Do you believe in ghosts?

[coriolis]

I'm amazed at the popularity of tv shows like ghost hunters. Personally I believe that these shows have no substance to them whatsoever. Ghost Hunters covers this by claiming that they seek to debunk ghost stories. But there are a number of copycat shows that claim to find paranormal activity every time.

I'm not talking about angels or demons, who were never in a body, but rather the spirits of people who supposedly have not left the earth for one reason or another.

[vbhoutex]

No, even though I was sure I saw them when I was younger during sleepovers. I agree with you about the shows. I have friends that watch every episode though and I know them to be sane intelligent people.

[southerngale]

No, I don't. Now watch one come and get me for saying that.

[Ad Novoxium]

To be perfectly honest, I find reason to believe and reason not to believe, but I think that's part of the point. When you were a child, you wrote lists around this time yearly to a person who did not exist, but you still got lost in it. Ghosts are similar, but we can't actually prove or disprove all pieces of evidence in the field. In the end, I view ghosts as something to wonder about if you're not getting rest in the night and just want to be philosophical about the world.

[RobWESTPACWX]

I believe in them, say I'm crazy it is ok... But I 100% agree with you on the TV shows, me and my wife just had this exact DSCN a few days ago when we saw the show on Animal Planet. I mean Animal Planet? I know ghost and vampires are the in thing now but wow.

[StormingB81]

I do, PLUS, I believe in UFO's as well I think I saw one as well until proven otherwise!! I know it was movign faster then any plane can!

[brunota2003]

I believe there is *something* out there. What are they exactly, ghosts or spirits or angels and demons, I do not know. However, I have heard too many stories about the unexplainable stuff that would go on at one of the prisons both of my parents used to work at.

For example, the prison was built atop an old work camp and has a graveyard that dates back to the civil war right beside the sector fencing. The section of fence (ironically) that went alongside the graveyard was designated Section 13 (the numbering has since changed), well my mom used to work night shift and part of her duties was to occasionally walk or drive along the road going through that particular section of fence (checking it obviously) and she would always stop at the graveyard and call out the window "How y'all guys doing tonight?" and without fail that section of fence would immediately start going off in the control room...every time. She would even call on the radio, telling the control officer she was going to talk to the graveyard, and that the fence was about to go off (they "hated" her for that ).

There are numerous other stories about that prison...there was a section where a ghost liked to close open cell doors (and even took the door out of an inmate's hand and slammed it shut as the inmate was asking if the block was haunted). There was another section where a ghost liked to "pop" cells open (they can only be opened from the control room as a safety precaution). When you start having cell doors opening up while no one is in the control room, you start wondering. At first my dad thought my mom was crazy when she'd come home with all these stories about the prison being haunted, until he started working there as well on night shift.

The one story I witnessed personally had nothing to do with the prison, but instead, with my grandfather's death. He passed away October 31, 2001 at 8:05 pm (I can still see the glow of the time on the microwave right after I watched him die)...which was, in a twist, the first Halloween to have a full moon in 60 some years. The moon was bright enough that you could stand outside and read a newspaper...that night, we had a dog run up and down our wrap around porch and scratching at our doors, it was loud enough it woke my parents up who grabbed their guns and stepped out on the deck to chase it off. The noise it made was too loud to be anything smaller than a German Shepard, and despite the full moon, they never saw the dog (even though you could hear it running on the deck right in front of you). This went on for 3 nights, and my dad and I even planted flour on the deck to try to get some paw prints to get a good estimate of the size of the dog...we placed flour on the 4 steps leading up to the deck and a good 4 foot past the stairs on the deck itself, enough that even a big dog couldn't jump over the flour if he wanted to...the dog came back, ran right past where the flour was and down that set of stairs...checked the flour the next morning and there was not one single paw print in the flour, not even a partial! After the 3 nights, the dog disappeared and we never heard it again. We just figured it was probably grandpa playing a last prank on us before moving on to a better place.

[RL3AO]

I do, PLUS, I believe in UFO's as well I think I saw one as well until proven otherwise!! I know it was movign faster then any plane can!

Was it a satellite or the international space station? Was it a bright "star" moving across the sky at a quick pace?

As for the original question, no. I don't believe in anything paranormal or supernormal. No ghosts, spirts, or god(s). Boring person, aren't I?

[MGC]

I live in a haunted house....really. No, I'm not crazy. I've never seen the apparation but have heard HIM. The previous owner of the house died of cancer about 12 years ago. He has on a couple of occasions called for his wife. Being home alone and hearing a male voice freaked me out as all the TV's and radio were off. Lots of times we can't find a object for several days...and the object shows up on the kitchen table. When we leave we tend to close door around the house....on many occasion we come home to find the doors open. All strange but true......MGC

[Stephanie]

I believe. I know that there's been many times that I've caught something out of the corner of my eye and I have had messages from the other side - from my cats after they died. The one that will always come to mind first is when my cat, Derby died. We had a couple that would walk their dogs by our house and this time, about a week or so after Derby died and we had him cremated, they came by with stuff from their cat that had passed away as well. They wondered if I would be interested in it and I said yes, since I had other cats. Derby's ashes were sitting next to a picture of my Grandmother who had cats and used to feed them canned food called "Figaro". It's not very common. When I brought the bag of items in the house, I looked inside and along with some toys, there were 3 cans of Figaro cat food. I KNEW it was Derby telling me he was with my Grandmother and she was spoiling him rotten.

