A brush with the paranormal?

[theletch1]

This thread is inspired by this one on vampires. I want to hear from the folks who have/think they have had a brush with the super-natural, paranormal, ghosts, phantoms whatever. Keep in mind that this is the Locker room and not the Study. Please just interact and enjoy without attempting to debunk anyones story.

I'll start with one of mine.

I have always been close to my youngest uncle. He's only 6 years older than I am. When I was 10 we moved out of state and didn't get to see him very often. One morning something woke me up. When I sat up in bed I saw my uncle walking toward me. As he reached the edge of the bed he just vanished. Later that day we got a call from back home that he'd been in a motorcycle accident and wasn't expected to live. He did pull through but that incident has stuck with me for almost 30 years as clearly as the day it happened.

 

[MA-Caver]

This thread is inspired by this one on vampires. I want to hear from the folks who have/think they have had a brush with the super-natural, paranormal, ghosts, phantoms whatever. Keep in mind that this is the Locker room and not the Study. Please just interact and enjoy without attempting to debunk anyones story.

I'll start with one of mine.

I have always been close to my youngest uncle. He's only 6 years older than I am. When I was 10 we moved out of state and didn't get to see him very often. One morning something woke me up. When I sat up in bed I saw my uncle walking toward me. As he reached the edge of the bed he just vanished. Later that day we got a call from back home that he'd been in a motorcycle accident and wasn't expected to live. He did pull through but that incident has stuck with me for almost 30 years as clearly as the day it happened.

An honor that your uncle chose YOU to appear to. Wow... does he have any recollection of it?

I've encountered ghosts and spirits and once heard the voice of the devil or a demon laughing. I've experienced seeing UFO's on more than one occasion and something out in the woods which still affects me to this day.

There is more to this world than the one we live in.

 

[jarrod]

seen doors open & close by themselves, & had some things move when my back was turned. also had few weird experiences with an ouija board in my youth. for instance when my friends were using it, the "spirit" told them what i had dreamt the night before. also some more ambiguous things like cold spots & general weird feelings. i tend to understand these things as manifestations of my own mind on the whole though.

jf

 

[grydth]

This stuff never happens when I'm around.... it is as if I carried one of those signs from Ghostbusters with me.

Now the in laws from my first marriage were a little paranormal, but that can be rationally explained by the theory of devolution.

When my wife has dreams about me, it always involves something awful happening. Paranormal? Nah, I just watch for antifreeze in the ginger all for a week or so afterwards.

 

[Archangel M]

never had one...

 

[Ken Morgan]

This stuff never happens when I'm around.... it is as if I carried one of those signs from Ghostbusters with me.

Me too, nothing, zip. I don't believe in any of that stuff, but who knows?

 

[MA-Caver]

Me too, nothing, zip. I don't believe in any of that stuff, but who knows?

Thing is it does happen, several of us can attest to that... just because it didn't or doesn't happen to you, is that cause enough NOT to believe? Have any of us tried seeking publicity for our experiences ... here doesn't count because we've been asked to share them. I'm sure of the several hundred members (read: lurkers) on this forum they could either say yes or no to having experienced the paranormal at one time or another or not at all.

Some of the experiences could be explained away, yet others... well, unless you've experienced them first hand... can't be explained away.

 

[jarrod]

This stuff never happens when I'm around.... it is as if I carried one of those signs from Ghostbusters with me.

Now the in laws from my first marriage were a little paranormal, but that can be rationally explained by the theory of devolution.

When my wife has dreams about me, it always involves something awful happening. Paranormal? Nah, I just watch for antifreeze in the ginger all for a week or so afterwards.

when i was having most of my experiences, i was very open to having them. when they got to be a pain in the ***, i shut them out of my mind. from a paranormal perspective you could say i consiously closed off my perception to paranormal events. from a psychological perspective, you could say that i was projecting these hallucinations because i wanted to see them. to me, it's the same thing. but generally, from my observations anyway, people who don't really believe in or want to see this sort of thing typically don't.

jf

 

[Jade Tigress]

I've had some over the years.
For now:

When my husband and I bought our first house we were awakened in the middle of the night by an extremely loud banging. We couldn't locate the source. It was really creepy and REALLY loud. I can't explain the sound, it was banging but it was a banging sound neither my husband nor I have ever heard.

