• We have updated the guidelines regarding posting political content: please see the stickied thread on Website Issues.

Anyone Seen A Ghost?

In one of Andy Gilbert's Credible Witness books (paranormal experiences of serving and retired UK Police officers) a policeman arrives on the scene of a stolen car crash and witnesses a well known local petty criminal fleeing on foot. He tells his colleagues what he has seen, only to then discover the petty criminal's dead body is actually still inside the crashed car.

So was The Sixth Sense inspired by actual witness accounts...?
Yes get book and the 2nd one brilliant as well.
 
You are probably right:

"England is a haunted country. Several explanations, for the ubiquity of the ghost in this land, can be offered. Alone among the countries of Europe, England is bordered by original British (or Celtic) nations. The popularity of the English ghost tradition – the English see more ghosts than anyone else – is deeply rooted in its peculiar mingling of Germanic, Nordic and British superstitions. The English are also in many respects obsessed with the past, with ruins, with ancient volumes. It is the country where archaeology is placed on national television, and where every town and village has its own local historian. Ghosts therefore may be seen as a bridge of light between the past and the present, or between the living and the dead. They represent continuity, albeit of a spectral kind."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-spirits-of-england-2119329.html
I have to say that I LOVE England, every single time I have visited I am struck by your beautiful ancient buildings. My Aunt had a cottage in Chalfont-St-Giles, it was built in the 1600's, it was lovely. (My Dad said he wasn't too comfortable sleeping there, wondering if anything was wandering around at night - LOL!) I remember the antique shops had very low doorways - I was told that the buildings had been constructed years ago when people were not so tall. And my cousin had a cottage in Aylesbury. Another cousin had a flat in Whitechapel, but he left because as he said, the area frightened him. I've never visited Whitechapel, but it's on my list!
 
I have to say that I LOVE England, every single time I have visited I am struck by your beautiful ancient buildings. My Aunt had a cottage in Chalfont-St-Giles, it was built in the 1600's, it was lovely. (My Dad said he wasn't too comfortable sleeping there, wondering if anything was wandering around at night - LOL!) I remember the antique shops had very low doorways - I was told that the buildings had been constructed years ago when people were not so tall. And my cousin had a cottage in Aylesbury. Another cousin had a flat in Whitechapel, but he left because as he said, the area frightened him. I've never visited Whitechapel, but it's on my list!
Also cockey rhyming slang for haemorrhoids - my chalfonts are giving me grief. Something to slip into the conversation on your next visit.
 
Heard an interesting and creepy tale today. Apparently it's true, however it is third hand (told to me by the son of the witness) and definitely has the feel of an urban legend about it...

Essentially this guy's father was driving through traffic, but had slowed down considerably and saw a woman sat on the edge of the road crying and looking shell shocked. He thought it was very strange but didn't stop and continued on. After some time he reached and managed to pass the incident that had caused the traffic. It was a collision between some cars and he says he saw the woman who he had seen earlier, and it quickly became apparent she was dead.

I've met this man and I find it hard to believe he would just make this up. However it definitely has the feel of an urban legend to me, and I can't quite believe he'd be able to identify the woman accurately. I'd also question why she would be, for want of a better expression, 'on display'. Unfortunately I have no idea whether he saw her in the car or elsewhere, i.e. whether she was being 'worked on' and he later saw something that confirmed her fate.

Urban legend or not the story creeped me out! It reminded me of that Derren Brown programme where he fooled a woman into thinking she'd died in a car accident, it was awful! :worry:


There's a brilliant thread tread on AllNurses - What's your best nursing ghost story? - with a similar incident.

Staff are rushing along a corridor to answer a 'crash' (resuscitation) call when they meet an elderly woman in nightclothes who stands weeping pathetically and asks them for help.

They say they'll pop back as soon as they've finished what they're doing.
When they reach their patient they recognise her as the woman they've just seen. They cannot revive her and she is nowhere to be see back on the corridor either...

