Has anyone seen or heard a ghost?

" I will mention my own brush with the supernatural."


You mustn't feel obliged to do so on our behalf.

quote Awfultruth

If you have had an experience please tell us what it was, where and when, etc. Then I will mention my own brush with the supernatural

Posted on planet thread . Had other experiences but its past my bedtime. Night.

oftenwrong wrote:" I will mention my own brush with the supernatural."


You mustn't feel obliged to do so on our behalf.

And it's a goodnight from me!

There is no spirit world! (IMO )

Have you ever read up on Sleep Paralysis? I suffer from it, and I believe that many paranormal experiences can be explained easily by it.

In fact, I was with a friend a few weeks ago and I decided to start telling her all about my sleep paralysis experiences. She gasped and said, "I've had that before!" She has thought that it must be something ghostly.

No one knows about the condition, but everyone knows about ghosts and weird happenings, so their first thought is always to put anything weird down to this spirit world.

I only found out about sleep paralysis because a friend I was telling happens to enjoy reading books on psychology and she realised what I was nattering on about. No one I'd ever told before knew what I was banging on about.

Yes, apposite point: I understand all that and it is a true phenonmenon.

But, we cannot be sure what we see as 'ghosts' may be a kind of dimensional playback, or even some kind of mysterious manifestation of something within the universe which we have yet to identify and categorize, definitively.

It could also be a figment of our imagination.

However, I am open to suggestions. The term 'haunted' can be put before a whole raft of causes - some of them psychological or even Freudian (like the woman who thought a spirit had sex with her regularly!).

It is a very moot area without a completely satisfactory denouement in causality and actuality terms; we may all have theories but...

But none of this really matters without evidence, and I've never seen evidence.

I can't see much point in discussing something that is fairly clearly (in my opinion!) made up or imagined in the first place!

Have you heard of the Enfield Poltergiest by the way?

As much as I don't believe in it for a second, I'm very proud of it! Haha!

(I'm from Enfield.)

Missionaries are on the way.

by Blamhappy Today at 2:01 pm




Have you heard of the Enfield Poltergiest by the way?

As much as I don't believe in it for a second, I'm very proud of it! Haha!

(I'm from Enfield.)


There are cases of people 'seeing' someone, only to find out that they have been dead a while. A case that came to my attention years ago, and still occurs, is a road fairly near my birthplace in Kent where the same figure is regularly seen by motorists, but who 'disappears' when approached. Can some people see beyond the normal? And it's not down to booze.

This case is not unusual, and from round the world. I don't have the answer.

A couple of years ago I was sitting practising a piece of music on the church organ. I became aware of someone standing just behind me. When I looked round there was no-one there, but the sense of my mothers presence was very real. She too, was an organist, and died about six years ago. Imagination? If it was it was very real, and I was concentrating on the music. Ignoring religion, is there a world out there we cannot see. 'Ghosts', 'spirits' or forms of life the science we have cannot 'see'.
Certainly in my lifetime I have experienced personally things that have made me wonder.
I had friends who lived in a house in which doors would open and shut for no reason, and other strange things happened. They got used to it.
Though it did 'surprise' us who were visiting at such times.

Who really knows.

There are many things out there we have still to learn, to 'see', to experience. Mankind is is still 'young' in terms of the Universe.

Though brown seems to be taking over in the authorship column.

I can't see much point in discussing something that is fairly clearly (in my opinion!) made up or imagined in the first place!

The problem I see in your assertion is that you have leaped to a conclusion based on absolutely no evidence, either. You said somewhere else that you believe anecdotes aren't evidence ... except they are. You have simply chosen not to accept them as such. Now, if there were only a handful of people claiming to have encounters with this phenomenon, then the chances of the anecdotes being false are much more likely. However, given the preponderance of such anecdotes, the odds of ALL of them being hallucinations and lies drop off precipitously.

In other words, if one person bangs on your door and tells you that a UFO is hanging over your house, you could dismiss it. But if 20 or 30 people independently tell you the same, it might (and should) cause you to at least step outside and investigate for yourself. Unfortunately, when dealing with such mysteries, many skeptics dismiss them with the same amount of tangible evidence that believers possess, which is to say: zero. Unless one can prove that a particular ghost encounter was a lie, hoax, or hallucination, then the encounter is exactly what it should be - a mystery. To draw a conclusion without evidence is just as disingenuous for a skeptic as it is for a believer.

