Have you ever seen a ghost?

[Uller]

My aunt used to live in a 16th century farmhouse. She had a resident spirit who she believed watched over her. She is an artist and many years ago had an accident which meant she couldn't paint. Money was getting tight and she started thinking about having to sell the farmhouse. She then started finding money (significant amounts of it) in various places around the house - a fat roll in the freezer for instance. She swears she didn't put it there and believes it was her spirit helping her out. It meant so much to her that, when she did eventually sell several years later, she vetted prospective buyers to make sure that they were happy living with the spirit.

I would normally take this sort of thing with a pinch of salt. But when I was a child and visiting her, I experienced something which was odd. In her living room, there was an alcove tucked around a corner, lined with books. I was looking at a book there and smelt very strong pipe smoke. Her boyfriend smoked cigarettes, but this was definitely pipe (can't stand cigarette smoke, love pipe/cigar smoke and can tell the difference!). I mentioned it to her and she said that she had smelt it too - neighbours had told her that the alcove used to be where the front door was but the previous owners had bricked it up shortly before she bought the house in the 60s. Some years before, the house had been owned by an old guy who used to sit outside the front door smoking his pipe - one of the elderly neighbours remembered him from when she was a child.

The logical part of me knows there is no such thing and it is all a load of rubbish - no offence meant, I include what I experienced in that! However, the curious part of me knows that just because science hasn't proved something (yet), it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Anyway, life would be very boring if we could explain everything!

[growingthings]

I imagine that in many years to come my two daughters will tell me tales of a white figure that used to move about in the corner of their childhood bedroom at night.........................only to have to break it to them that it was me putting away laundry in the dead of night in my dressing gown! (never enough hours in the day mutter mutter)

In all seriousness though. I couldn't say for definite that I have ever seen anything that I couldn't explain / pass off, and I have an extremely active imagination, which seems not to have lost any of it's capacity despite the fact that I am now 'officially grown-up' although...

Four days before my wedding six years ago, my uncle suddenly died of an anerysm. My uncle was a well regarded Film maker and director, and had gladly offered his services to film / photograph our wedding, and had even been up from London the week before to film us endlessly driving up and down in our campervan so that he could put together some ideas he had! Obviously things had to continue without him and some good friends stepped in. The church that we married in is teeny (http://www.flickr.com/photos/norfolkodyssey/205571468/)(http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/hoveto ... cf0117.jpg) and only has room for around 40 people let alone video cameras. And our friend is busily trying to get the damn thing on the stand so that he can sit down and get out of our way - did I say the church was small? - He leaves the camera just as the wedding march starts and can be heard saying to his wife "I'm not sure that I've even got it pointing to the alter, but it's to late now I'll just have to leave it and hope for the best..."

He hadn't ......so just as we are sitting down watching this for the first time I'm biting my nails thinking that I am about to sit through an entire ceremony looking at my beloveds elbow.......when the camera moves, slowly, precisely, lines up with the alter just as Andy and I are about to be greeted by the vicar.

There was no one near the camera as it was set in the part of the church that the vicar had requested we keep clear so that he could actually conduct the wedding! - small church again? Yes! - and there was around 50 people in the church at the time so I think that we'd have noticed someone jumping up to alter the camera angle. And no wires, the camera was running on battery power.

I like to think that it was my uncles final gift to us, and if it wasn't, well heck I don't care as I prefer my version of events

Lorna x

[dave45]

No

[Wombat]

My father would tell a story, and this happened may years ago in outback queensland, before they days of the car. A relative of ours was returning to his homestead after burying his wife (yes she was dead) driving his horse and sulky and pulling up to the house after nightfall. Now the original house was built down the hill near the creek but as things got better and more prosperous they built a better house further up the hill and that was the house he was returning to. He looked down to the old house and saw something white beckoning to him and he figured "I never did her any harm in life" and went to investigate. At this point I would like to say that I am a city lad and would have run screaming in the other direction - these bushies were tough blokes. In the end it was an old white horse scratching its neck on the side of the old house. So there you go.

My old man was a pretty tough old bushie himself and in his younger years spent a lot of time working and living in the bush by himself and had seen a bit of odd stuff too. *sigh* he is sorely missed.

Nev

[Big Al]

No, but then I'd like to see my mother in law as a ghost !

[fumanchu]

Yes, total believer and would never laugh at anybody's experiences. I'm training to be a medium now because once you start seeing things and knowing things, then you can't unsee them LOL I love it and its not at all scarey. :)

[sleepyowl]

My parents house is haunted by a little girl I have seen her & my sister & one of the old next door neighbours had sensed her, she was harmless enough, though she did throw a stuffed toy hippo across the room infront of 6 witnesses. There is also not not very pleasant thing I suspect a humourless/angry old man haunting near the bottom of the garden, both my sister & myself don't like venturing up there at night.