It also reminds me of a woman's description of an apparent sighting in a named concert hall, from the Personal Ghost Stories Facebook page -

One Christmas, around twenty years ago, I treated my Mum to a jazz concert at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh.
It's a large venue, with stairs going back from the stage leading to the choir seats and organ pipes. Mum and I were at the back of the gods, with a good view.
Around halfway through the concert I was suddenly aware of a tall man walking up the said stairs on the right hand side. He was tall, and looked a bit like the actors John Hannah/Peter Capaldi and looked very solemn. He was wearing a long grey/brown overall coat and kept looking backwards across the stage to something towards the front. I was really surprised as he looked so out of place and I wondered what he was doing.
About five minutes later there was a disturbance at the front row of the audience and the band (Kenny Ball) stopped playing and announced that they were going offstage.
A gentleman had suffered a cardiac arrest and sadly died instantly. He had been sitting exactly where the now disappeared man had been looking.

I googled the Usher Hall in Edinburgh and looked at the choir steps, clearly seen as described.

Edit - here's a link to a photo of the Usher Hall stage with the steps and first row of the audience.

Concert at the Usher Hall
 
Last edited:
From Japan:

https://allthatsinteresting.com/tsunami-spirits

Yes, it is a cultural thing, and the UK has the strong Celtic influence that brings with it myths and legends of ghosts. Not so much in France, apparently:

https://www.parisunlocked.com/around-france/famous-french-ghosts-reputed-hauntings/
Check out the latest Ghostwatch (p19, FT 414), for a brief account of a French haunting that was reported in the French press. France isn't immune, apparently.
 
Dolph Lundgren has heard one, apparently. From his Guardian Q&A piece today:

Have you ever seen a ghost?
ArthurSternom

“I haven’t seen one, but I think I heard one many years ago in Sweden. I was staying in this 18th-century manor house in the middle of winter with my half-brother and his dad, to go hunting. I woke in the middle of the night, got really cold, felt something in the room and got really scared. I usually don’t get scared. Then I heard this woman speaking on the phone in old Swedish or something, but I couldn’t really make out what was going on.

There were no women in the house, but there was one of these old wooden phones outside in the corridor and all these pieces of luggage that used to be owned by my half-brother’s dad’s mother. She had killed herself in the room next to mine, but I didn’t know any of this until the next day. That was the first time I felt that there was something supernatural. I never went back to spend another night in that place.”

https://www.theguardian.com/film/20...ren-in-showbusiness-you-kind-of-live-for-ever
 
Don’t know if this counts as a “ghost” event or not but it certainly freaked me out at the time…
In 87 or 88, my girlfriend and I were in my bedroom one evening. Doing what 19 year olds do when the parentals are out..
Anyway she gets up to go the the bathroom which was directly across the hall from my room. Maybe 4feet away. She closes the bedroom door behind her and I hear her go in to the bathroom. The door closing behind her. So I’m lying back on my bed congratulating myself on another fabulous performance… (as young bucks do!) when I hear .. BANG -BANG - BANG on the bathroom door.
Clear as day and loud enough to make me jump!
She calls out, “fuck off ya fanny” (excuse my French but she’s Scottish..so am I for that matter) .
Im thinking “my goodness, that was somewhat unusual “… or words to that affect.
She comes back to the room, no doubt desperate to sample some more of the special lovin’… and asks what I’m playing at.
Nothing says I, I’ve been here the whole time. She tells me she saw the door of the bathroom ‘bounce’ as it was being banged. We were both a bit uneasy after this.
For background..I had lived in this house for 7 years by then.
It was only ten years old .
No other events had happened previously.
Nothing else happened following this.
To this day I have no clue what happened that evening.
 
Dolph Lundgren has heard one, apparently. From his Guardian Q&A piece today:

Have you ever seen a ghost?
ArthurSternom

“I haven’t seen one, but I think I heard one many years ago in Sweden. I was staying in this 18th-century manor house in the middle of winter with my half-brother and his dad, to go hunting. I woke in the middle of the night, got really cold, felt something in the room and got really scared. I usually don’t get scared. Then I heard this woman speaking on the phone in old Swedish or something, but I couldn’t really make out what was going on.

