Do 'ghosts' exist?

[livi]

There are ghosts in many peoples minds.

[look 171]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Obsofrigginlutley.

Get a cat.

Watch.

You will believe.

There is stuff out there that we can not see.

I have never had a cat. Can you explain? This is interesting.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

It's hard to explain, but I swear cats can see or are otherwise aware of things we do not perceive. It takes being around them for a little while to pick up on.

I've had four cats (one now deceased, three still with us) and I see this kind of "extra sensory awareness" in all of them to varying degrees. It's pretty obvious why they were considered mystical by the Egyptians.

[WolfeMacleod]

My Great Grandmother owned a house in Port Townshend, WA that was once a military hospital or some sort during WWII.
I spent many summers there when I was a kid and yes, because of that place, I believe in "ghosts."
And, so did she.

Note, she was a deeply Christian woman. Never smoked, never drank, and lived till she was 101 or 102.

[genrex]

Two years ago, I accompanied my wife to an arts-and-crafts store in the south end of Seattle. The store occupies the top floor of a turn-of-the-century building. We were the only customers in the place, all alone on one end of the store, and the clerks were at the other end of the store. My wife was looking at foo-foo stuff, so I walked down the main aisle, looking down the side aisles in hopes of finding something interesting.

I was hoping to find something - anything - that would be interesting. I got about halfway down the main aisle when I saw, about 15 feet ahead of me, a woman floating toward me. She was a pleasant-looking middle-aged caucasian woman, wearing a very nice dress from the Victorian era, and she was reading a book. I stopped walking. She must've noticed that, because she glanced up at me and made eye contact. She smiled a bemused smile, and immediately turned down a side aisle. I waited one or two seconds, then walked to that aisle and looked for her. The aisle was long, about 20 feet long, but she was already gone. I assume she disappeared.

I definitely found something interesting in that store.

[IROC]

Interesting phenomenon, but until someone, anyone, produces some sort of evidence, I'll remain skeptical.

I lived in a fraternity house for over two years in college. It was supposedly haunted. Lots of interesting stories, but I never saw/heard anything. My wife claims she "sees" things every once in awhile at night. Things "coming at her", etc. While I believe that she believes she sees them, I don't really think they are there.

I saw an interesting show on TV (BBC, I think) that debunked alot of the supposed haunted places in the UK. All of the "mysterious" happenings had perfectly rational explanations. One house was supposedly haunted by some spirit that would move things in the house around. This went on for years. Come to find out (with the help of a hidden camera), the husband was sleep walking and moving the stuff himself. All caught on camera...

[adrian jaye]

<><

Originally Posted by trekkor

By 'ghost' I assume you mean a 'spirit' of a dead person?

There are none.

The demons, however, would like you to believe they are 'them'.


KT

[GothingNC]

I never believed in ghosts until I stayed in my uncles house (built in the 1800's) and I was alone in the house taking a nap.

It was in the spring, no A/C and the windows were closed. I was sleeping on the couch when I felt a cold breeze and then heard the magnets slide off the fridge in the kitchen located on the other side of the house. That freaked me out so much that i bailed out and never set foot back in his house again, alone.

[adrian jaye]

Dog's also,
my ex's dog used to to werid things, she swore that he used to look and bark at thngs that wherent there

Originally Posted by look 171

I have never had a cat. Can you explain? This is interesting.

[masraum]

I'm open minded to the possibility of ghosts. I think that saying "they don't exist" is pretty arrogant for anyone. There's too much that we don't know and can't explain to firmly believe that we know something isn't possible.

That said, I've never had an experience to make me say "Yes, I've seen a ghost." I've had lots of experiences that I think would make some people think that they saw something, but I can pretty much always figure out what caused whatever I saw.

So, if you say you saw a ghost, I believe that you saw something and I believe it may have been a ghost. If you say "there are no ghosts," then I think you're a bit of a fool. As for me, I don't have proof or a strong belief either way.

[IROC]

Originally Posted by masraum

I'm open minded to the possibility of ghosts. I think that saying "they don't exist" is pretty arrogant for anyone. There's too much that we don't know and can't explain to firmly believe that we know something isn't possible.

While I agree, I also think it is equally arrogant to claim that they do exist in the absence of any evidence. If they do exist, what are they? What is a ghost? People "see" things all the time, but that is not proof that there is something there. If nothing else, unless we can all agree on exactly what a ghost is, it's kind of hard to determine whether it exists or not. What we do have - in the absence of any physical evidence - is alot of eyewitness testimony. Interesting, but not conclusive.