As someone who has studied various unexplained mysteries since I've been old enough to read, I have found that MANY skeptics use a wide range of fallacious arguments to dismiss these mysteries. Two of these fallacious arguments are relevant here.

The first one is called Affirming the Disjunct (If A or B, then B): "If it can be hoaxed, it was hoaxed." This really is a nonsense argument. Recently, I re-watched the movie Saving Private Ryan. The opening scene recreated the invasion of Normandy down to exacting detail. Were I to use the skeptic's argument here, I would have to conclude that the D-Day invasion never occurred. Instead, the events of June 6th, 1944 must have been hoaxed since it is possible to duplicate it using camera tricks, actors, and special effects.

The second one is: "If there is another explanation, then that explanation applies." Thus, if some people are prone to hallucinations, then everyone who sees ghosts must be hallucinating. This is a hybrid of three different fallacies depending on the nature of the arguement: The Texas Sharpshooter fallacy, the Causal Oversimplification fallacy, and the Argumentum ad Ignorantiam fallacy. Which particular fallacy most applies depends on the number of "other" explanations offered while simultaneously dismissing outright the possibility that ghosts (whatever they are) might be a real phenomenon. One cannot say that, because the possibility exists for a hoax or hallucination, that explanation becomes the default explanation until evidence of the contrary surfaces. Well, people DO say it, but they cannot do so without being fallacious.

As most people here can attest, I am a very cerebral and logical person - perhaps to a fault. One wonders if I somehow have Vulcan DNA! Yet I have had my own encounters with "ghosts." I won't bore anyone with the details, especially given how anecdotes are summarily dismissed (and I'm not too fond of being told I was hallucinating by someone who wasn't present), but what I saw (and what others saw with me) have thus far eluded any sort of "rational" explanation. And believe me ... I've tried to explain it away.

There is simply too much about the universe, the nature of existence, the essence of consciousness, that we simply don't know, much less understand, for me to assertively declare that the ghost phenomenon is nothing but hoaxes and delusion.

Take care, Blamhappy.

I s'pose. I was just being light hearted really, but I guess I was a bit naughty with my dismissiveness (sp?).

If people want to chat about experiences, I won't be rude. I can always NOT look at the thread if I feel like being cheeky! (i.e. "if you can't say anything nice, then don't say anything at all".)

So, go ahead

Blamhappy wrote:But none of this really matters without evidence, and I've never seen evidence.

I can't see much point in discussing something that is fairly clearly (in my opinion!) made up or imagined in the first place!

There lies the core of this issue: some will say they have seen or heard evidence, and therefore I cannot say for certain what they saw or heard - or even felt.

I once saw a US documentary where a group of researchers visited a very isolated ruinous old prison - at night. It did look really scary. The disused prison had a wing for those prisoners who had committed particularly serious crimes, including the psychopathic ones, the names of which they had from their research from the county archives.

Psychics complained, chillingly, that there were several evil spirit presences moving about in some of the cells (these all had lots of startling graffiti in the cells where these named killers had spent the rest of their lives, until passing away). Finally, they ordered a retreat because they said they were under attack and that one spirit had said it was going to hurt them and the lead psychic said it had become dangerous. It may have been hysteria but it looked like they were genuinely spooked.

If they wanted it to look really scary - they did. However, when they played back the footage and photographs, at crucial moments of so-called detection and spirit attack, large orbs, some with what looked like faces in them, could be clearly seen hovering around.

Although orbs are a moot point, experiments have indicated that they do not always appear and that they are not always 'dust' particles.

Anyway, it remains an interesting fright night and it was more compelling than any Hollywood codswallop, although who knows! :affraid:

Shirina wrote:

'In other words, if one person bangs on your door and tells you that a UFO is hanging over your house, you could dismiss it. But if 20 or 30 people independently tell you the same, it might (and should) cause you to at least step outside and investigate for yourself. Unfortunately, when dealing with such mysteries, many sceptics dismiss them with the same amount of tangible evidence that believers possess, which is to say: zero. Unless one can prove that a particular ghost encounter was a lie, hoax, or hallucination, then the encounter is exactly what it should be - a mystery. To draw a conclusion without evidence is just as disingenuous for a sceptic as it is for a believer.'

