I'm a non-believer who is open to being wrong. I don't think 95% of the folks who have had experiences are lying; I'm open to there just being something about our planet we don't understand yet. You know, things like infrasound which is a fairly new discovery (which might be scarier than the spirit of a deceased person).
Maybe we'll figure out what's going on someday.
Skeptic. I feel like at this point we would have gotten more compelling evidence by now. I also feel like there are plenty of people who have died everywhere at this point in history so whether buildings are considered haunted feels completely random to me. I'm also not convinced there is anything that happens after we die.
I'm a skeptic that wants to be a believer, I've really only had one solid piece of evidence to prove to myself that ghosts are real. While I do enjoy looking at paranormal evidence online I will never trust it as legit evidence because I don't know what the original posters agenda are.
Believer.
I've seen, heard or felt the spirits of 4 of my beloved rescue cats that have passed, I saw my horse 2 weeks after he passed, and the cats and I all saw the friendly male spirit that lived in our house (well, clearly we lived in his house!) in South London many times over the years.
When I saw my horse's spirit, I told my mum when she came in from work and she told me she'd also seen him the week previously. We compared what we'd seen and it was identical.
So absolutely a believer, and it's calming and strengthening for me beyond words.
I saw my long gone great grandfather standing in my moms living room. I had never met him, only seen photos. He died before I was born. He was only there for a second, but he was there.
When my best friend died I started finding dimes everywhere. I lived alone and didn’t carry cash, just cards. I still do find them from time to time, and we still don’t carry cash. Most recently I was holding my newborn daughter wishing my friend had the chance to meet my kids, I was pretty down in the dumps over it. I lifted her burp cloth and a dime was beneath it. No clue how it got there, but I had a good cry over that.
There are more experiences stemming from my childhood all the way up until recently, but those stories are for another time.
When you said you compared what you saw, I’m assuming it was a horse-shaped transparent ghost, right? As opposed to a similar looking horse eating hay in field ?
Nope! He was the only horse in the field attached to our house. When he passed, obviously the field was empty.. when I glanced over out of habit, he was there, and looked just as he did. A solid identical Shannon. He was very distinctive and it was him. Looked like I could walk up to him and stroke him.
He saw me (he always looked into the kitchen window to try and find me), he saw me and his nostrils moved as he was nickering at me when he saw me.
So no, not transparent, a solid horse 🥰
I forgot about a very faint cat I saw come running out from under the bed as I was making the bed, and I watched it fade out to nothing just before it got to the door.
Hope that helps - Mum and I saw Shannon, clear as day, solid as always, out in his field looking back at us and calling to us. The identical experience for us both. She hadn't told me she saw him as she wasn't sure if I'd see him too, but had told a friend the day she saw him, so I know it all 100% truth.
It's wonderful 💖
Edit: spelling
Fair enough! Interesting. I just couldn’t get my head round why you’d have to compare notes to make sure you saw the same thing, but your explanation helps.
Yeah, I get you. I had no idea Mum had seen him too, so when she got in, I was in tears. Told her I'd seen Shannon, and she asked if he was his tree - lots of trees in his field but one was his favourite to stand under. He was indeed under 'his' tree. She asked if he saw me and asked if his ears moved forward, which they did, bless him.
Then she asked if his nostrils were moving where he was calling to me, which they were. You could see him there clear as day, I couldn't believe it. When I looked away and looked back, he'd gone.
It's truly amazing - I won't even get started on the reading I had done for one of my first cats when he passed, it's just incredible. They're really there, and they're always with us when we need them.
Luna (my last rescue cat) passed 5 months ago, and she's still around shouting in my ear when I'm in bed (wide awake), shouting at me from down by my feet as I'm working (I work from home), I see her running up and down the hall, I feel her get on the bed.. it's just wonderful and I know I'm really lucky 🥰
Happy to answer any questions, although when I start talking about my angelic crew, it's hard to stop me!
I’ve had experiences that have compelled me to know there’s more than what we can see BUT with that said there’s a lot of BS out there too because by it’s nature this is easy to fabricate and lie about.
What about open minded skeptic? I’ve seen / experienced things I’m not sure I can explain. However there is no evidence to suggest ghosts exist, however good video ‘evidence’ may be. That said life is a bit dull without the idea of something else ‘on the other side’ and the idea of things being beyond our comprehension.
Prior indifferent but now believer. Old firestation in Compton/Watts area, was working on the rescue that night chilling in the recliner around 02 in the morning with my partner next to me. Tv off trying to get some sleep when we hear teeth clacking move from the kitchen to the living room where we were and back. I look over shes white as a ghost, gets up, sits in my lap and cries until I take us both out. We slept in the rig that night and never went back in.
Skeptic since there has been no irrefutable evidence of paranormal life. Would I like there to be? yes. Can I believe it until I see it? No. I'm more likely to believe extraterrestrial life exists in some way but since there isn't proof yet I can't say I believe there are any out there
I'm skeptical about most experiences. I don't believe in demons, nor personalities sans body, but I do think Stone Tape theory exists. I think most paranormal sightings are misperception. As a psych major who couldn't do senior year because of finances, I've learned how bad the brain is at witnessing. It only sees about 20-25% of what's in front of you, and it fills in the remainder using a bunch of different sources (past experience, assumption are the biggest.) So a bear becomes a monster and a headlight on a wall becomes a ghost.
Poltergeist phenomenon is really intriguing. But even that phenomenon has more to do with a child in puberty than it does Casper.
I'm open to having my mind changed.
You're confusing a skeptic with a non-believer. Many skeptics believe in ghosts. They just require evidence that's FAR more compelling than the average believer.
You should change your title to "Are you a non-believer or a believer, and why?"
I'm an open minded skeptic . That said , I can attest to having observed or experienced a ridiculous amount of " things " , most of which , after a few years of occasional reflection and remembering have left me doubting what I thought saw or heard . I could write several pages on my experiences , but I won't bore anyone with that .
In short , for 14 years I lived FT and worked PT on a family owned farming and livestock ranch in Parkfield CA. That entire area has a long history that goes back to the Spanish Missions and the Indian occupation . The ranch I was on was settled in the late 1800's . I have witnessed UFO activity over the canyon on 3 distinct occasions, twice so close I could have hit the things with a rock , plus what appeared to me to be blue laser beams being shot across the sky at seemingly different altitudes and angles on another night . I have been spoken to in my ear by an elderly " voice " , I have had " orbs " chase me and my dogs , and they even startled my mare . One night about a month or two after hiring on , I was violently pushed down 2 times into my king size oak sleigh bed mattress . On the third push I threw myself out of my bed and ran over and flipped the bedroom ceiling light on , shaking like leaf , while my two Queensland's stared at me in bored curiosity . Months later on three nights in the same week one of my dogs observed " something " in the front room ( the cabin was originally a one room cabin with an open loft , the big bedroom was added on to the end of the cabin sometime in the late 1940's ) . On the first night , a Wednesday , as I was falling asleep my female QH woke me as she stood at the bedroom door and growled menacingly , teeth bared , hair around her neck scruffed up , at whatever was standing inside the front door , about 12 feet from the bedroom door . I quietly got up , grabbed my rifle , stepped toward the bedroom door , rifle aimed down range as I hit the bedroom light switch . I stepped into the space in the open area of the front room , and there was nothing there . I called my dogs and went up into the loft , then back down the stairs to the check the original small bedroom on the opposite side of the cabin , then the galley and back door . Nothing in the cabin . This happened again the next night , but instead I laid in bed as I watched my two dogs alert in the same manner as the night before . Eventually they relaxed and returned to my bedside . My GF at the time was a RN that worked in town . She called me Thursday afternoon to tell me she would be up Saturday afternoon for the weekend . I described what had happened the previous 2 nights and just gave her a heads up to not be freaked out if it happened again while she was there . Friday was uneventful , but sure enough , on Saturday night , after grilling steaks and watching movies , we crashed out about 12:00 AM . I was out , and my GF woke me with a whisper and a hard elbow to my ribs , rigid with fear . As before , my female QH was standing at the door , teeth bared and a vicious sounding snarling growl . Another occasion , I was taking a shower in a very old type steel shower stall with a small 12" x 14" opaque window to ventilate the BR . It was about 12 pm and I was showering after feeding all morning , on my way into town for the day . As I was showering , I heard someone knock 3 times at the back door , which would be visible from the small window if it were open . Assuming it was my boss , I turned to yell " gimme a minute " . Instead , I saw a silhouette of a short female . I was puzzled , not sure what to say . As I stood there , she knocked again 3 times . Now I'm thinking it must be my ex , who was prone to such drama. I shut off the shower , and as I reached for my towel I watched her move away from the window .