There were no women in the house, but there was one of these old wooden phones outside in the corridor and all these pieces of luggage that used to be owned by my half-brother’s dad’s mother. She had killed herself in the room next to mine, but I didn’t know any of this until the next day. That was the first time I felt that there was something supernatural. I never went back to spend another night in that place.”

https://www.theguardian.com/film/20...ren-in-showbusiness-you-kind-of-live-for-ever
So no then.
 
Don’t know if this counts as a “ghost” event or not but it certainly freaked me out at the time…
In 87 or 88, my girlfriend and I were in my bedroom one evening. Doing what 19 year olds do when the parentals are out..
Anyway she gets up to go the the bathroom which was directly across the hall from my room. Maybe 4feet away. She closes the bedroom door behind her and I hear her go in to the bathroom. The door closing behind her. So I’m lying back on my bed congratulating myself on another fabulous performance… (as young bucks do!) when I hear .. BANG -BANG - BANG on the bathroom door.
Clear as day and loud enough to make me jump!
She calls out, “fuck off ya fanny” (excuse my French but she’s Scottish..so am I for that matter) .
Im thinking “my goodness, that was somewhat unusual “… or words to that affect.
She comes back to the room, no doubt desperate to sample some more of the special lovin’… and asks what I’m playing at.
Nothing says I, I’ve been here the whole time. She tells me she saw the door of the bathroom ‘bounce’ as it was being banged. We were both a bit uneasy after this.
For background..I had lived in this house for 7 years by then.
It was only ten years old .
No other events had happened previously.
Nothing else happened following this.
To this day I have no clue what happened that evening.
Anyway. I’m giving you a 9.5/10 for a good historical fuck.
 
So I’m lying back on my bed congratulating myself on another fabulous performance… (as young bucks do!) when I hear .. BANG -BANG - BANG on the bathroom door.
Clear as day and loud enough to make me jump!
She calls out, “fuck off ya fanny” (excuse my French but she’s Scottish..so am I for that matter) .
Im thinking “my goodness, that was somewhat unusual “… or words to that affect.
. . .
For background..I had lived in this house for 7 years by then.
It was only ten years old .
No other events had happened previously.
Nothing else happened following this.
To this day I have no clue what happened that evening.
Was this a detached house, or connected to another residence where the sound could travel to easily?
I'm wondering if a neighbor could have heard you, disapproved of your very natural activity, walked into your house, noticed that someone had just entered the bathroom, and then vented their spleen on the bathroom door.
 
Was this a detached house, or connected to another residence where the sound could travel to easily?
I'm wondering if a neighbor could have heard you, disapproved of your very natural activity, walked into your house, noticed that someone had just entered the bathroom, and then vented their spleen on the bathroom door.
Two 19 year-olds shagging while the parents are out would have locked up first. ;)
 
Was this a detached house, or connected to another residence where the sound could travel to easily?
I'm wondering if a neighbor could have heard you, disapproved of your very natural activity, walked into your house, noticed that someone had just entered the bathroom, and then vented their spleen on the bathroom door.
Lol. It was a terraced house but neighbours don’t randomly walk in and bang on doors in the uk.
 
Don’t know if this counts as a “ghost” event or not but it certainly freaked me out at the time…
In 87 or 88, my girlfriend and I were in my bedroom one evening. Doing what 19 year olds do when the parentals are out..
Anyway she gets up to go the the bathroom which was directly across the hall from my room. Maybe 4feet away. She closes the bedroom door behind her and I hear her go in to the bathroom. The door closing behind her. So I’m lying back on my bed congratulating myself on another fabulous performance… (as young bucks do!) when I hear .. BANG -BANG - BANG on the bathroom door.
Clear as day and loud enough to make me jump!
She calls out, “fuck off ya fanny” (excuse my French but she’s Scottish..so am I for that matter) .
Im thinking “my goodness, that was somewhat unusual “… or words to that affect.
She comes back to the room, no doubt desperate to sample some more of the special lovin’… and asks what I’m playing at.
Nothing says I, I’ve been here the whole time. She tells me she saw the door of the bathroom ‘bounce’ as it was being banged. We were both a bit uneasy after this.
For background..I had lived in this house for 7 years by then.
It was only ten years old .
No other events had happened previously.
Nothing else happened following this.
To this day I have no clue what happened that evening.
It may have been the door frame moving, perhaps as a result of vibrations you couldn't detect.
Either that, or the door may have been a poor fit for the frame.
 