Good point: ghost stories are always fascinating. Some may be false, apocryphal, misinformation, or whatever, but who is to say that some reports are not genuine manifestations of a phenomena we still do not understand.

There are clouds that form tight circles in the sky and can be easily mistaken for hovering flying saucers - OK this phenomenon has been explained away and with it many of the sighting of days gone by, including some famous ones.

However, we must be sure as to what prima facie testimony is.

Whether witness statements are visual, physical or aural (and if indeed whether these witness accounts are sincere testimony), crucially, before we can dismiss them with absolute certainty, we have to be quite sure they are not genuine. Sometimes, by faith or deference to other people's surety, apocryphal accounts are given the credence they may not deserve, other times it is nigh impossible to be absolutely certain they are nothing other than the truth.

It's a moot point, but if Mrs Bloggs says she saw Anne Boleyn with her head in a Tesco carrier bag, who are we to call her potty? :affraid:

OK, my partner and I were staying at an isolated cottage, near a farm some years ago.

It was around 1130pm and we had already opted to NOT sleep in the cold upstairs bedroom (definitely very cold!), and so opted for the downstairs bedroom. While I was sitting in bed I was looking through a Country Living magazine (how appropriate and definitely NOT thinking about ghosts - I promise you that). My partner was in the bathroom, right next-door (door was to the left, adjoining the open door to the bedroom), and the stairs ran behind the wall where the head of the bed was.

My partner had just gone into the bathroom and closed the door. I was busy reading the mag, when I suddenly heard very distinct, loud footsteps going up the stairs and then the bedroom door above me slamming shut. I then laughed and shouted out 'Why are you doing up there?" The chilling thing was that the bathroom door opened and in walked my partner. "I'm not I've just been in the bathroom!"

Now, there is absolutely no way for anyone to get back down and then appear in such a short time - and the stairs were old and creaky. You stepped on those stairs and it was quite obvious someone was going up or down them.

Needless to say we both went upstairs to confront what we assumed was an intruder: but no one was there. No one was there!

Crucially, the following evening, my partner came into the sitting room and told me he had just heard someone go up the stairs! Again, no one was there and all the doors and windows were locked/closed (it was Autumnal and cold). And, when we had our photographs developed (this was twenty years back), one pic of the cottage clearly showed what looked like a woman's face in one of the window panes. I kid you not. That really spooked us - but not in a fearful way, more in an 'Oh, that's the ghost!' kind-of-way.

Since then we have both concluded that what we heard, at least, was prima facie evidence, de facto stuff, which proved to us that ghosts or whatever phenomenon they may be, do exist in some kind of way.

End of testimony...

"End of testimony..."

There is no use trying, said Alice; one can’t believe impossible things. I dare say you haven’t had much practice, said the Queen. When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

oftenwrong

Yet the impossible often turns up on your doorstep!

That includes huge utility bills, which I would prefer were spectral and so non-payable!

During the 1990s I was the licensee of a large pub, restaurant and function rooms, the place was once a fabulous hotel but declined after the Second World War.

On several occasions I experienced the smell of perfume in a particular corner of the public bar, this was when no one was in the bar, other staff could also smell the same odour, rather like old fashioned perfume.

On another occasion I was behind the bar when a young teenage lad was playing darts with his gran ( the only other people around ), when someone shouted out, the lady looked at me, I asked who had shouted, I knew it wasent the young lad, and to this day it remains a mystery.

The most memorable experience was very late one night (around midnight), there was only one customer left drinking up, his name was Vic. This man was a regular, he always stood at the bar, he was talking away but suddenly stopped, he asked who the couple were stood behind him, and as there was no one there I thought it was some kind of joke, but the look of fear on his face made me realise it was no joke, and Vic ran off leaving his drink.

The following day I met Vic s son who at that time was in his 20s, I made no reference to the previous nights incident, but he asked me what had happened, he explained that he normaly sleeps in a seperate room from his wife, but that last night he slept in the same room.

There are numerous other strange stories relating to that building, including chefs knifes been thrown around when the place was all locked up, builders seeing ghosts and bar staff and customers seeing shadows through mirrors.

First, allow me to set the scene.