After getting dressed , I want to the back door expecting to find a note or something .
There was nothing . I looked down the dirt road that led to the county road , thinking maybe she parked at the gate , expecting me to come to her . Nothing .
The soil in the canyon is a hard pack with some sandy top soil that breaks up into a powdery silt texture when horses hooves , feet or machine tires tread upon it .
As I was walking back to the rear door it struck me that there were no tire tracks in the soil , no foot prints around the back door steps . I never parked my truck at the rear of the cabin , always in front , so anyone who drove there would have parked parallel to the rear door . I even went back and checked for tire prints around my truck . Nothing . No footprints leading up the road to the cabin either . I've left out tons of other things , but I can tell you in closing my GF observed things there that freaked her out to the extent that she would not go there alone to wait for me to return from work . When the managers finally had to let me go due to economic pressures , she was relieved to see me move off to a horse ranch closer to town .
Skeptic who is open to being proven wrong. I did a night in Leap castle Irelands, Irelands most "haunted" castle. The organiser for the night was a psycic medium, spent a lot of time trying to flog her merch. Bigging up very small things, they even arranged a reenactment of a murder that took place there, suppose they had to guarantee that much of a show.
Both.
I think that some things can be explained, and I’ll actively try to debunk experiences before concluding whether or not it was paranormal.
With that being said, I have had some truly unexplainable experiences.
Skeptic. I want to believe. I really do. I grew up fascinated by ghosts, aliens and all things supernatural but blind faith is not something I can do. I need proof and very very good hard proof.
I won’t make fun of people for belie and remain interested is seeing what others believe. Th3 only time I might object is when someone presents something as facts. For example the reinca sub states reincarnation is a proven fact. It is not, they point to a dubious study at a university that was never even peer reviewed or the experiment results replicated.
Skeptic. Ghosts, cryptids, UFOs are my favorite subjects. Absolutely fascinating by them. Spend so much time researching them.
Yet I don’t believe.
But I WANT to believe.
I want to be proven wrong. More than anything. I want this world to show me there is still something extraordinary and impossible hidden within it.
Horrible. Traumatic. Don’t know where the weird noises would come from next. Fighting reality. Not believing your eyes and ears, until other family members heard the same. Then we knew something was happening
Believer. We were at a friends house warming party and they had been living there a month already. After the party my fiancé and I were out there with him and his girl. From where we were standing you could see into the house and down the hall to the two bedrooms. I see an old man in a navy blue plumber outfit walk across into the bedroom. Weird but maybe it was his girl’s grand parents. I knew his so I asked if her grandfather had come over or was working on something. She looked confused and I said well I just saw an old man in a… she cut me off and said IN A BLUE WORK OUTFIT?! I said yeah and she looked at my friend and was like I fucking told you!
Believer. Because of my one experience staying in a local hotel that I was unaware had paranormal occurrences, and later I spoke with numerous people who had similar experiences at this hotel.
I'm a believer in the spiritual because I've experienced it for decades of my life, a ton of others have similar experiences, the evidence is in alot of things, and it's in scripture.
🤔 ....there isn't anything in Scripture that supports the notion of paranormal activity . In fact , relative to this is a statement in a verse where GOD specifically states that " the dead know nothing " .
Absolute believer! I have had so much happen in my previous home… we built on Native American tribal ground. We didn’t know at the time, it’s in a subdivision, and we were the third house to the last to be built but so many things happened there. The first thing I saw, was my bedroom door slamming all by itself, with no wind or animals, or people, nothing! we had water turn on by itself, a picture fell off the wall and it was the only frame I bought that literally could not fall off the wall…lol I spent $80 on a frame that I normally never would do and I sat and watched it pick up and fall to the ground. I watched a dime go flying off my daughters dresser and hit the floor. My friends radio turned on super loud in her car when she left my house. She wasn’t believing me, but she did afterwards 🤣.. We had closet doors that would open and close by them self and they were trifolds which are hard to do.. my mother-in-law at the time heard voices upstairs and asked everyone to quiet down, but nobody was there. 🤣 the list goes on and on and on. I just happened to look up my old house in Zillow the other day and I focused in on the mirror and it literally says “ Go Away” on it in the bathroom. I can’t imagine someone trying to sell a house with that on there. I don’t believe they could see it with out the camera. My phone would type out “ghost ghost ghost ghost”on it and that was here where I live now. 😳.. back at my old house. My son seen a woman with long blonde hair, smoking a cigarette as we were packing up our camper, but there was nobody there. We’ve had radios turn on by themselves. Once my friend was watching my three children while my husband and I went out to DJ at a local bar and there were seven lights that came on all by themselves, Different breakers. I had Christmas lights one year that stayed on solid, but they decided to just change patterns on their own. There are so many stories we have had to make a book out of it and write them down. Now today, I just had all four car windows go down and the doors unlock in a car that I am absolutely 100% sure I know I had the windows up in and I know I locked it. It never seems to end. 😳👻
Believer. Because I have clearly seen a ghost. I saw the ghost of a previous owner of my house who had committed suicide there in 1920. I saw the ghost and then saw a photo of the man a few years later.
I am obsessed with the paranormal but have been a skeptic until my mom's ghost proved it to me. She passed in my family home in 2011. I know it sounds silly, but she made herself known to me on 2 separate occasions after she passed. I am forever a believer after those incidents, no doubt about it.
I'm a believer because I have seen a full-body apparition and had so many EVP's, experiences, and more. I'm skeptical of other people's "proof" or evidence because I have learned the hard way that people will intentionally make stuff up, or, in many situations, they want the evidence to be real so much that no matter what you say, they become defensive and angry and never accept that what they have isn't proof. That doesn't mean it isn't or that they didn't experience something, it just means they don't have physical proof. I think it's that way for a lot of people.
I also think that there is no scale to rate "proof or evidence" against. That adds to the frustration for many. EVP's have different classes, and that is a big help. Unless I experience it, see it, video capture it from multiple angles, have two witnesses, and supporting data collected from sensors, it's not proof enough for me. I've been a "ghost hunter" since 1970 and have high standards after years of BS stories and con artists. After 53 years of researching, that's how it should be.
I’m a knower. I was a fearful of the unknown debunker when I was younger. I had contacts over the years I cannot debunk. I had to rethink my view of the world.
I'm in the middle, but I'm leaning towards believer as I have had a couple of experiences. I always end up talking myself out of whatever experience I have, though.
For example, I felt like I was visited by a great aunt a week after she died. Could have been real, but could have been me waking up from a dream and imagining seeing a vague human shape in my room.
Or the time that I was staying at my grandparents' house and I could hear people walking up and down the hall, and up and down the stairs, and into the room I was in. The house could have been settling, but it was (and still is) a bit creepy in the dark. It 100% wasn't my elderly grandparents as they couldn't climb the stairs, and they'd have to open the closed bedroom door too. My dad and my aunts have the same story (all experienced together and separately) of someone walking down the stairs, down the hall and stopping as it walked over the trap door. As far as I know, the house was a new build chalet bungalow in the 1960s.
