links from it is a start.

There are no ghosts, holy or otherwise, beyond reasonable doubt.

David B

mrzyphl

Satur9poet

You were 'staring at the TV' then saw something out of the 'corner of your eye'? Did you ever consider the staring effect? That's when you concentrate on something then look away and still see the light burned on your retina. It is well known that when we see something unfamiliar our brains fill in gaps and tell us what it thinks the image should be and not necessarily what the image is. That you only saw a veil is revealing. A white and silky floating object fits perfectly.
You go on to say your mom saw 2 separate apparitions by herself and then later say you both saw them. Which is it?
I think your mom was putting you on.

mrzyphl

satur9poet

No, I know what the staring effect is and I know that wasn't it. I turned my head and actually saw this thing gliding down the hallway. And it was in the middle of the day, so I wasn't watching TV in a darkened room. If you read my original post, my mom came home and saw the exact same thing--and the TV was turned off for the night, so it couldn't have been light reflection. We both saw the wedding veil "ghost" or whatever, at sepatare times during that day-- and she saw the lady in the blue dress by herself. I was in the general area with my back turned towards the door, so of course I didn't se anything.

What reason would my mom have for putting me on? She never jokes about things like this--in fact, I'll repeat what I said before: she thought it was a real person, coming down the stairs to open the door, and stepped back to let her through. But the lady disappeared into thin air right before her face.
She never assumed for a minute that this was an apparition or ghost until it disappeared! If she was hallucinating, despite the fact that she was not under the influence of any medication or drugs, it sure was a clearly detailed hallucination. Same with the both of us when we "hallucinated" the same thing at different times that day when we saw the white apparition.