The incident took place in a castle-like building that once housed the criminally psychotic. Yes, I know that sounds ridiculously cliche, but that's really where it happened. Several members of my family worked (and still do) at the North Warren State Psychiatric Hospital in North Warren, Pennsylvania.



The above is an old photograph of the actual building. However, when the incident occurred, the building had been renovated and turned into an office although only a portion of the building was actually used - mostly the ground floor. When you first enter the front door, you would see a long, wide hallway that runs all the way to the back of the building. It was so long that you actually had difficulty distinguishing detail at the far end.

My aunt worked in this building which meant my cousin had convenient access to the keys; my aunt would simply hang them on a key rack next to the door in her kitchen. What's more, she lived literally a stone's throw away from this building - an apartment that, itself, used to belong to the hospital. A group of friends, including my cousin, and myself used to occasionally sneak into this building in the middle of the night; it was isolated from the rest of the sprawling hospital and could not be seen from the main road, so it was a perfect place to have a little fun. We didn't even have to break into the place; my cousin simply stole the keys that my aunt left on the key rack.

This particular group of friends were skaters, and they loved skating around inside the building. In fact, up in the attic (which wasn't used, not even for storage) they had slowly built what could be described as a skating park. I didn't skate myself, but I was the official "videographer." I was always filming their stunts.

So, what precisely happened?

At the far end of the downstairs hallway, at the back of the building, was an employee break room with all of the things you'd expect a break room to have - restrooms, vending machines, sofas, etc. Unfortunately, bathroom breaks had to be taken there, even if we were all the way up in the attic. Aside from the attic (where there were no windows) and the main hallway on the ground floor (where there was some dim auxiliary lighting), we used no lights except for flashlights. Because of this, shadows were everywhere, and the intervening floors between ground floor and attic were pitch dark. No one wanted to be in that building alone because it was just damned creepy, so when someone had to travel down to the ground floor to use the restroom, we all had to go.

This time, it was my turn to need a bathroom break, so my friends were carrying on in the break room while I was in the restroom. I could hear them plainly because the walls of the restroom did not reach all the way to the ceiling. There was a pretty big gap up there and their laughing and goofing off carried in through the gap. Even as they were still horsing around, I could still hear it ...

I heard a horrible, bone-numbing moan. It was the kind of moan you would almost expect to hear in a haunted house. Like the building itself, even the moan sounded cliche and would have been comical if not for the reality of it. My friends in the break room had gone absolutely quiet and I remember joking to myself, "In those cheesy slasher movies, what always happens to the lone girl in the restroom? Yep ... I'm screwed." Yet I was still frightened and I started to think more tactically - what is the fastest way out of here? Where are my available exits? Are there potential weapons close at hand?

Then the moan drifted through the building again. It was such an awful sound that it had the effect of draining away the good cheer I had had just moments before. It stifled all of the happiness, the camaraderie among friends, the jokes ... and left me sitting there, stunned. I know the obvious question is: How do I know it wasn't one of my friends playing a prank? Well, one thing is that the moan was too pervasive. It was almost as if the "ghost" was using an amplifier or a PA system because the sound was everywhere and had no point of origin ... and I was trying to gauge that very thing when my mind shifted into tactical mode. After all, you would want to run AWAY from the source and not blunder into it. Knowing where the source actually is kinda-sorta helps to achieve that! Plus, the building was so vast and echoey that the walls were coated floor to ceiling with sound-absorbing panels. If one of my friends had simply moaned as a joke, the sound would not have been nearly so rich and resonant. And no, there was no PA system in the building - it was far too old for that and we later verified it from my aunt (who actually ran the place).

When the moan slithered its way through the building a third time, chaos ensued. A chorus of profanity erupted from my friends - I'm sure you can imagine what was said - and I was trying my hardest to urge my body to finish up its natural processes so I could get the hell out of that restroom. I suddenly thought about suffering an ignominious death while sitting on the toilet, then I thought of Elvis, and then I heard my friends taking off down the hallway. That's when I started to get truly scared, no ... terrified is closer to the truth.

After bolting out of the restroom, I looked down that impossibly long hallway and saw the distant front doors ... so far away that the big double doors were no larger than a postage stamp held at arm's length. Between the doors and myself were my friends hightailing it down the corridor. No one was yelling, swearing, and certainly not laughing. They were just running. It wasn't until they looked back and saw me there when one of them screamed, "Get the hell out of there! 'Effing' run!"