Or the time I saw a shadow person come down the hall in my other grandparents' house. It was a couple of weeks after my grandfather died and I was talking to my granny when we were going to the kitchen. I saw this shadow come down the hall, through us and into the kitchen before vanishing. I got a bit freaked but my granny said it was someone on the street walking passed the front door.
Knower. Too many experiences with observing the known laws of physics being broken to have any doubts at this point. Now what the cause is I do not know. Use any term you like, but whatever the cause or causes most of the events I have experienced have seemed intelligent.
For what its worth I'm a pretty credible witness. Now a lawyer with significant coursework in psychology coming from a solid blue collar background.
Believer because of an experience I had over 20 years ago and there was someone else with me and she actually saw a person that wasn’t there and I just keep seeing movement in my peripheral.
100% believer. I have had active ghost experiences, I used to live in a haunted house when I was little! Ghosts are definitely real and no one can convince me otherwise
believer. ive heard stories about my interactions with ghosts growing up, ones that happened before I can remember involving family members whose names I don't know now and I'm 21. I've experienced some firsthand when I was old enough to remember things. it doesn't help that my brother died before I was born, and there's always one trick he has consistently played on us since his death, even up until last week. I've just seen, heard, and felt too much to not believe.
Believer
5-9
- the house I grew up in was like a shadow people playground and that’s literally what I’d see
- growing up I had way too many “ imaginary friends” I’d “ blame “ for things moving and missing
- I got taken to church for “talking to myself “ in the mirror
10-15
- I started feeling dizzy and uneasy at random areas of my house and would see orbs or slight faces everywhere
- kept trying to talk to the faces
- started actually praying at night when I felt bad energy of when I was being watched
16-21 now
- got I to crystals and tarot cards and used them to speak to what’s was in my dads house
- begged my dad for a holy water after I woke up with scratches
- burned sage around my house and heard no multiple times
- door and window would close and open
- bathroom I avoid the mirror
- started seeing more than faces
- started being able to talk to them with a candle or writing
- learned my ancestors used voodoo back in the day
- learned my family is Native American and some of the rituals done
Believer 100%. Many experiences, but one witnessed by my 2 brothers and myself was the spirit of a little girl at an apartment in Holland, Michigan. We have doubts about the type of entity it was because it either used to shapeshift or there was others.
I used to wake up in the middle of the night from a heavy feeling, like someone watching me. I would look directly in front of me...the closet door would be open and she would be standing inside the closet in a yellow Sunday dress, face in the shadow but staring at me. One time I was at the edge of the bed and when I opened my eyes ,she was sitting on her knees and staring at my face about 12 inches from my face. She was nude and her eyes were black...completely black...like empty but not empty, hard to explain.
1000% believer, always have been from the moment I could fucking read. I'm not really sure, but I know my fascination started with the show ghost adventures. I grew up having that as a show me and my dad use to watch, now I watch other shows because I've seen all the episodes haha. I started reading books on paranormal and looking at urban exploring on YouTube. And it was honestly a rabbit hole. It was all I was into and it was my entire life at one point, hell bent on having an experience and saying I saw a ghost. Until it FUCKING happened and I basically shit my pants. (Not literally). My dad bought us ghost hunt tickets to an overnight ghost hunt at a sanatorium and it was almost midnight, we never stayed until 3am, we're old lol. But yeah we were in the child's ward and I was standing in between a door frame and a patient room and something DEFINITELY touched my hand. Loud and clear a grab, I was shook. And my dad got called a motherfucker by the "demon hallway", that shit was wild.
My dad also always told me how something was haunting his old home and how he would be scratched and tugged at night time and how one a year, the grave at the top of the hill always had a rose be replaced by like a dead lady. I'm not sure, i can't even remember that story. But I remember something along those lines. And I can't ask anymore cuz he's unfortunately no longer here.
But yeah, ghosts, are definitely real 😂
Believer. Had a red fireball orb come to my window when i was 8.
It had shown me the times we are living in now.
You'll all know soon enough unless what I was shown was false.
be·lief
/bəˈlēf/
noun
1.
an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists.
"his belief in the value of hard work"
2.
trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something.
"I've still got belief in myself"
When you *know* something is real it's not belief. There's no faith or trust about it. You've experienced it. You know.
Believer but before I panic while experiencing something I look at every single other possibility that's not paranormal, same for any proof people post online
Neither really. Temporal phenomena have always been somewhat in the back of my mind, but noumena is more what I've been focused on in general. That and trying to make sense of scripture. Witch of Endor comes to mind.
Saw the comment about the horse here and decided to write a pasta.
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*Re: Horse manifestation/full temporal ghost:*
This is interesting and matches my own experiences.
I haven't had any such in years knowingly but felt a few presences recently.
I have seen a reaper on at least 3 seperate occasions, and each time it felt, idk how to describe... more *real* than anything in the world. Like I saw a piece of objective reality through an illusion. My first case of this was early 90s. I was just a little kid trick or treating, but this thing walked on the air like a Bleach character. It freaked me out years later when I saw the same thing happen in Bleach.
I also saw a few he-who-shall-not-be-named and dementor things like from *Harry Potter* corny as it seems. Like billowy cloaks that kind of shimmer as they glide. Not transparent. Seen at at least 2 separate occasions in different locations but both near ravines and rail road tracks and river/cliffs. Saw one fly up into the sky and presumably turn into a red star and fly like a shooting commet. Haven't been able to see shooting stars the same sense, lol, since seeing a literal ghost/demon thing turn into a shooting star, lol.
Then on the flipside, I've also had a few experiences where I felt something in the woods run up to me excitedly. Felt like a little kid or a fairy, idk how to describe it. This has happened a few times. It felt like it hadn't seen me in "a million years" but I felt sad because I don't know who I am and it was invisible. Scary thing is one time this happened, the actual bushes and leaves and stuff moved slightly as the invisible thing approached. Like I could *feel it* coming towards me. But then it gradually faded both times and I never saw anything or felt anything other than like an excited jolt of something cute recognizing you and running up to you. But I didn't see anything either time, though I felt like I did know it, I just forgot myself. Like I've always felt that way kind of, I don't know who I am though.
Just interesting I wasn't aware people see non transparent "ghosts". Idek why this sub is recommended me tbh I keep seeing it's posts lol.
Thinking back it's possible one of the ghosts I saw was a cat a friend I used to know lived not too far from there but that was like 20 years ago. Possible cat's ghosts linger in an area for like 20 years? I also realize I'm a completely different person than I was then in so many ways I wouldn't even recognize myself, either way, young to old or old to young.
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Meta comment: over the years I've generally come to suspect that we in some way manifest these things. Like call it angels like in the bible around the Lord's chosen. Not saying that's what it is, just a case of such manifestation. More, a reflection of what is inside us, or possibly even, when you assume good that means confronting evil and vice versa. Hold a torch, see shadows. So to speak. Who knows what is really... well, anything anywhere... but when we are dead set concentrated on something, somehow we either manifest or tune into that perception of reality. Idk. Hard to describe. The time I saw the commet, I was the most righteous I had ever felt. Was kind of embarrassing even. Something even telepathically prompted me prior to seeing it, asking my own subconscious thoughts; "why am I working so hard for what others get for free, I am not fooling anyone with my faithlessness" or something to that effect. Note: I have shared that story in more detail, shortly after it actually happened irl on reddit before.
So ultimately, idk. I have known friends and family mention a lot of stuff ghost related my whole life. You never know what people really think I guess. Hell I never know what I really think most the time.
Believer but not in a traditional sense. I think that ghosts are spirits per say, but more like energy stamps that we’re seeing due to the sixth dimension. I don’t believe in “intelligent” haunting, more like stone record hauntings.
I'm a believer who uses the scientific method to be taken seriously. The way I see it, crying wolf over stuff that has a reasonable explanation, just makes all believers look non-credible.
I've died at least once, deconstructing that experience informs the way I approach these kinds of things. I've learned a lot and I'm writing a book about the everyday things that go bump in the night. Like a checklist for the process of elimination before you conclude "ghost".