It may have been the door frame moving, perhaps as a result of vibrations you couldn't detect.
Either that, or the door may have been a poor fit for the frame.
The door fitted well. It was a hollow “eggshell” door. So perfectly square.
 
A door banging because of undetectable vibrations would probably be a recurring phenomenon, so this explanation seems unlikely to me.
Two 19 year olds may sometimes get distracted and forget to lock the door.
Some people (especially drunk and/or crazy and/or arrogant and/or irate people) don't think twice about barging through an unlocked door and into someone else's house. It is rare though.

Just trying to sift through all the non-paranormal explanations.

It would have been interesting if your door had been open enough to see into the hallway, Solexman.
Regardless, it sounds like a very weird experience.
 
In that case it would happen a lot.
One of the doors at the infamous East Drive/Black Monk of Pontefract poltergeist house tends to pop open (the door inbetween the kitchen and the living room). Ghost investigation teams were putting it down to paranormal activity until someone realised that another door being opened and closed was creating a vacuum and so causing the 'haunted' door to pop open itself.
 
One of the doors at the infamous East Drive/Black Monk of Pontefract poltergeist house tends to pop open (the door inbetween the kitchen and the living room). Ghost investigation teams were putting it down to paranormal activity until someone realised that another door being opened and closed was creating a vacuum and so causing the 'haunted' door to pop open itself.
Yup, when I had new doors installed all through the ground floor I could send the dogs mad by quietly opening and closing one so that the others also moved. :chuckle:
 
When I was 11ish on a residential with my school we went on a trip to Orford Castle we went in and I quite innocently said I like re enactments. Next minute I'm being threatened with being sent home for scaring the others. At the time I honestly thought the people in the room were flesh and blood
 
I saw a group of people standing around the room dressed in very old fashioned clothes
Did they disappear ?
Reminds me of a friend who took he son with him to a Salvage place which used to be a old Police Correction Centre between 1792 till 1870 and the son stayed very quiet as he was a bit of hand most of the times and when they left his dad asked what was wrong and he told him he scared of the men in blue uniforms.
 
Around 1981 I lived in a council house on the outskirts of Farnham, Surrey. It was a strange place to live, when no-one else was home I would hear someone moving around in the kitchen, opening and shutting cupboards, moving cutlery etc. Thinking my parents had arrived home, I would go and look...no-one there, back to the living room and after a short while I would begin to hear the same sounds again, with the same result.
I hated being in my bedroom alone, when I was sat at my desk doing my homework or reading I would often have such an intense feeling that someone was standing behind watching me that I would have to leave the room.
Once I left a book (The Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy) on my desk, went out of the room for a sec, came back to grab the book and...it wasn't there. I turned the whole house upside down looking for it, everyone in my family denied seeing it or moving it, in the end I gave up in frustration. A few days later it reappeared exactly where I had left it. I hope the ghost enjoyed it, it must have been boring just staring at me doing my homework.
My most memoriable experience was one weekday, both myself and my brother were off school (my brother was sick, I was just pretending to be). I was in my room, my brother was in another bedroom, no-one else was home. Anyway, I heard crying coming from the front bedroom, and stood outside the door listening to make sure...yep, definately crying. Since my brother was in there, and was genuinely ill, I went in to see what was wrong...and he was sat on the bed, happily drawing. Definately no crying. I asked him anyway but he said he was OK, and hadn't been crying. So I went out and shut the door, and again clearly heard crying coming from inside the bedroom. I went in again to ask my brother if he was definately OK, he said yes and obviously hadn't been crying, so I went out again and shut the door, again I could clearly hear crying coming from inside. This time I just gave up, puzzled, and went back to my room. :confused:
Anyway, after a year living in the house we moved to a nearby street, partly due to ghostly goings on, partly due to unpleasant neighbours that had just moved in next door. On the day we moved out our parents told us that we were moving because the place was haunted, they had found out shortly after moving in that a woman had killed herself and her three children (although not in that order) in that same house. Spooky.
Imagine if you'd lived there on your own or were an only child! - Until I was 8 I grew up in an old cottage with my mother and I was sometimes there on my own but (luckily) never felt any reason to be scared- as far as I recall.
 