I did. Like never before.

The stairs that wound their way up past several floors to the attic were located on either side of the front doors. As we were running, we failed to notice immediately that the stairwells were lit with a yellow flickering light, the kind you would expect from a candle or a lantern. Except there were no lights up there. In fact, there wasn't even electrical wiring past the second floor. That stairwell should have been darker than pitch. That's when someone - I don't even remember who - stuck his arm out like a crossing gate and stopped us all in our tracks. Then it dawned on me about the light. Someone was up there. Security? Maintenance? No ... we made sure the building did not have late night workers. If there had been even a chance of getting caught, we never would have went in there to begin with.

We stood there for what felt like a long time watching the light and whispering back and forth trying to come up with explanations. None of them were alleviating our fear. But when the light began moving down the stairs, we took off again. I can still remember the squeaking of our tennis shoes on the tiled floor as we sprinted hellbent for leather toward the doors ... until my cousin barreled right into the heavy glass doors and knocked himself onto his backside. Oh yeah, we had locked the doors behind us to keep anyone else out of the building. They didn't just fly open when Ryan, my cousin, slammed into them. Oops! All the while, the light was bearing down on us.

Unlike a horror movie, though, there was no fumbling with the keys. Ryan simply pulled them out and unlocked the door. We flew threw them and out into the parking lot ... and that's as far as we got before our morbid curiosity took hold. When we felt we were a safe distance away (which wasn't all that far, to be honest) we all stopped running and turned around to see if we could catch a glimpse of whatever it was coming down the stairs. We weren't disappointed.

All we could see through the windows located on every landing was the light. We could see the shadows of railings moving around as the light changed perspective. Then the light would dim as it moved down to the next window, then intensify again as it passed by the window, only to dim again. The third floor, then the second ... and in the second floor window we saw a figure. It was just a figure, nothing more, but obviously human in shape. We stood, transfixed, knowing that the light-bearer would have to pass in front of the big glass front doors as it stepped into the hallway. We would get a clear view of him then.

But just as we thought the person (or ghost) would enter the hall, the light went out. Just like that. Gone. We all looked at each other, then back to the building. We waited. And waited. And waited. In fact, we waited so long, standing there in the parking lot, that my feet started to go numb. Still nothing. The light never came back on. None of the electric lights on the ground floor ever came on. Nor did the light ever make its way back up the stairs. It had simply disappeared.

We thought about going back in to investigate, but no one could quite work up the nerve. In fact, Ryan wouldn't even return to the door to lock it back up; it was better to get into trouble than to go back in there. For the rest of the night, we debated back and forth about possible explanations, but there simply weren't any that made sense. No one else could have gotten into the building without the key and we knew for a fact that the building did not have nighttime maintenance or security. Even so, there were no cars in the parking lot. The building was far away from anywhere else (aside from my cousin's house) so maintenance or security staff would have to drive there. Perhaps my aunt had devised a big prank to scare us out of the building? Ludicrous. She wasn't that clever, and besides, she had been sound asleep in her bed when we returned. And why a candle or lantern? Wouldn't security or maintenance use flashlights like everyone else?

And what the HELL was up with that moan?

We never did go back into that building. Ever. In fact, my cousin and I received a pretty nasty tongue-lashing given that we had left everything inside the building - flashlights, skateboards, the big lights powered by car batteries that we used in the attic, even the bloody video camera. It was all found the next day by my aunt. And no ... we did not get video of any of it. I deeply regret that, but since we took off and left everything in the break room, we didn't have the camera with us as we were making our escape. However, once my aunt's anger cooled, we were able to ask her about the building including maintenance, security, and whether or not anyone had been scheduled to work there that night. No one had been.

Even 12 or so years later, there has never been an adequate explanation, and no one has stepped forward to admit to pulling a prank. Though, even my aunt could not have gotten inside the building considering we had her keys. Those friends that I am still in touch with still talk about that little adventure from time to time, and even today, we still search for an explanation that makes sense. I don't often visit this town these days, but only a few years after the incident, this building was torn down to make way for an industrial park. But after over a decade of theorizing, postulating, and speculating, nothing new has ever surfaced to convince us that we really did have an encounter with something "other worldly."

