Casper, the friendly ghost, I don't know the rest of the song...

[smeddley]

I'll start by putting all my cards on the table and say I don't believe in ghosts. I certainly believe there are things we can't explain, but a few hundred years ago they couldn't explain volcanoes and attributed them to gods. Just sayin'.

Still, I have a fascination with shows about ghosts and hauntings. Maybe it's the skeptic in me, I enjoy 'debunking' their finds. It's not as through I've never had any weird things happen to me, things that 'believers' might point to a 'proof' (the incidents are fictionalized here) but I chalk up to coincidence. After all, more often than not weird things don't happen to me.

The best thing I heard recently on one of these shows dealt with orbs (the highly questionable 'proof', even among believers. I've caught thousands in my house with my cheap PHD, oddly enough, never ever get one with my SLR. Hmmmm, could it be that the camera people are right, and it's the proximity of the flash to the lens that causes them? Gee, I wonder...).

They were filming in an abandoned building in Texas that had most of its windows broken out. And in trying to discredit the skeptics, the 'researcher' said of the orbs: "And it can't be anything in the air, there are no bugs here."

Right.

Comments

[revoked-soul.livejournal.com]

I know lots of people who whole-heartedly believe in ghosts including Colum and his family.

Me? I'd LIKE to believe in ghosts. I find it more an interesting concept than a scary one, and hey, there are some dead people I really wouldn't mind seeing again. However, I've had no evidence that they do, and my inner skeptic won't let me believe anything wihout evidence.

That said, it DID used to creep me out a little when Fianna was a baby and used to have regular, animated babbling conversations with one particular corner of the basement.

[gelsey.livejournal.com]

Let's just say I don't disbelieve in ghosts. There are some things that have happened in my experience that I can't explain much better than that. But I'm not like, let's investigate or anything.

LOL on the bugs.

[cdpeck.livejournal.com]

hehe... orbs.

[crimsonlotus84.livejournal.com]

Well, when you wake up in the middle of the night with someone telling you about how they're nervous and scared and you hear someone close the bathroom door, turn on the water in the sink, turn off the water, open the door then whimper....AND YOU LIVE ALONE...tell me there aren't such things as spirits. Also, if you want some good stories ask Amplitude from Radio KoL about Mr Creepy.

I believe that people are entitled to believe what they want and that belief does affect the experiences they have (a belief in spirits makes their presence stronger, weaker if you don't) so I'm not going out of my way to say you're wrong, just hoping you don't really have to experience some of the stuff my family has been through. For example, my parents house is inhabited by a shy ghost that only talks to us in our sleep and likes to walk in the halls at in the shadows. We're not sure if it's nice or not, but when I was younger I'd wake up to hear my Mom talking in her sleep. Normally i wouldn't think anything of this but she was talking clearly and in full sentences to nothing. Not only that but she was acknowledging it coming back to see her at night and reminding it of the things they had already talked about. I would have just thought this was sleep talking but this went on for months where they'd keep talking about new things. It was creepy as hell. My parents and friends that stayed the night have told me that I talked to it in my sleep too in a similar way.

[penchaft.livejournal.com]

But was the sink wet?

I have a friend who refuses to go to sleep without wearing his jade necklace (or having jade under his pillow) because if he doesn't then he sees/knows there is someone outside his window. And one time when he went back-packing in Europe his friend saw the eyeless ghost too (25 hours of flying will do crazy things to you, though, imo).

My grandmother once saw the ghost of a nurse looking after my infant mother.

I once thought I heard God. It was the radio.