I used to holiday in the Isles of Scilly on the Island of St Martins & for a good few years there was one spot on the Island where I'd just go cold & pretty jumpy even on the hottest days I'd go cold. On my 5th or 6th visit they had an archaeological dig there in the spring & discovered a Viking graveyard on that exact spot.

There are also ghosts that I have encountered at the Thorntons in Bath & the one in Stafford (I used to work for them) at the Ivy Bush pub on the Hagley Road in Birmingham (this is one of a cleaner who climbs the stairs on the hour) and had a vanishing customer when I worked at Brindley Place (he walked through the door I don't remember it opening then I went to speak to him & went from solid to not there in the blink of an eye). I think there may be one along the canal which I walk to work along but not entirely sure if it is yet it warrants further investigation.

My mum had a visitation a year after my nan (her mum) had died who started fiddling with the radio when the boat race was on, which she usually had a bet on.

I had one of my great aunt hazel after she died, I had switched off the light in my bedroom I saw a bright almost ultraviolet flash as I had just gotten into bed after which had strangely embedded a message in my mind & the next day my dad's cousin Marcia rung I was expecting the call which was strange as she hardly ever calls & didn't tell her the other part of the message about not blaming her that she wasn't found for 6 days after she had died. I wish I had told her now, but this is the first time I have spoken about this.

The people who worked at Thorntons on Birmingham High Street thought the place was haunted & I myself have seen a 'figure in black' run along the corridor into the cold room, but it didn't seem ghostly I happened to be in the cold room one day when the cooling system kicked in creating a power surge, creating the shadowy figure, it happened on other occasions afterwards & reported my findings to the rest of the staff, they didn't believe that it was something so rational, but then one of the staff freaked out when I sweeping one day & left the broom standing in the middle of the floor to talk to him (he thought it had something to do with me doing my 'Witchy' thing even though it was nothing more than physics doing its thing & not me). On another occasion I was fooled by a bright figure that looked to be a woman but turned out to the sunlight catching a group of midges. I'm a sceptical believer.

[fumanchu]

I think it's the kind of thing that you have to experience for yourself - you cant convince others.And people find it very easy to scoff. But maybe one day....it will happen to them!
I think the spirit world is interwoven with this one, that our loved ones never go very far away, and it proves that love is eternal.. I've never had anything really horrible happen, just a few frights at first but that was my own imagination Hollywood has a lot to answer for !!

[sleepyowl]

Just be wary of some people who call themselves mediums, for every genuine medium I've come across I've come across 5 fakes. i'm a atrot reader & have moved in such circles myself & there are just as many con artists looking for a quick buck as there are genuine diviners & mediums. I feel sometimes I may be a little too cynical to be a Hedgewitch but I do question everything as there is one hell of a lot of rubbish out there.

[Millymollymandy]

No

Me neither and I don't want to!

The first time I heard tawny owls woowoooing made my blood run cold.

[Sky]

I never ever believed in anything until recently, I bent over to empty the dishwasher and somebody walked right past me on the other side of the counter, I stood up all shocked as I thought there was an intruder but there was nothing there ... but at the very same moment I saw someone walking behind me and toward our front door. I always thought folk were just making up fairy tales until that.

[okra]

No - but the mind is capable of playing tricks and our imaginations often run riot. I was convinced there was someone in the bedroom which turned out to be clothing

[mrsflibble]

I have seen some, but again I am also on medication for hallucinations so I'm not sure.

[bonniethomas06]

That is the problem isn't it? That it could be something spectoral, but just as easily could be something totally rational.

For example, in the cottage of the headmistresses house that I described above where I was staying, even before I went around for dinner and was told about the ghost in the manor house next door (I had asked), I just felt so uneasy and nervy (but had already assumed there must be a ghost somewhere as it was all very ancient). As we sat in the living room talking about ghosts, there was a candelabra above the seating area with three mock candles in it (electric). The lightbulbs took it in turns to go out, one, two, three, in a really measured and non-flickering way, and then went back to working normally.

On top of that, I felt constantly as if I was being watched, all night, and didn't sleep a wink. I was so scared I made the person I was with get up at 5.30am and drive home!!

I have also recently heard from a previous tenant that my converted coach house was exorcised!! Apparently there was a ghost of a horse and a stable boy in the living room (which used to be a stable). I did ask the landlady about it, but she went a bit quiet and shushed up one of the locals we were sitting with at the pub. I wasn't that freaked out though... the idea of a horse ghost is quite funny, and doesn't feel at all sinister to me. Not sure if exorcism is a good or a bad thing, just hope it didn't stir up anything else....

[Sky]

Now I want to laugh at your post lol ... but seeing as I posted earlier I can't, can I lol.

I don't even believe what I saw, it's just what I thought I saw on the day????