And that's that ... my apologies for the length, but I wanted to tell it like a real story in the hopes that anyone reading this can get a better idea of what it was like to be there. It is difficult to really convey the power of these experiences to someone who has never had one, and too often if you try, it begins to sound like a campfire ghost story. Yet despite how it sounds, it truly did happen.

Very interesting and compelling Witchfinder (I will now read Shirina's post)! :affraid:

My mothers old Cornish pub has a ghostly sea captain :pirat: who occasionally tramps across the floor of the attic; a large area never used or accessed because it was known as haunted. He was heard (well it was always said it was this guy), on many occasions. I never heard him, although I never lived there, but people around truly believed and even accepted that the harmless ethereal resident existed.

Perhaps it was just a playback of the past - who knows!

I have also had several more notable experiences which I will present later.

I have also had several more notable experiences which I will present later.

after the watershed?

Does an mp after you've voted for him/her count?

AwfulTruth quote

Since then we have both concluded that what we heard, at least, was prima facie evidence, de facto stuff, which proved to us that ghosts or whatever phenomenon they may be, do exist in some kind of way.


I have a theory which you can accept of reject. I believe that some people are more receptive to 'phenomena' than others. I recognise that many things are imagination etc. but there are genuine cases which cannot be explained.

This is not about ghosts, but an experience I had. And please keep it to yourselves:)

When I was a young man in the RAF I went out for a while with a young lady. When I was posted away we lost touch. Several years later I got married to another woman.

One night I had a dream that the young lady was trying to contact me. I put it to one side as 'one of those things' until I was in town and met a friend and her husband. The woman said that she had had a dream that a young lady was trying to contact me. Given that she knew nothing of the young lady, my never having spoken of her to anyone, how did she know?

A few days later my parents let me know that I had had a letter from the girl wanting me to contact her. Needless to say, being married, I couldn't, but contacted someone where the girl lived to let me know how the girl was.

Cutting things short. I had two more different dreams concerning the same subject. Both were confirmed by my friend in her dreams.

In the final dream she described seeing me in a building. She described the interior of a church hall I didn't recognise. A few weeks later I went to see my parents 150 miles away and went to the church I attended when a child. Entering the church hall I realised this was the place my friend had described. I didn't recognise the place. Since my last visit it had been completely altered beyond my recognition. But my friend had seen it in her dream. Seeing that she had never been there, and didn't even know the village I had been brought up in, how could she describe the hall? It was a pretty accurate description, right down to the chairs, instead of pews, the platform having been removed, and more

Someone kindly explained to me once that she had 'read' my mind. If she had her description would have been completely different.

Telepathy - co-incidence - ?. I don't know. All I do know is that it happened.

I'm not unusual. I know others who have had unexplained experiences.

You don't know me, so I guess some of you will take what I say with a pinch of salt. That is your perogative. Some will recognise what I say, having had experiences for themselves.

I stand by my theory, right or wrong.

Having read the posts before mine I guess there are people who have these experiences. More than I would have imagined. This thread would make a good researchers study.

I think the only reliable source will be football referees ; they seem to be expert at seeing things that others cannot - usually in the penalty area of their 'favoured' team..

by Phil Hornby Today at 8:55 pm



I think the only reliable source will be football referees ; they seem to be expert at seeing things that others cannot - usually in the penalty area of their 'favoured' team..

Commonly known as Myopia:shock:

I have this recurrent dream that these threads discuss reality.

I ate bran-flakes and pro-biotic fat-free yoghurt for breakfast and guess what? No one would doubt that I did...by faith they will assume that I was being objective and true.

Shirina

Your account sounds TERRIFYING! I have a fear that absolute fear makes the bowels open - sorry to be crude. So I hope I never experience it.

It's these dark, disused places with horrible histories that make the blood run cold that really fill me with trepidation.

I cannot remember what old mansion it was, but there is this room in it where the lord of the place (some landed gentry monster) hurled his newborn baby, who had just been born, into the fireplace and killed/murdered it. Sounds horrible; it is espoused that the room is haunted by the screams of the mother as she lay prone in bed...

Apparently he wanted a heir and not another girl.

tlttf wrote:Does an mp after you've voted for him/her count?

There are one or two evil spirits in Parliament, it is alleged...

tlttf wrote:Does an mp after you've voted for him/her count?