I'm open minded also. I think unexplained phenomena is extremely interesting. Take UFOs for instance. Alot of people see things that they cannot explain. I understand that. I can't explain it, either. Does that mean that aliens from other planets are visiting Earth? There's no evidence to suggest that. It doesn't mean that it's not an interesting phenomena, though.

[Jims5543]

The kid next door to me had a ghost in his basement, I was in his basement earlier that day as he and his friends were trying to scare me and my friend , they had a ouija board in the main room and a friend was in the other room dressed like a ghost ready to jump out and scare us.

Things went downhill quickly as things began floating around the room, we kind of knew they were out to scare us so we played along, the funny part was the kids playing the prank quickly realized it was none of them making the stuff float around and we were still laughing at them.... until they began to freak out and run away, we instantly got scared and ran too.

A few hours later the kid next door and his dad were on the ground shooting at something in the basement with a pellet rifle. I stopped down and looked and there was something moving around in the basement, I saw it, they were shotting at it.

I was pretty young then maybe 7 years old and I can remember the day like it was yesterday. I have never been near a ouija board again in my life, when I was a teen a friend broke one out, I told him bad things happen with them and left promptly.

I learned a lot about what was going on in that basement as I grew up. Are there ghosts? No, are there demons that will make themselves appear and screw with you? Yes, can you make them go away? Yes.

I know someone else that messed with a ouija board, they were sisters and they welcomed what was appearing to them through it, the demon messed with their heads and tried to convince the one sister she needed to kill her sibling. She told her sister what the demon wanted her to do and they both freaked out and got rid of the ouija board. This was about 14 years ago and to be honest, neither of them are right in the head anymore. My wife pointed out, if you let a demon in your head do you think its going to be careful with your mind? Good point.

Today one is a drug addict and the other is pumped up with anti depressants and even they do not seem to be enough to keep her level.

[genrex]

I need to learn more about spirit rescues:
http://www.angelfire.com/nj/healing/spiritrescue.html

[Jim Richards]

You guys are a hoot.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by look 171

I have never had a cat. Can you explain? This is interesting.

You will be home with the cat. Cat will just be hanging or sleeping. You'll feel the tension, they have noticed something. They will stare at a fixed point in space, usually no more than a couple of feet in front of them. They will growl, hair goes up, they start to spit and then they will either start fighting with thin air or get up and haul a55 like you've never seen.

I've had 12 cats in my lifetime. Have witnessed stuff like that on a few occasions.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

It's hard to explain, but I swear cats can see or are otherwise aware of things we do not perceive. It takes being around them for a little while to pick up on.

I've had four cats (one now deceased, three still with us) and I see this kind of "extra sensory awareness" in all of them to varying degrees. It's pretty obvious why they were considered mystical by the Egyptians.

I think to some degree all forms of life can tap into other, for lack of a better word, dimensions.

Possibly without exception every human tribe has had their high priests, shamans, witch doctors. From the beginning of time when tribes were isolated from each other it was a constant in all societies. I think they were the ones with the best antennae, had the best reception so to speak.

I believe we have lost most of our natural ability to self created "noise". I think it's possible that radio, tv, cell transmissions, noise from the power grid etc... has slowly and imperceptibly overloaded our receivers and our bodies are turning them way down to compensate.

[RoninLB]

I read an undocumented source that said that atheists believe in connecting to the other side.

[IROC]

Originally Posted by RoninLB

I read an undocumented source that said that atheists believe in connecting to the other side.

What's the "other side"? Australia? I'd like to connect with that.

[Jim Richards]

Not me, Ronnie. This ghost stuff is a hoot. Any of the ghost believers ever get probed by aliens?

[kstar]

I'v had several cats myself over about a 25 year period - no cat now though. Cats are very sensitive animals, indeed.

While I'll admit there may be some extremely small chance that cats see ghosts, there are perhaps hundreds of other things one should consider first to explain odd cat behavoir. In my consideration of the claim of "ghost seeing cats," I'd start with the human brain followed by cat physiology then the feline brain.

Cat senses are attuned for hunting. Cats have highly advanced hearing, eyesight, taste, and touch receptors, making the cat extremely sensitive among mammals. Cats' night vision is superior to humans although their vision in daylight is inferior. Humans and cats have a similar range of hearing on the low end of the scale, but cats can hear much higher-pitched sounds, up to 64 kHz, which is 1.6 octaves above the range of a human, and even one octave above the range of a dog.[15] A domestic cat's sense of smell is about fourteen times as strong as a human's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat

Perhaps ghosts hunters should employ small clowders of cats?

Best,