This would happen randomly in the middle of the night for about the first month we were there. Then it just...stopped. We were in that house for 7 years and many, many times I had the feeling of being of being watched when I was home alone.

This is a story my grandmother told me. My husband and I were visiting her and talking. She said to me, "you know, we almost lost you". Thinking she was referring to my volatile teenage years I replied, "yeah, I know". She continued by telling this story.

A little background info: my mom was working full time, my grandma took care of me and my little sister while she worked. (My sister was not yet born at the time this took place). She and my grandpa lived an apartment in the city of Chicago on a busy street.

Apparently we were outside, I was 2-years-old and went running between two parked cars into the street. My grandma saw this happening and a car was coming. She couldn't get to me in time and knew I was going to be hit. She said it was inevitable. Then she said it was as if an invisible hand reached in and yanked me back out of the way. She said she literally saw the clothes at the back of my neck pull just as they naturally would when someone is grabbed there.

I think it was the first time she ever spoke of it and I never heard her mention it again. To my knowledge no other family member knows the story. But it stuck with her all those years.

I also saw a UFO once. We were living in Northeast Tennessee, in the mountains. I was driving home from the barn which took me on about 20 miles of switchbacks over 2 mountains. It was late afternoon in the late fall and I saw just over the treetops in the distance a small, bright, oval light. It moved very slowly and very steadily across the treetops. I was mesmerized and slowed down, watching it for as long as I could. I don't even believe in aliens, but this was as real a UFO as real could be. I have no idea what it was, I've never seen anything like before or since.

 

[ShelleyK]

Ive had so man y experiences I cant even know where to begin telling them. Ive been told that I am a "sensitive", clairvoyant and an "empath. The empath part I can believe...Im very good at reading people, and i can tell a bad person nearly right away, most people call that intuition.
Ive had my dead grandfather visit me 2 years to the day on the anniversary of his death, Ive had ghosts manifest themselves before me, things brush up against me, sounds happening but I dont know where they are..things like that. Nothing bad ever happened....once in my early 20's a friend of mine and I were headed to work and we were going to be late, we didnt see the light turn red...and she slammed on the brakes and the car stopped in just enough time from hitting another car...then the car filled with a heavy scent of roses...now mind you we lived in Arizona...there arent a lot of roses in that area...especially in the middle of an intersection in the commercial part of town!
If you watch the TV show Ghost Hunters, the TAPS team have been out this way to the Buffalo area a couple times, once was in Batavia at the Rolling Hills Haunted Mall. Not a ot happened to them there so they couldnt deem it haunted but they said it had paranormal activity...well I was there with a group of people on an overnight ghost hunt and let me tell you.....THINGS happened!!

 

[mook jong man]

I remember when I was about five or six and we lived in this pretty old house , I woke up to what felt like some one sitting on me with their hands around my throat trying to strangle me.

I've since learned that it might of been sleep paralysis , I still get sleep paralysis occasionally these days , but it doesn't feel like what happened when we were living in that house .

But who knows I was only a little boy , but it sure did feel like some invisible thing was trying to choke me , it must of scared me because I still remember it today and I'm 41 now.

To the people who lived in haunted houses , did you have pets , and did they go a bit weird when you moved into the place , apparently dogs and cats are supposed to be a bit sensitive to these things.

 

[Ken Morgan]

Thing is it does happen, several of us can attest to that... just because it didn't or doesn't happen to you, is that cause enough NOT to believe? Have any of us tried seeking publicity for our experiences ... here doesn't count because we've been asked to share them. I'm sure of the several hundred members (read: lurkers) on this forum they could either say yes or no to having experienced the paranormal at one time or another or not at all.

Some of the experiences could be explained away, yet others... well, unless you've experienced them first hand... can't be explained away.

I actually think it’s all pretty cool. I have family members who have experienced strange things. Me? Nothing.

I think we are more then what we are, but I also believe that everything can be logically explained somehow, just because you can’t explain it doesn’t mean it is true. Just because multiple people have experiences doesn’t make it true. A lack of evidence doesn’t automatically make the supernatural the only answer.