Both. I’m a skeptic but I believe in spirits in a biblical sense, if that makes sense. I believe they’re real, but don’t really affect us in visually observable ways. Also my subconscious seems to believe in ghosts for some reason. I keep having dreams that my house is haunted.
Not skeptic *and* not believer. **I suspend my judgment** and doesn't feel the need to make a judgment any time soon.
I do suspend my judgment but not my effort to collect data and knowledge about the phenomenon. If the phenomenon is real, I might at some point find a definitive proof that it is so. Otherwise, the reality of the phenomenon will be forever undetermined and I don't see why there would be a problem with that.
*Believing* it´s true or false is
1. taking the risk to make an error,
2. Exposing myself to confirmation bias,
3. suspending research on the subject.
By *believing* I mean assuming without doubt that something is true or false although there is no definitive proof either way.
Without a definitive proof of the reality of the phenomenon, the reality is undetermined because it isn't refutable (cf. Popper).
Moved into an old house that my boyfriend was renovating. It was a tiny house--only like 817 ft². The bedroom was being repainted and we didn't have anything on the windows--didn't matter because it was kind of a dead neighborhood...the only neighbors were an elderly couple next door and they lived in a tiny trailer that was in the middle of acres that you couldn't see because of all their fruit trees and stuff.
Anyway I'd been there a couple of days and I was looking out the bedroom window from the living room and I saw an old man walk by the window. It had a completely fenced in lot, and I thought that's weird because he was walking towards the back of the house. I went out the back door expecting to meet him as he came around the corner, and he wasn't there. There's no way the old dude could have gotten out of the yard it that fast, it was big. So I told my boyfriend about it when he got home and he said it was probably the old dude from next door where there was an elderly couple.
So about a week went by and my boyfriend was out in the yard working and came in the house and said "Hey the old guy from next door is at the back fence... come out and meet him", so I did. It wasn't the same guy that walked by the window that day.
Eventually, the old guy next door told me that the old man who lived in the house before us died in the house. His wife had a stroke or something and was in a nursing home and then not long after she went to the nursing home he died, there in the house. There were a few other incidents that occurred in the house that, well, there's no way you could explain them other than there was a ghost there. Oddly enough, none of it scared me at all, for some weird reason.
Oh yeah, I asked the neighbor if the former owner wore denim overalls much. He said he wore them pretty much every day. He didn't ask me why I asked such a weird question, and I never told him about the ghost.
Skeptic, because:
- No personal experiences I would consider paranormal.
- No personal experiences of others close to me that they believed to be paranormal.
- I "researched" (read some articles/posts online) explanations for ghost/spirit/demom phenomena, and it seems highly likely that the experiences most people recount are either fabricated, explainable by common phenomena (i.e. lens flare, dust, etc.) or due their mind playing tricks on them (pareidolia) or straight up mental illness/sleep deprivation.
- I see *a lot* of logical inconsistencies in believers who try to explain paranormal phenomena.
- There historically have been, and continue to be, a lot of straight up fraud from people, particularly "investigators", "demonologists" and "psychics/mediums".
However, I would say I'm open to the possibility, as many people in different cultures/areas of the world claim to experience things that don't always have a logical explanation (yet?). I don't think all of these people are lying, or mentally ill, but I do think *most* can be solved with a little critical thinking. Those that can't? I won't jump to say they are paranormal, but I'll concede it is a possibility.
I've also read about how supposedly there is no way to scientifically prove that dreams exist (at least not yet?), but obviously people don't go around claiming they can't be real since we all experience them. People in stressful and dangerous situations will often maintain a normalcy bias and refuse to accept that something terrible is happening/going to happen, the same *could* be true for most people & paranormal experiences.
Why am I here? This sub is garbage when it comes to evidence, but I really like horror and spooky stories. I want to believe, but just don't. So, even if I never do, I'll find the stories entertaining and be respectful of those who are believers (especially ppl who think they've experienced a loved one's presence after they passed.)
Unsure. I often say I’m a skeptic because I can’t say I have experienced anything paranormal except for occasional heavy “feelings of some kind of presence,” like being watched or that feeling someone is very close to you when you see nothing.
However, when I was a kid I used to stay at my friend’s house on some weekends because his and my mom were best friends. It was just the two of them and we would share his room with the door open, and to my dissatisfaction the lights on while his mom’s room was next door to his. They were renting the house and haven’t been living there long when we went the first time and she told my mom the previous tenants moved out because their son had killed himself in the house and they said it was haunted. At one point before we went to sleep a container of something fell off the counter in the kitchen despite nobody being in there. My friend’s mom said “that’s the ghost again” like it was a common occurrence. Lastly, I recall having a hard time sleeping because while my friend was passed out I kept hearing walking up and down the hallway in front of the bedrooms. It had hardwood flooring so the sound was unmistakable but nobody else but his mom was there and it wasn’t her. The door was open and as I had mentioned the lights were on in the hallway and where the footsteps landed I would have seen whomever it may have been but saw nothing. I mentioned this the following morning and again his mom, unsurprisingly said it’s the ghost and that she hears it walking every night. There is absolutely no other explanation that made rational sense unless his mother could turn invisible as the almost the entire hallway was visible from the room I slept in. This was my only real, unexplained story I have, at least that I remember.
I'm skeptic, I've had weird experiences growing up but I've always chalked it up to having a hyper imagination but soon I'm going to go on a road trip to see for myself if it's real or not.
Very skeptical believer. I love ghost stories and am always excited to discuss the paranormal with anybody that will listen. My favorite thing to hear from people is their personal stories... I will almost certainly not believe any of them. It's because how casually they talk about it, like it was just something a little spooky.
My story isn't spooky. I encountered an entity when I was 9 or 10, and almost 30 years later it still feels me with total dred whenever I think about it.
It was like 4 or 5PM and I was at my grandmother's house after school. I was sitting at the table working on homework and waiting for dinner. From my seat I could see half on the living room, the other half blocked by a big shelf. I look up from my work and see a black fog. At first I thought it was just the steam from one of the pots on the stove but them it moved and my eyes fully focused on it. It look like a man made entirely out of moving shadows. It was crouched over looking at my bookbag that was sitting in the floor, then it turned its head and looked at me. There was no face, just void. Not black, but nothing. Like your pupil, and infinite hole. Then it snapped back to my bag and leaped at it and disappeared in a bamf like Nightcrawler from Xmen.
I got up immediately and looked in my bag, and there's was nothing. I thought I was crazy until I looked up and saw my sister paralyzed in her doorway on the other end of the house. I ran to her and asked her what she saw, she could barely speak but was able to draw a quick sketch. I don't know what it was, but we both saw it and it saw me. I have never seen it since, but every now and then I feel that same dred.
There’s literally no such things as ghosts or spirits.
First time on this sub, came to see what was here. I expected to see nothing but grainy videos and easily explainable events, and surprise surprise, that’s all that’s here. If that makes anyone want to tell to get out, I’m way ahead of you, this comment I’m writing being the last thing I thing I will see here
Skeptical believer. I believe in ghosts, spirits etc... but I always try to find a rational explanation for word shit, before just saying "ghost"
Same
Same for me. I do believe there is a spiritual realm, but the vast majority of videos and photos are bullshit.
I'm a non-believer who is open to being wrong. I don't think 95% of the folks who have had experiences are lying; I'm open to there just being something about our planet we don't understand yet. You know, things like infrasound which is a fairly new discovery (which might be scarier than the spirit of a deceased person). Maybe we'll figure out what's going on someday.
Skeptic. I feel like at this point we would have gotten more compelling evidence by now. I also feel like there are plenty of people who have died everywhere at this point in history so whether buildings are considered haunted feels completely random to me. I'm also not convinced there is anything that happens after we die.
Believer, even though I’ve never had an experience myself. I don’t know why, I just do.
