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Freaky! When I was a kid, 4 or 5 of us had a campout in the backyard and started telling ghost stories. I told one about Abe Lincoln, how his ghost was roaming the country, never at peace because his life ended too soon. One of us had a 5 dollar bill and pulled it out. We stared at it with a flashlight and started laughing. Then a strange thing happened. Lincoln's ghost appeared in our tent and declaimed, in a loud, yet solemn voice, "Don't EVER make fun of me! ARGH!!!" We all jumped up and ran screaming from the tent. What's weird is that we all saw and heard the same thing. It must have been a mass hallucination, or maybe someone's older brother snuck up and provided the voice, which would have probably done the job of scaring the heck out of us, but we all saw Lincoln, and we all heard what he said. It was weird. I still know a couple of the guys, and they still remember that happening.
I'd love to hear your group gather to discuss this event fifty years after the fact. I'm fascinated by paranormal and supernatural "events." I've not had any face-on terrifying things myself but lots of just weird, spooky happening. Oh and for those skeptics of my mother's friend... she bolted from the house, scared out of her wits. She was obviously very frightened and not just trying to pull one over on us.
People who don't believe in ghosts or w/e you want to call them just haven't experienced one. I'm not saying there's a casper floating around. I'm saying, whatever it is, we as people don't know what it is or what it should be labeled. But encounters with spirits are very real. I've physically seen things over a 4 year window back in the day that would make some people piss their pants.
We don't see each other too often (they're in Houston, and I've lived in Austin for 30+ years), but it comes up every once in a while. I had another strange thing happen, but it didn't involve a ghost, so I guess that'll have to wait for another thread.
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I have. This happened when I was living in Vietnam. I lived in the rural area where there were no lights on the street whatsoever. It was dark but I was still able to see a little because of the moon light. Houses were not close together. They are at least 50-60 yards away from one another. I was walking on my way to church one night by myself. Between my house and my uncle's house there were a tree. I was on the street heading toward church when I saw someone was standing under that tree. He/she was WHITE completely from head to toe. My uncle's house was completely dark with no one home. The distance from me to that person was at least 40-50 yards. That person just kept walking under that tree as I kept walking to church. I was ****ting bricks when I saw he/she. That person was glowing a little bit too. I didn't want to go toward that person because I was by myself. I thought someone was going to break into my uncle's house but then i thought, why would they wear ALL WHITE? I got scared and ran all the way to church. Every time i thought of that particular night, i keep telling myself i should've gone to see who was walking around under the tree.
I got goosebumps just reading your account... I can remember going to bed in our "haunted" house just full of dread, desperately waiting to fall asleep. There was often just a presence that my spider sense picked up on...
I don't know about 'ghost', but I may have experienced 2-3 intense, but scary hallucinations. Here's one of them. Some years back, I stayed at a cottage in S. America while traveling. It was in a beautiful, rural location in the heart of Patagonia. There was something off about this place from this start. Perhaps it was the renter's body language. He seemed uncomfortable and surprised in my wanting to stay there. Being the fool I was, I ignored the signs because the price was dirt cheap. I took it. I loved the cottage at first. Its isolation seemed ideal after the hustle and bustle of São Paulo and Buenos Aires. I hiked the surrounding area most of the day. I returned before sunset. As the sun went down that evening, I was sitting on the porch overlooking this picturesque valley when I felt I was being watched. I was alone for miles around. Yet, it felt like someone inside the cottage was standing and staring out the window directly behind the chair I was sitting on. Very spooky. I went inside soon because the temperature was dropping fast in the mountains. I lit a fire in the fireplace, switched on the radio, and turned on most of the lights to shake off the feeling. It helped a lot hearing the news and lively music. It became a cozy place during dinner. Not for long. As I headed to bed, I turned off everything, but kept the fire going because it was comfy. I lay in bed watching the flames make patterns on the ceiling for a long time. It was lulling me to sleep, when the light changed. A faint shadow moved very quickly across the ceiling. I snapped my neck to the fireplace expecting to see someone standing there blocking the light. No one was there. Unnerved, I switched the radio on again and kept staring at the fireplace. Eventually I drifted off to sleep because nothing happened after that. The next morning, I awoke suddenly. There was a 'black'/'shadow' figure pressing down on my chest. I tried to scream, but I had no voice. I wanted to hurt it, but I couldn't move anything besides my eyes. I shut them close and told myself I was dreaming. I opened them several more times. The figure was still there. I felt the pressure on my chest increase so much I couldn't breathe. I closed my eyes once again, and started to panic and cry. I remembered out of nowhere two simple Quranic prayers. I recited them forcefully in my head. The weight on my chest lifted off so suddenly, I nearly launched myself out of the bed doing a sit-up. I scanned the room. Sunlight came in through one of the windows. The place looked normal. I was alone again. I packed my stuff up and hauled ass out out there within minutes. Obviously this may have been a product of being alone, being sleepy, sleep paralysis/incubus, etc. BUT, when I left the village where the renter lived (gave him back his damn keys) a street vendor mentioned a European couple had bolted from the place some months back claiming it was haunted. Holy crap did that seal the deal. Whether you're religious or not, it's good to have a mental exercise to help you in these kinds of situations.