Randi http://www.randi.org/site/ has offered a $1000000 for years, to anyone who can prove any of their claims. No one has claimed the $$ yet.

Like I said, I find it all cool, but…..

 

[girlbug2]

I have had experiences in this one apartment with feelings of being watched, fully shut doors coming unlatched and opening on their own, weird noises, the windows rattling when there was no wind and none of the other units' windows rattled. I have my personal theories about what caused these things, it is supernatural IMO but it's not ghosts.

I have also known some very smart, rational people telling me of their UFO sitings. People who never do drugs and weren't drunk at the time they saw them, btw. I tend to believe them.

 

[Sukerkin]

I have had a fair number of inexplicable and 'ghostly' experiences through my life. As with Shelley, I been termed variously as a 'sensitive' and an 'amplifier' when it comes to such things. An effect of this is that I seem to draw such things to me.

Our current house has a few 'presences' in it - which is par for the course for me. One we call "the Smoker" hangs about on the stairs - you can guess how we know when he's there . There's another that flits about on the upstairs landing, going between the library and the computer room - she's often hanging about me when I'm on here actually . There were at least two in the dining room. One quiet and warm, the other rather nasty and cold. The latter one seems to have gone now - I don't think he took kindly to my telling him to "Get off me/her!" (my missus, that is) on several occasions.

It sounds a bit crowded doesn't it ? Of course, none of this is scientific proof of anything, tho' some of our friends have noted these prescences without our telling them about them first.

It may well be that there is a rational explanation of them tho' as there is at least one place in our house that is very weird indeed when it comes to engineering phenomenon.

In our kitchen, there is one spot that is always cold at around shoulder height. If I take a current meter on audible announce and hold it there, it goes off. I have great fun showing this to people and 'mapping' the EM anomaly .

EDIT: I should make clear that this is in mid-air, not on or near a wall

I haven't found any other areas like that but the existence of one shows that there is some wacky electro-magnetic effect at play and those mess with your perceptions, inducing 'sightings' of what we call 'ghosts'.

No obvious poltergeist actvity this time, I'm glad to say {tho' how can you tell when you share a house with a woman lol:}. They can be anything from annoying to downright scary.

 

[Archangel M]

Thing is it does happen, several of us can attest to that....

Not to be flip...and this isnt the place for debunking but, does it..really?

I think it can be said that some people are sensing something, thinking that they are sensing something or interpreting the same sensation differently. The causes of it could be a number of things....

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Not to be flip...and this isnt the place for debunking but, does it..really?

I think it can be said that some people are sensing something, thinking that they are sensing something or interpreting the same sensation differently. The causes of it could be a number of things....

That little thread on being open-minded we just had comes to mind. An unexplained phenomena is just that - unexplained. That does not mean it cannot be explained at some point, or that it must therefore be real.

I've had lots of 'unexplained' things happen. That doesn't mean I believe them to be real supernatural events.

Refer to the 1st Law of Metaphysics - "Nothing unreal exists."

 

[Kembudo-Kai Kempoka]

Yeah, I get 'em. Run in the family (or seem to, anyways).

Wierdest one was walking through a city park one night (couple of us doing a Guardian Angel type patrol), and seeing something that looked like the dog-gorilla beasts from Ghostbusters lumbering through the mist...years before GB came out. Thing was, this park never got mist, and the time of year was way wrong for fog. So we opted to see where the mist was coming from, since we could see what looked like a smoke bomb source for it. We walked closer to what looked like a steam grate, and were trying to fogure out WTF?, when a hand with skin the texture of amphibian skin popped out and started trying to lifet the grate. I sprung away with a kiai, then we took off at a dead run, with that gorilla thing on the ground between the trees, squatting and watching, while other things climbed up and down the main trunks in the grove around us.

Two of us went back the next day to check out the steam vent. There wasn't one. Helluva shared hallucination if there's nothing to it. We tried splainin' it away...there was a steam vent, it was a frog leaping to get out of it, etc. Ran our rationalizations past our compadres who were there, and they blew us off. "Frog, my a&%! I know what I saw, and I saw a mammy-jammin hand! And what does that have to do with some freaky silver-back gorilla walking through Central, standing 7 feet and commanding a bunch of little freaky things that follow us through the tree tops?"
Some have refused to speak about it since then. A couple of us have brough it up in hushed tones at occasions like birthdays or such, when everyone else has left and we're pacing down. Still don't know.