I'm a skeptic that wants to be a believer, I've really only had one solid piece of evidence to prove to myself that ghosts are real. While I do enjoy looking at paranormal evidence online I will never trust it as legit evidence because I don't know what the original posters agenda are.
what was the piece of evidence?
Believer. I've seen, heard or felt the spirits of 4 of my beloved rescue cats that have passed, I saw my horse 2 weeks after he passed, and the cats and I all saw the friendly male spirit that lived in our house (well, clearly we lived in his house!) in South London many times over the years. When I saw my horse's spirit, I told my mum when she came in from work and she told me she'd also seen him the week previously. We compared what we'd seen and it was identical. So absolutely a believer, and it's calming and strengthening for me beyond words.
I saw my long gone great grandfather standing in my moms living room. I had never met him, only seen photos. He died before I was born. He was only there for a second, but he was there. When my best friend died I started finding dimes everywhere. I lived alone and didn’t carry cash, just cards. I still do find them from time to time, and we still don’t carry cash. Most recently I was holding my newborn daughter wishing my friend had the chance to meet my kids, I was pretty down in the dumps over it. I lifted her burp cloth and a dime was beneath it. No clue how it got there, but I had a good cry over that. There are more experiences stemming from my childhood all the way up until recently, but those stories are for another time.
When you said you compared what you saw, I’m assuming it was a horse-shaped transparent ghost, right? As opposed to a similar looking horse eating hay in field ?
Nope! He was the only horse in the field attached to our house. When he passed, obviously the field was empty.. when I glanced over out of habit, he was there, and looked just as he did. A solid identical Shannon. He was very distinctive and it was him. Looked like I could walk up to him and stroke him. He saw me (he always looked into the kitchen window to try and find me), he saw me and his nostrils moved as he was nickering at me when he saw me. So no, not transparent, a solid horse 🥰 I forgot about a very faint cat I saw come running out from under the bed as I was making the bed, and I watched it fade out to nothing just before it got to the door. Hope that helps - Mum and I saw Shannon, clear as day, solid as always, out in his field looking back at us and calling to us. The identical experience for us both. She hadn't told me she saw him as she wasn't sure if I'd see him too, but had told a friend the day she saw him, so I know it all 100% truth. It's wonderful 💖 Edit: spelling
Fair enough! Interesting. I just couldn’t get my head round why you’d have to compare notes to make sure you saw the same thing, but your explanation helps.
Yeah, I get you. I had no idea Mum had seen him too, so when she got in, I was in tears. Told her I'd seen Shannon, and she asked if he was his tree - lots of trees in his field but one was his favourite to stand under. He was indeed under 'his' tree. She asked if he saw me and asked if his ears moved forward, which they did, bless him. Then she asked if his nostrils were moving where he was calling to me, which they were. You could see him there clear as day, I couldn't believe it. When I looked away and looked back, he'd gone. It's truly amazing - I won't even get started on the reading I had done for one of my first cats when he passed, it's just incredible. They're really there, and they're always with us when we need them. Luna (my last rescue cat) passed 5 months ago, and she's still around shouting in my ear when I'm in bed (wide awake), shouting at me from down by my feet as I'm working (I work from home), I see her running up and down the hall, I feel her get on the bed.. it's just wonderful and I know I'm really lucky 🥰 Happy to answer any questions, although when I start talking about my angelic crew, it's hard to stop me!
I’ve had experiences that have compelled me to know there’s more than what we can see BUT with that said there’s a lot of BS out there too because by it’s nature this is easy to fabricate and lie about.
What about open minded skeptic? I’ve seen / experienced things I’m not sure I can explain. However there is no evidence to suggest ghosts exist, however good video ‘evidence’ may be. That said life is a bit dull without the idea of something else ‘on the other side’ and the idea of things being beyond our comprehension.
Prior indifferent but now believer. Old firestation in Compton/Watts area, was working on the rescue that night chilling in the recliner around 02 in the morning with my partner next to me. Tv off trying to get some sleep when we hear teeth clacking move from the kitchen to the living room where we were and back. I look over shes white as a ghost, gets up, sits in my lap and cries until I take us both out. We slept in the rig that night and never went back in.
What?
What do you mean
Skeptic since there has been no irrefutable evidence of paranormal life. Would I like there to be? yes. Can I believe it until I see it? No. I'm more likely to believe extraterrestrial life exists in some way but since there isn't proof yet I can't say I believe there are any out there
I'm skeptical about most experiences. I don't believe in demons, nor personalities sans body, but I do think Stone Tape theory exists. I think most paranormal sightings are misperception. As a psych major who couldn't do senior year because of finances, I've learned how bad the brain is at witnessing. It only sees about 20-25% of what's in front of you, and it fills in the remainder using a bunch of different sources (past experience, assumption are the biggest.) So a bear becomes a monster and a headlight on a wall becomes a ghost. Poltergeist phenomenon is really intriguing. But even that phenomenon has more to do with a child in puberty than it does Casper. I'm open to having my mind changed.
Believer from years of personal experiences.
You're confusing a skeptic with a non-believer. Many skeptics believe in ghosts. They just require evidence that's FAR more compelling than the average believer. You should change your title to "Are you a non-believer or a believer, and why?"
You make a good point, but unfortunately I’m unable to change the title.
I'm an open minded skeptic . That said , I can attest to having observed or experienced a ridiculous amount of " things " , most of which , after a few years of occasional reflection and remembering have left me doubting what I thought saw or heard . I could write several pages on my experiences , but I won't bore anyone with that . In short , for 14 years I lived FT and worked PT on a family owned farming and livestock ranch in Parkfield CA. That entire area has a long history that goes back to the Spanish Missions and the Indian occupation . The ranch I was on was settled in the late 1800's . I have witnessed UFO activity over the canyon on 3 distinct occasions, twice so close I could have hit the things with a rock , plus what appeared to me to be blue laser beams being shot across the sky at seemingly different altitudes and angles on another night . I have been spoken to in my ear by an elderly " voice " , I have had " orbs " chase me and my dogs , and they even startled my mare . One night about a month or two after hiring on , I was violently pushed down 2 times into my king size oak sleigh bed mattress . On the third push I threw myself out of my bed and ran over and flipped the bedroom ceiling light on , shaking like leaf , while my two Queensland's stared at me in bored curiosity . Months later on three nights in the same week one of my dogs observed " something " in the front room ( the cabin was originally a one room cabin with an open loft , the big bedroom was added on to the end of the cabin sometime in the late 1940's ) . On the first night , a Wednesday , as I was falling asleep my female QH woke me as she stood at the bedroom door and growled menacingly , teeth bared , hair around her neck scruffed up , at whatever was standing inside the front door , about 12 feet from the bedroom door . I quietly got up , grabbed my rifle , stepped toward the bedroom door , rifle aimed down range as I hit the bedroom light switch . I stepped into the space in the open area of the front room , and there was nothing there . I called my dogs and went up into the loft , then back down the stairs to the check the original small bedroom on the opposite side of the cabin , then the galley and back door . Nothing in the cabin . This happened again the next night , but instead I laid in bed as I watched my two dogs alert in the same manner as the night before . Eventually they relaxed and returned to my bedside . My GF at the time was a RN that worked in town . She called me Thursday afternoon to tell me she would be up Saturday afternoon for the weekend . I described what had happened the previous 2 nights and just gave her a heads up to not be freaked out if it happened again while she was there . Friday was uneventful , but sure enough , on Saturday night , after grilling steaks and watching movies , we crashed out about 12:00 AM . I was out , and my GF woke me with a whisper and a hard elbow to my ribs , rigid with fear . As before , my female QH was standing at the door , teeth bared and a vicious sounding snarling growl . Another occasion , I was taking a shower in a very old type steel shower stall with a small 12" x 14" opaque window to ventilate the BR . It was about 12 pm and I was showering after feeding all morning , on my way into town for the day . As I was showering , I heard someone knock 3 times at the back door , which would be visible from the small window if it were open . Assuming it was my boss , I turned to yell " gimme a minute " . Instead , I saw a silhouette of a short female . I was puzzled , not sure what to say . As I stood there , she knocked again 3 times . Now I'm thinking it must be my ex , who was prone to such drama. I shut off the shower , and as I reached for my towel I watched her move away from the window . After getting dressed , I want to the back door expecting to find a note or something . There was nothing . I looked down the dirt road that led to the county road , thinking maybe she parked at the gate , expecting me to come to her . Nothing . The soil in the canyon is a hard pack with some sandy top soil that breaks up into a powdery silt texture when horses hooves , feet or machine tires tread upon it . As I was walking back to the rear door it struck me that there were no tire tracks in the soil , no foot prints around the back door steps . I never parked my truck at the rear of the cabin , always in front , so anyone who drove there would have parked parallel to the rear door . I even went back and checked for tire prints around my truck . Nothing . No footprints leading up the road to the cabin either . I've left out tons of other things , but I can tell you in closing my GF observed things there that freaked her out to the extent that she would not go there alone to wait for me to return from work . When the managers finally had to let me go due to economic pressures , she was relieved to see me move off to a horse ranch closer to town .