Fun thread. I can't imagine seeing things (or pissing my pants) for four years, because I would have seen the appropriate medical expert after a small fraction of that time. Seriously?! He sees some figure at least 40 yards away when it was dark and you find that scary?! Not doubting that he was frightened but it takes a special kind of credulity to be inclined to believe in ghosts because of that story. Do you, for example, know how is his eyesight? I, for instance, couldn't resolve much of anything under those conditions. And even if he had perfect vision, that story still shouldn't be taken as anything other than an anecdote. For some reason I have difficulties understanding what you're saying here. If I'm reading it correctly, you were pretty much putting your mind in this anxious/frightened state on purpose (at which point any small disturbance would have been interpreted to justify this state of mind, possibly leading to imagined disturbances) and yet all you could get is a sense of some "presence"? Yep, "haunted" indeed. :grin: Right. And had you "seen" what she "saw" (did she? Who knows. You're retelling a story you want to believe in. Is it even a first hand retelling? Or did she tell your mother who then told you?), you would, I'm guessing, reacted the same way. And yet, your posts clearly show such willingness to believe nonsense that no one would have any good reason to take this story as evidence for ghosts. Good to see that you're aware of the (by far) most likely explanations for your interesting story. It seals the deal to the same extent as the stories in this thread seals the deal for existence of ghosts. Off topic but it makes perfect sense that religiousness correlates with one's tendency to believe in ghosts or the "supernatural" in general. And yes, mental exercise is very important. One I used when reading this thread is called "thinking" (sorry, didn't mean to be that rude).
I'm old room at my parents house is haunted by one of my mothers dogs. When I was growing up my mother had a little white poodle. At night the dog would always make its way to my room and sleep in the bed with me. The dog lived to be around 12 y/o and passed away. When I was still living at home. Some times at night I could feel something jump on and lay with me just the way that dog did. I did not say anything. Blew it off as dreaming. College years mid 90's I brought a girl home and she spent the night. My mother is a super holy roller so the girl slept in my room and I slept on the couch. The next moring she wanted to know to know our dogs name. I was like what dog and she said the white one that slept with her that night. Told my mother about that and she swears being the super holy roller that she is she has walked past my room and seen that dog laying on my bed. Now we're going to jump to this past Christmas 1202. My old bed room at my parents house has been turned in to a nursery for my sisters little one who is 18 moths. They put the little one down for a nap and a hour or so later my sister could hear that she was up. So my sister went and got her. She said it was the strangest thing the little one was setting up, pointing, laughing, and saying puppy, puppy, puppy.
Cool thread. Sure, we can attack all of these things, but it's fun to just share the stories once in a while. I've shared the story of my uncle's visit before, but the one below is new. A couple of months ago, I had a dream that an old man walked into our house. He was about 65, grim-faced, and wearing a wide rim hat, kind of out of place. He was not welcome, or that was the strong feeling. He walked around the downstairs part of the house, and then walked slowly up the stairs. He eventually came to look at me and the wife in the bedroom, and I woke up, sat right up and (yeah, sure, in my confusion) could swear that I saw him there, looking at me, just for a split second. Then he was gone. But what was really weird is that our dog (at the foot of the bed), a dog that sleeps through everything, was bolt up awake, with her hackles up, growling. She was looking right at the spot where the guy (the vision) had been standing. All true. Not saying "ghost," but really creepy.