 

[mook jong man]

I have had a fair number of inexplicable and 'ghostly' experiences through my life. As with Shelley, I been termed variously as a 'sensitive' and an 'amplifier' when it comes to such things. An effect of this is that I seem to draw such things to me.

Our current house has a few 'presences' in it - which is par for the course for me. One we call "the Smoker" hangs about on the stairs - you can guess how we know when he's there . There's another that flits about on the upstairs landing, going between the library and the computer room - she's often hanging about me when I'm on here actually . There were at least two in the dining room. One quiet and warm, the other rather nasty and cold. The latter one seems to have gone now - I don't think he took kindly to my telling him to "Get off me/her!" (my missus, that is) on several occasions.

It sounds a bit crowded doesn't it ? Of course, none of this is scientific proof of anything, tho' some of our friends have noted these prescences without our telling them about them first.

It may well be that there is a rational explanation of them tho' as there is at least one place in our house that is very weird indeed when it comes to engineering phenomenon.

In our kitchen, there is one spot that is always cold at around shoulder height. If I take a current meter on audible announce and hold it there, it goes off. I have great fun showing this to people and 'mapping' the EM anomaly .

EDIT: I should make clear that this is in mid-air, not on or near a wall

I haven't found any other areas like that but the existence of one shows that there is some wacky electro-magnetic effect at play and those mess with your perceptions, inducing 'sightings' of what we call 'ghosts'.

No obvious poltergeist actvity this time, I'm glad to say {tho' how can you tell when you share a house with a woman lol:}. They can be anything from annoying to downright scary.

Thats spooky , all I can say is I hope your charging then rent.

 

[MA-Caver]

.

Ghost hunters inspect 180-year-old NM hotel site







AP – This undated photo provided by Josh Bond shows the old stable from the days that the Old Cuchillo Bar …

• Play Video Video:Ghostbusters look into unexplainable sounds and images WRAL Raleigh

By HEATHER CLARK, Associated Press Writer Heather Clark, Associated Press Writer – Mon May 11, 4:44 am ET



ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – The former owner of a 180-year-old adobe building hears the door of a potbellied stove opening and wood being stacked inside, but no one is there.
Mysterious whispers echo in the current owner's ear. Things fall off shelves for no apparent reason.
These are just a few of the strange goings-on that artist Josh Bond, owner of the Old Cuchillo Bar in the southern New Mexico ghost town of the same name, has asked the West Coast Ghost and Paranormal Society to investigate on his property.
"The creepiest I had was a voice whisper in my ear," Bond said. "When things fall in the house, I just sort of write it off."
When he saw an advertisement about WCGAPS, a Phoenix-based nonprofit organization, Bond thought the group could at least explain what was occurring.
Andy Rice, who started WCGAPS about two years ago after investigating more than 200 supposed hauntings and ghosts over more than 13 years, said the group tries to explain the mysteries their clients relate to them using science or common sense.
more here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090511/ap_on_re_us/us_ghost_hunters

This would be intriguing to watch as it's out in BFE, in New Mexico and the site is 180 years old... White men just barely scratched the surface of seeing the far west and LOTS of things could happen out there without much worry of legal ramifications or consequences.
To me, ghosts are restless or unresolved spirits of those living who have died without a sense of death or even justice if they were murdered or killed through mysterious circumstances.
Yet in my experience and learnings they should not be feared. Even if seen or bothered/haunted. They cannot harm you directly. Sure things fall off shelves and may HIT you in a timely manner or something but the spirit of the ghosts cannot even touch you. You may feel cold or their brush on the back of your neck (which is just your own instinctive early warning system of something amiss)... but best they can do is frighten you.
There ARE those spirits which can hurt you but they're not ghosts of humans gone past. Dunno about others but I do know there are evil spirits/entities which can manifest abundant energies enough to inflict physical wounds. Those ARE to be feared ... if you have little faith.

Still this would be very interesting show to watch. An even better place to experience for one's self. Perhaps someday.

 

[redantstyle]

could be some truth to all this.

however, i tend to think the culprit is a snake in the toolshed.