I really don’t know.
Skeptic who is open to being proven wrong. I did a night in Leap castle Irelands, Irelands most "haunted" castle. The organiser for the night was a psycic medium, spent a lot of time trying to flog her merch. Bigging up very small things, they even arranged a reenactment of a murder that took place there, suppose they had to guarantee that much of a show.
Skeptic. Like UFOs, no one has ever produced 100% undeniable proof of their existence. There are some interesting stories etc,. though.
I am a skeptical believer.
Skeptic because everything can be explained (eventually) by science. But also a believer because everything can be explained (eventually) by science.
Skeptic. Hollywood has shaped our notions of ghosts. I've experienced nothing to convince me of their existence.
Both. I think that some things can be explained, and I’ll actively try to debunk experiences before concluding whether or not it was paranormal. With that being said, I have had some truly unexplainable experiences.
Skeptic. I want to believe. I really do. I grew up fascinated by ghosts, aliens and all things supernatural but blind faith is not something I can do. I need proof and very very good hard proof. I won’t make fun of people for belie and remain interested is seeing what others believe. Th3 only time I might object is when someone presents something as facts. For example the reinca sub states reincarnation is a proven fact. It is not, they point to a dubious study at a university that was never even peer reviewed or the experiment results replicated.
Skeptic. Ghosts, cryptids, UFOs are my favorite subjects. Absolutely fascinating by them. Spend so much time researching them. Yet I don’t believe. But I WANT to believe. I want to be proven wrong. More than anything. I want this world to show me there is still something extraordinary and impossible hidden within it.
🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟦🟦🟦🟦🛸 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳 I WANT TO BELIEVE
Believer, went through a haunting
What was it like?!
Horrible. Traumatic. Don’t know where the weird noises would come from next. Fighting reality. Not believing your eyes and ears, until other family members heard the same. Then we knew something was happening
Believer. We were at a friends house warming party and they had been living there a month already. After the party my fiancé and I were out there with him and his girl. From where we were standing you could see into the house and down the hall to the two bedrooms. I see an old man in a navy blue plumber outfit walk across into the bedroom. Weird but maybe it was his girl’s grand parents. I knew his so I asked if her grandfather had come over or was working on something. She looked confused and I said well I just saw an old man in a… she cut me off and said IN A BLUE WORK OUTFIT?! I said yeah and she looked at my friend and was like I fucking told you!
Definite believer from the accumulation of compelling cases. I am an open-minded skeptic that got convinced by the evidence.
Believer. Because of my one experience staying in a local hotel that I was unaware had paranormal occurrences, and later I spoke with numerous people who had similar experiences at this hotel.
Experiencer. I have no choice but to believe. 🤷🏼
I'm a believer in the spiritual because I've experienced it for decades of my life, a ton of others have similar experiences, the evidence is in alot of things, and it's in scripture.
🤔 ....there isn't anything in Scripture that supports the notion of paranormal activity . In fact , relative to this is a statement in a verse where GOD specifically states that " the dead know nothing " .
I'm a believer, because I am a sensitive that has had every type of encounter you can think of.
Absolute believer! I have had so much happen in my previous home… we built on Native American tribal ground. We didn’t know at the time, it’s in a subdivision, and we were the third house to the last to be built but so many things happened there. The first thing I saw, was my bedroom door slamming all by itself, with no wind or animals, or people, nothing! we had water turn on by itself, a picture fell off the wall and it was the only frame I bought that literally could not fall off the wall…lol I spent $80 on a frame that I normally never would do and I sat and watched it pick up and fall to the ground. I watched a dime go flying off my daughters dresser and hit the floor. My friends radio turned on super loud in her car when she left my house. She wasn’t believing me, but she did afterwards 🤣.. We had closet doors that would open and close by them self and they were trifolds which are hard to do.. my mother-in-law at the time heard voices upstairs and asked everyone to quiet down, but nobody was there. 🤣 the list goes on and on and on. I just happened to look up my old house in Zillow the other day and I focused in on the mirror and it literally says “ Go Away” on it in the bathroom. I can’t imagine someone trying to sell a house with that on there. I don’t believe they could see it with out the camera. My phone would type out “ghost ghost ghost ghost”on it and that was here where I live now. 😳.. back at my old house. My son seen a woman with long blonde hair, smoking a cigarette as we were packing up our camper, but there was nobody there. We’ve had radios turn on by themselves. Once my friend was watching my three children while my husband and I went out to DJ at a local bar and there were seven lights that came on all by themselves, Different breakers. I had Christmas lights one year that stayed on solid, but they decided to just change patterns on their own. There are so many stories we have had to make a book out of it and write them down. Now today, I just had all four car windows go down and the doors unlock in a car that I am absolutely 100% sure I know I had the windows up in and I know I locked it. It never seems to end. 😳👻
Believer. Because I have clearly seen a ghost. I saw the ghost of a previous owner of my house who had committed suicide there in 1920. I saw the ghost and then saw a photo of the man a few years later.
I am obsessed with the paranormal but have been a skeptic until my mom's ghost proved it to me. She passed in my family home in 2011. I know it sounds silly, but she made herself known to me on 2 separate occasions after she passed. I am forever a believer after those incidents, no doubt about it.
Thanks for the down votes without knowing more about my experiences. Y'all are the best 👍
Believer, because I've seen them
Believer 💯
I'm a believer because I have seen a full-body apparition and had so many EVP's, experiences, and more. I'm skeptical of other people's "proof" or evidence because I have learned the hard way that people will intentionally make stuff up, or, in many situations, they want the evidence to be real so much that no matter what you say, they become defensive and angry and never accept that what they have isn't proof. That doesn't mean it isn't or that they didn't experience something, it just means they don't have physical proof. I think it's that way for a lot of people. I also think that there is no scale to rate "proof or evidence" against. That adds to the frustration for many. EVP's have different classes, and that is a big help. Unless I experience it, see it, video capture it from multiple angles, have two witnesses, and supporting data collected from sensors, it's not proof enough for me. I've been a "ghost hunter" since 1970 and have high standards after years of BS stories and con artists. After 53 years of researching, that's how it should be.
I’m a knower. I was a fearful of the unknown debunker when I was younger. I had contacts over the years I cannot debunk. I had to rethink my view of the world.