I think that's Albatross, not a spirit.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The albatross is a “pious bird of good omen”; the mariner kills it for no reason; at first his fellow sailors blame him, then when the fog goes they approve of his action (and so share his guilt); when they are becalmed they change their minds again and blame him, hanging the dead bird around his neck.

Doesn't that describe today's Parliament?

No, it sounds more like Billingsgate during a visit by Heston Blumentahl; you know what these foodies are like!

Same thing really...

How on earth can there be ghosts if evolution is correct?.
Oh yes they jumped out of the little pool of acid at the volcano site and scampered away to frighten the devil out of those susceptible to their activities.

Dream on.

Of course there are other spirit creatures and no doubt some have lost their way just as those who believe in evolution have done, if someone can be in evolution anything is possible.

How on earth can there be ghosts if evolution is correct?

Just because someone doesn't believe in a story about Adam and Eve invented by superstitious Bronze Age desert nomads doesn't mean there can't be an afterlife of some sort. There's no reason whatsoever to believe that an afterlife must revolve around a deity. In fact, an "afterlife" could simply be the next stage in our evolution, a process that is completely natural rather than supernatural.

I have an open mind on things supernatural and beyond our understanding, but according to older family members on my mothers side, we are supposed to have the ability or gift to be receptive to such strange happenings, and its apparently passed on.

My great grandmother was a fishermans wife in Whitby, during the Great War all the men were at sea in the navy, she was alone in the old harbourside cottage, a simple two room cottage which consisted of bedroom and living room.

One particular winters night my great grandmother was in bed, the door to the living room was wide open because the fire was lit and the warmth spread into the bedroom.

In the shadows my great grandmother saw the figure of a man in the armchair, he was dripping wet and weeping, the clock on the mantlepiece showed 10 o clock.

Next day the postman arrived with a telegram, her son had been killed in action off the coast of Belgium, he had died at 10 pm the previous night.
This story is a well known one in my family along with other stories of premonitions and so called "second sight" experiences.

"Why, sometimes I can believe at least six impossible things before breakfast", said the Red Queen.

And elephants might fly.

All your theories are groundless nonsense.

Next step in evolution indeed, there are no steps that can be verified nor will there ever be.

Jesus was born 2011 years ago and man has had those years to consider and utilise all that God has given him.

Just consider that which has happened during just the last 150 years.

From candles to all the electrical appliances, from the horse and cart to going to the moon along with all the other inventions and not to mention the Atom bomb.

Has man evolved [ his brain] in 150 years to enable him to do all those things and has his brain laid dormant for the other years.

The last part of the paragraph is true, mans brain was created with the capacity to do things far beyond our wildest dreams and only a very small part has been used until now.

The rapid increase in the inventions we have today is to fullfil the times prophecies indicated would be prelevant at the time of the worlds end as we know it.

Polyglide quote. The last part of the paragraph is true, mans brain was created with the capacity to do things far beyond our wildest dreams and only a very small part has been used until now.

Then why did the creator give us such wonderful brains, only to end the world with our potential unfulfilled.

All your theories are groundless nonsense.

LOL! Oh yes, I forgot ... you know everything there is to know about The Great Beyond. You have a holy book that gives you all the answers, and if it isn't in that book, then it must be "groundless nonsense." Right, got it.

Has man evolved [ his brain] in 150 years to enable him to do all those things and has his brain laid dormant for the other years.

Well ... about 150 years ago, religion stopped being the center of everyone's lives and science was allowed to advance. People weren't put under house arrest for saying the earth revolves around the sun nor were they burned at the stake for claiming there is life on other planets. *snicker* That's why.

I sometimes wonder how far we'd be if Rome had not fallen to barbarians and civilization continued on for another thousand years. But, instead we had the Dark Ages filled with religious superstition, abject poverty, petty kings, inquisitions, and horrific fear of being branded as a heretic. Perhaps literally branded ... with a red-hot poker.

The rapid increase in the inventions we have today is to fullfil the times prophecies indicated would be prelevant at the time of the worlds end as we know it.

Oh good grief, you're an apocalyptic believer. Yeah, so much for "free will" if humanity is shackled to a prophesy that *must* come to pass. I guess there's really no point in doing anything to better the world since it's doomed to fail no matter what choices we make. Why not just press the big red button and get the apocalypse started. No sense in waiting around.