[JonathanBelles]

I live in a haunted house....really. No, I'm not crazy. I've never seen the apparation but have heard HIM. The previous owner of the house died of cancer about 12 years ago. He has on a couple of occasions called for his wife. Being home alone and hearing a male voice freaked me out as all the TV's and radio were off. Lots of times we can't find a object for several days...and the object shows up on the kitchen table. When we leave we tend to close door around the house....on many occasion we come home to find the doors open. All strange but true......MGC

I can sort of relate, although not as drastically. There is one cupboard on my kitchen that will never stay shut. No matter how many times we have fixed the hinges and shelving, it will not stay closed for longer than a few second, BUT it only opens if we are standing next to it. We'll close it and walk away at night, and then in the morning we'll come out and be making tea and it'll pop open. I live in the house where my great-grandparents lived for many years. Neither of them died in the house, but both died nearby. This cupboard is the one cupboard that my great-grandmother used to keep all of her spices in when she lived at the house. Quite a cooker she was, and she always left this one door opened. The thing we keep coming to is that it has to be her in the house. Never really bugging us, except when we cant get the dang door to close lol.

Other than my great-grandmother, I would have to say I do believe in ghosts/spirits. I believe that people do stay on Earth to watch over friends and family to finish what they may not have while they were living. I've always been intrequed by the paranormal activity shows and true haunted houses. I can't say I've ever been in a real haunted house, but its on my bucket list to get the crap scared outta me. One of the things i'm looking forward to doing after life is going places I wasn't able to while I am alive, and to visit with friends and family.

[brunota2003]

(MGC's reply reminds me) There was a house we lived in, in NC, when I was younger that was haunted...but it wasn't a bad haunting, more like the ghost liked to play tricks on you and move objects around. My mom always kept knick knacks on the mantle above the fireplace and every week they would get rearranged. You'd walk out of the room with them in one order and walk back in 5 minutes later and they would be rearranged.

There was another time (in a different house) when my dad's hot sauce went missing. Him and I were on the couch watching football and my mom and sister were outside...he made roman noodles and went into the kitchen to get his hot sauce and couldn't find it. All 4 of us searched for a bit for it before finally giving up. We went back to watching football and my sis and mom went back outside. A few minutes later, my sis walked back into the kitchen and found the hot sauce sitting in plain view on the stove. My mom still swears we were responsible for that, even though we were both in the living room! I had quite a few things go missing in that house, only to reappear later in plain view (papers, toys, even my house key!)...but whoever did it never really messed with us beyond that. The hot sauce one is the most memorable though, because all 4 of us searched for it, only for it to reappear on the stove a few minutes later.

[MGC]

Funny thing with the doors.....we have moved furniture in front of the doors that Morris likes to open while we are away....we come home and the door we put the furniture in front of is open! Spooky.....MGC

[gtalum]

I don't. The allegedly "supernatural" and "paranormal" always have a perfectly natural explanation. The human mind is great at playing tricks on itself though.

[Pburgh]

I have only seen activity right after a loved one died. When my Dad died, my brother and I were standing in the dining room and several wine glasses fell to their sides on the table. No one was near the table and the house was quiet with just the two of us in it. When Craig died, his ashes were in a glass urn covered with wax and the urn exploded.

[MGC]

I didn't believe in spirits until it started happening to me.....shortly after I moved into a different house.....MGC

[sunny]

I live with one. I've only seen him once - about six months or so ago I had just laid in bed getting ready to watch Criminal Minds about 9pm when a strange feeling came over me. The way my apartment is set up and my furniture laid out, I have a clear line of vision into my kitchen, and my stove has a digit clock that throws off light. So anyway, this weird feeling came over me and my eyes train up - there is a young man standing there watching me, he was wearing a black t-shirt and had long brown curly hair. My mind started racing wondering how the hell he got into my apartment without me hearing anything - that's how real he was, I thought someone had broken into my home. I kept my eyes on him as I started to reach for my gun. He cocked his head to the side, looked as if he wondered what I was doing. Then just faded away. I FROZE. I sat there just about all night hugging my pillow telling myself "it wasn't real, that didn't happen." Only it had happened, it was real. Completely freaked me out. I had things 'happen' before I saw him that I would just shrug off, things where I hadn't put them, like that. I never really thought about it until after I saw him. It doesn't bother me so much anymore. He likes to play with my blinds on my sliding glass door, and no there is no air blowing on them or anything. My nephew refuses to come to my house now, lol he tells me "that's so not cool Aunt Cindy"

[Ntxw]

I don't really believe in ghosts...but I do believe in the environment being able to capture moments/energy from something big (a death, trauma etc) and somehow replay it to us via airwaves to the brain connection! Yeah yeah weird, but I don't know how to explain it better lol.

[sandpiper]

I believe that some phenomena ascribed to ghosts, spirits, demons, etc., when it cannot readily be explained, could be attributed to some as yet unrecognized force, entity, or process. Because we cannot find explanations for certain classic "paranormal activity" doesn't necessarily indicate a "haunting" of any kind. Ghosts etc. as a hypothesis remains untestable, and so can neither be proved nor disproved. Generally, I take a person's word for it. If they claim they had a paranormal experience, I'll believe them unless I have evidence that would counter their claim (such as knowledge that the person in question was under the influence of a drug).

[Category 5]

I don't really know what I believe. I don't believe in god or the bible or anything, but spirits, idk. I'll find out when I'm dead I guess.