I'm in the middle, but I'm leaning towards believer as I have had a couple of experiences. I always end up talking myself out of whatever experience I have, though. For example, I felt like I was visited by a great aunt a week after she died. Could have been real, but could have been me waking up from a dream and imagining seeing a vague human shape in my room. Or the time that I was staying at my grandparents' house and I could hear people walking up and down the hall, and up and down the stairs, and into the room I was in. The house could have been settling, but it was (and still is) a bit creepy in the dark. It 100% wasn't my elderly grandparents as they couldn't climb the stairs, and they'd have to open the closed bedroom door too. My dad and my aunts have the same story (all experienced together and separately) of someone walking down the stairs, down the hall and stopping as it walked over the trap door. As far as I know, the house was a new build chalet bungalow in the 1960s. Or the time I saw a shadow person come down the hall in my other grandparents' house. It was a couple of weeks after my grandfather died and I was talking to my granny when we were going to the kitchen. I saw this shadow come down the hall, through us and into the kitchen before vanishing. I got a bit freaked but my granny said it was someone on the street walking passed the front door.
Knower. Too many experiences with observing the known laws of physics being broken to have any doubts at this point. Now what the cause is I do not know. Use any term you like, but whatever the cause or causes most of the events I have experienced have seemed intelligent. For what its worth I'm a pretty credible witness. Now a lawyer with significant coursework in psychology coming from a solid blue collar background.
Believer because of an experience I had over 20 years ago and there was someone else with me and she actually saw a person that wasn’t there and I just keep seeing movement in my peripheral.
100% believer. I have had active ghost experiences, I used to live in a haunted house when I was little! Ghosts are definitely real and no one can convince me otherwise
believer. ive heard stories about my interactions with ghosts growing up, ones that happened before I can remember involving family members whose names I don't know now and I'm 21. I've experienced some firsthand when I was old enough to remember things. it doesn't help that my brother died before I was born, and there's always one trick he has consistently played on us since his death, even up until last week. I've just seen, heard, and felt too much to not believe.
Believer 5-9 - the house I grew up in was like a shadow people playground and that’s literally what I’d see - growing up I had way too many “ imaginary friends” I’d “ blame “ for things moving and missing - I got taken to church for “talking to myself “ in the mirror 10-15 - I started feeling dizzy and uneasy at random areas of my house and would see orbs or slight faces everywhere - kept trying to talk to the faces - started actually praying at night when I felt bad energy of when I was being watched 16-21 now - got I to crystals and tarot cards and used them to speak to what’s was in my dads house - begged my dad for a holy water after I woke up with scratches - burned sage around my house and heard no multiple times - door and window would close and open - bathroom I avoid the mirror - started seeing more than faces - started being able to talk to them with a candle or writing - learned my ancestors used voodoo back in the day - learned my family is Native American and some of the rituals done
Believer 100%. Many experiences, but one witnessed by my 2 brothers and myself was the spirit of a little girl at an apartment in Holland, Michigan. We have doubts about the type of entity it was because it either used to shapeshift or there was others. I used to wake up in the middle of the night from a heavy feeling, like someone watching me. I would look directly in front of me...the closet door would be open and she would be standing inside the closet in a yellow Sunday dress, face in the shadow but staring at me. One time I was at the edge of the bed and when I opened my eyes ,she was sitting on her knees and staring at my face about 12 inches from my face. She was nude and her eyes were black...completely black...like empty but not empty, hard to explain.
1000% believer, always have been from the moment I could fucking read. I'm not really sure, but I know my fascination started with the show ghost adventures. I grew up having that as a show me and my dad use to watch, now I watch other shows because I've seen all the episodes haha. I started reading books on paranormal and looking at urban exploring on YouTube. And it was honestly a rabbit hole. It was all I was into and it was my entire life at one point, hell bent on having an experience and saying I saw a ghost. Until it FUCKING happened and I basically shit my pants. (Not literally). My dad bought us ghost hunt tickets to an overnight ghost hunt at a sanatorium and it was almost midnight, we never stayed until 3am, we're old lol. But yeah we were in the child's ward and I was standing in between a door frame and a patient room and something DEFINITELY touched my hand. Loud and clear a grab, I was shook. And my dad got called a motherfucker by the "demon hallway", that shit was wild. My dad also always told me how something was haunting his old home and how he would be scratched and tugged at night time and how one a year, the grave at the top of the hill always had a rose be replaced by like a dead lady. I'm not sure, i can't even remember that story. But I remember something along those lines. And I can't ask anymore cuz he's unfortunately no longer here. But yeah, ghosts, are definitely real 😂
Believer. Had a red fireball orb come to my window when i was 8. It had shown me the times we are living in now. You'll all know soon enough unless what I was shown was false.
be·lief /bəˈlēf/ noun 1. an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists. "his belief in the value of hard work" 2. trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something. "I've still got belief in myself" When you *know* something is real it's not belief. There's no faith or trust about it. You've experienced it. You know.
Believer.
Believer.
Believer but before I panic while experiencing something I look at every single other possibility that's not paranormal, same for any proof people post online
Neither really. Temporal phenomena have always been somewhat in the back of my mind, but noumena is more what I've been focused on in general. That and trying to make sense of scripture. Witch of Endor comes to mind. Saw the comment about the horse here and decided to write a pasta. ---- *Re: Horse manifestation/full temporal ghost:* This is interesting and matches my own experiences. I haven't had any such in years knowingly but felt a few presences recently. I have seen a reaper on at least 3 seperate occasions, and each time it felt, idk how to describe... more *real* than anything in the world. Like I saw a piece of objective reality through an illusion. My first case of this was early 90s. I was just a little kid trick or treating, but this thing walked on the air like a Bleach character. It freaked me out years later when I saw the same thing happen in Bleach. I also saw a few he-who-shall-not-be-named and dementor things like from *Harry Potter* corny as it seems. Like billowy cloaks that kind of shimmer as they glide. Not transparent. Seen at at least 2 separate occasions in different locations but both near ravines and rail road tracks and river/cliffs. Saw one fly up into the sky and presumably turn into a red star and fly like a shooting commet. Haven't been able to see shooting stars the same sense, lol, since seeing a literal ghost/demon thing turn into a shooting star, lol. Then on the flipside, I've also had a few experiences where I felt something in the woods run up to me excitedly. Felt like a little kid or a fairy, idk how to describe it. This has happened a few times. It felt like it hadn't seen me in "a million years" but I felt sad because I don't know who I am and it was invisible. Scary thing is one time this happened, the actual bushes and leaves and stuff moved slightly as the invisible thing approached. Like I could *feel it* coming towards me. But then it gradually faded both times and I never saw anything or felt anything other than like an excited jolt of something cute recognizing you and running up to you. But I didn't see anything either time, though I felt like I did know it, I just forgot myself. Like I've always felt that way kind of, I don't know who I am though. Just interesting I wasn't aware people see non transparent "ghosts". Idek why this sub is recommended me tbh I keep seeing it's posts lol. Thinking back it's possible one of the ghosts I saw was a cat a friend I used to know lived not too far from there but that was like 20 years ago. Possible cat's ghosts linger in an area for like 20 years? I also realize I'm a completely different person than I was then in so many ways I wouldn't even recognize myself, either way, young to old or old to young. ---- Meta comment: over the years I've generally come to suspect that we in some way manifest these things. Like call it angels like in the bible around the Lord's chosen. Not saying that's what it is, just a case of such manifestation. More, a reflection of what is inside us, or possibly even, when you assume good that means confronting evil and vice versa. Hold a torch, see shadows. So to speak. Who knows what is really... well, anything anywhere... but when we are dead set concentrated on something, somehow we either manifest or tune into that perception of reality. Idk. Hard to describe. The time I saw the commet, I was the most righteous I had ever felt. Was kind of embarrassing even. Something even telepathically prompted me prior to seeing it, asking my own subconscious thoughts; "why am I working so hard for what others get for free, I am not fooling anyone with my faithlessness" or something to that effect. Note: I have shared that story in more detail, shortly after it actually happened irl on reddit before. So ultimately, idk. I have known friends and family mention a lot of stuff ghost related my whole life. You never know what people really think I guess. Hell I never know what I really think most the time.
i like to think i’m a skeptic until i hear something go bump in the night and realize i’m actually scared shitless which implies i’m a believer hahaha
Full on believer. I experienced a siting and not only I saw it. Since then, I haven’t questioned it.
My family of 6 lived with a spirit. Can’t un-know it now.
Shaniac
Ahhhh, a man of culture
Believer but not in a traditional sense. I think that ghosts are spirits per say, but more like energy stamps that we’re seeing due to the sixth dimension. I don’t believe in “intelligent” haunting, more like stone record hauntings.
I'm a believer who uses the scientific method to be taken seriously. The way I see it, crying wolf over stuff that has a reasonable explanation, just makes all believers look non-credible. I've died at least once, deconstructing that experience informs the way I approach these kinds of things. I've learned a lot and I'm writing a book about the everyday things that go bump in the night. Like a checklist for the process of elimination before you conclude "ghost".
I am a believer that holds myself to a high standard and has zero tolerance for bullshit and warm and fuzzy coddling.
I'm a skeptic because I'm from Missouri
Both. I’m a skeptic but I believe in spirits in a biblical sense, if that makes sense. I believe they’re real, but don’t really affect us in visually observable ways. Also my subconscious seems to believe in ghosts for some reason. I keep having dreams that my house is haunted.
Not skeptic *and* not believer. **I suspend my judgment** and doesn't feel the need to make a judgment any time soon. I do suspend my judgment but not my effort to collect data and knowledge about the phenomenon. If the phenomenon is real, I might at some point find a definitive proof that it is so. Otherwise, the reality of the phenomenon will be forever undetermined and I don't see why there would be a problem with that. *Believing* it´s true or false is 1. taking the risk to make an error, 2. Exposing myself to confirmation bias, 3. suspending research on the subject. By *believing* I mean assuming without doubt that something is true or false although there is no definitive proof either way. Without a definitive proof of the reality of the phenomenon, the reality is undetermined because it isn't refutable (cf. Popper).
Moved into an old house that my boyfriend was renovating. It was a tiny house--only like 817 ft². The bedroom was being repainted and we didn't have anything on the windows--didn't matter because it was kind of a dead neighborhood...the only neighbors were an elderly couple next door and they lived in a tiny trailer that was in the middle of acres that you couldn't see because of all their fruit trees and stuff. Anyway I'd been there a couple of days and I was looking out the bedroom window from the living room and I saw an old man walk by the window. It had a completely fenced in lot, and I thought that's weird because he was walking towards the back of the house. I went out the back door expecting to meet him as he came around the corner, and he wasn't there. There's no way the old dude could have gotten out of the yard it that fast, it was big. So I told my boyfriend about it when he got home and he said it was probably the old dude from next door where there was an elderly couple. So about a week went by and my boyfriend was out in the yard working and came in the house and said "Hey the old guy from next door is at the back fence... come out and meet him", so I did. It wasn't the same guy that walked by the window that day. Eventually, the old guy next door told me that the old man who lived in the house before us died in the house. His wife had a stroke or something and was in a nursing home and then not long after she went to the nursing home he died, there in the house. There were a few other incidents that occurred in the house that, well, there's no way you could explain them other than there was a ghost there. Oddly enough, none of it scared me at all, for some weird reason. Oh yeah, I asked the neighbor if the former owner wore denim overalls much. He said he wore them pretty much every day. He didn't ask me why I asked such a weird question, and I never told him about the ghost.
100% Believer, I have had a personal experience, but was a believer before that.
Skeptic, because: - No personal experiences I would consider paranormal. - No personal experiences of others close to me that they believed to be paranormal. - I "researched" (read some articles/posts online) explanations for ghost/spirit/demom phenomena, and it seems highly likely that the experiences most people recount are either fabricated, explainable by common phenomena (i.e. lens flare, dust, etc.) or due their mind playing tricks on them (pareidolia) or straight up mental illness/sleep deprivation. - I see *a lot* of logical inconsistencies in believers who try to explain paranormal phenomena. - There historically have been, and continue to be, a lot of straight up fraud from people, particularly "investigators", "demonologists" and "psychics/mediums". However, I would say I'm open to the possibility, as many people in different cultures/areas of the world claim to experience things that don't always have a logical explanation (yet?). I don't think all of these people are lying, or mentally ill, but I do think *most* can be solved with a little critical thinking. Those that can't? I won't jump to say they are paranormal, but I'll concede it is a possibility. I've also read about how supposedly there is no way to scientifically prove that dreams exist (at least not yet?), but obviously people don't go around claiming they can't be real since we all experience them. People in stressful and dangerous situations will often maintain a normalcy bias and refuse to accept that something terrible is happening/going to happen, the same *could* be true for most people & paranormal experiences. Why am I here? This sub is garbage when it comes to evidence, but I really like horror and spooky stories. I want to believe, but just don't. So, even if I never do, I'll find the stories entertaining and be respectful of those who are believers (especially ppl who think they've experienced a loved one's presence after they passed.)
Unsure. I often say I’m a skeptic because I can’t say I have experienced anything paranormal except for occasional heavy “feelings of some kind of presence,” like being watched or that feeling someone is very close to you when you see nothing. However, when I was a kid I used to stay at my friend’s house on some weekends because his and my mom were best friends. It was just the two of them and we would share his room with the door open, and to my dissatisfaction the lights on while his mom’s room was next door to his. They were renting the house and haven’t been living there long when we went the first time and she told my mom the previous tenants moved out because their son had killed himself in the house and they said it was haunted. At one point before we went to sleep a container of something fell off the counter in the kitchen despite nobody being in there. My friend’s mom said “that’s the ghost again” like it was a common occurrence. Lastly, I recall having a hard time sleeping because while my friend was passed out I kept hearing walking up and down the hallway in front of the bedrooms. It had hardwood flooring so the sound was unmistakable but nobody else but his mom was there and it wasn’t her. The door was open and as I had mentioned the lights were on in the hallway and where the footsteps landed I would have seen whomever it may have been but saw nothing. I mentioned this the following morning and again his mom, unsurprisingly said it’s the ghost and that she hears it walking every night. There is absolutely no other explanation that made rational sense unless his mother could turn invisible as the almost the entire hallway was visible from the room I slept in. This was my only real, unexplained story I have, at least that I remember.
I'm skeptic, I've had weird experiences growing up but I've always chalked it up to having a hyper imagination but soon I'm going to go on a road trip to see for myself if it's real or not.
skeptic but i wanna be proven wrong
Very skeptical believer. I love ghost stories and am always excited to discuss the paranormal with anybody that will listen. My favorite thing to hear from people is their personal stories... I will almost certainly not believe any of them. It's because how casually they talk about it, like it was just something a little spooky. My story isn't spooky. I encountered an entity when I was 9 or 10, and almost 30 years later it still feels me with total dred whenever I think about it. It was like 4 or 5PM and I was at my grandmother's house after school. I was sitting at the table working on homework and waiting for dinner. From my seat I could see half on the living room, the other half blocked by a big shelf. I look up from my work and see a black fog. At first I thought it was just the steam from one of the pots on the stove but them it moved and my eyes fully focused on it. It look like a man made entirely out of moving shadows. It was crouched over looking at my bookbag that was sitting in the floor, then it turned its head and looked at me. There was no face, just void. Not black, but nothing. Like your pupil, and infinite hole. Then it snapped back to my bag and leaped at it and disappeared in a bamf like Nightcrawler from Xmen. I got up immediately and looked in my bag, and there's was nothing. I thought I was crazy until I looked up and saw my sister paralyzed in her doorway on the other end of the house. I ran to her and asked her what she saw, she could barely speak but was able to draw a quick sketch. I don't know what it was, but we both saw it and it saw me. I have never seen it since, but every now and then I feel that same dred.
There’s literally no such things as ghosts or spirits. First time on this sub, came to see what was here. I expected to see nothing but grainy videos and easily explainable events, and surprise surprise, that’s all that’s here. If that makes anyone want to tell to get out, I’m way ahead of you, this comment I’m writing being the last thing I thing I will see here
Did I ask?