Have I seen a ghost? [Saddle up for the ride]. A good Fortean will always keep an open mind yet still be cautious when examining the 'facts' around phenomena. It would be easy to say "Yes! I have seen a ghost." though I would then find my relating the experience would [and should] come under great scrutiny. With these in mind, I can only say that "I have had some strange experiences concerning perception that may appear to be 'ghost' related." I would then find myself asking such questions as "Can I define what a ghost is?" or "Is my perception of ghosts affected by my cultural background and other factors?" and "Do I want the stigma or celebrity of being 'that bloke who sees ghosts'?". Someone much cleverer than me could probably write a book that would aim to answer those very questions. Who am I kidding? We all know there are many such books.

So I will give some examples of the many different 'ghost' related events that have happened in my family. Believe the examples or not. Come up with explanations or take what I write at face value or, maybe, with a pinch of salt - it's your pick!

  • Aged around nine years with my two younger siblings in tow I walked ahead of our parents [staying well in sight of them] towards our home. We kids would often be in trouble for standing on the low wall of our garden 'rocking' on the low wooden fence. On this occasion my sister was the first onto the wall and 'took off' towards the oldies crying and screaming "whose that man?". When Both of us looked beyond the fence into the house 'living room' my brother and then me saw what appeared to be an old man sitting, looking quite relaxed, in one of the single recliner chairs therein. As one may imagine the events that followed where on the lines of; one very tearful, scared little girl and two little boys excitedly shouting "There's a man in the house." Mother huddling the girl trying to calm her, Father first trying to calm the boys and assure them no one could get in our house as it was secured quite well then going to check. Long story short - there was no man! Of course we kids thought we had seen a ghost.
  • Same family home some years later and we find the two parents hosting other adults [from wider family]. The story here is very long so I will give the shortest version. As adults are talking, the children were upstairs playing or sleeping. The adults all had a tea or coffee but non were drinking as they were deep in conversation. Without warning a cup and saucer placed securely on a table rose into the air by a few feet then the cup tipped up it's content onto the saucer then, inevitably, the table, floor and a leg of the nearest person. The man with the soaked leg ran out of the house and refused to enter it ever again.
  • There was also and odd, intermittently repeating, scenario in that same house. In short it involved closing curtains at one end of the large living room, moving to and closing the curtains on other side of room then turning [as to leave the room] only to find the first set of curtains fully open!
  • In another house [a later home of the family involved] many other strange things happened. Aged around fourteen years, maybe a little younger, the eldest of the children was inconsolable for many hours after walking into his bedroom and seeing, quite clearly, his long dead grandfather seemingly looking at a photo of the children that was on a drawer set in the room. The parents made the situation worse by first taking it as a prank then trying to dismiss it as the boy simply seeing either the photo or his own reflection in its glass fronted frame.
  • In the same house the two younger siblings where in the same room as the eldest was in the previous incident. The kids where looking through magazines, chatting and listening to music when an object about the size of a tennis ball, seemingly made of light and described as "You know; like staring at something then closing your eyes and still seeing the object floating and a different colour." suddenly but casually came through the closed, locked window of the room, floated around a while, pulsing all the time, then exited the way it entered.
  • Same house, same room on another day. A child shouts at brother to stop playing guitar so loud and opens the door to enter room. Rather surprisingly the brother was not there and no electronic device, vinyl record player, tape deck, radio or TV are switched on or making sound. The din continues as the child turns and looks at the guitar mounted in its usual place [when not in use] on a wall merrily playing itself!
  • There was an incident in that same room where the younger brother claimed to have seen a man with an "Egyptian dog head" [maybe Jackal] peering into the living room from the house entrance hallway. Of course the mother found the doors all locked and windows all closed and no person / thing abroad. Maybe that one could be put down to a fever as the child was off school quite ill when the incident happened.
My goodness! Talk about writing a book about seeing / experiencing ghostly activity or other phenomenon or answering those questions! I maybe should do just that.

All the examples and many more really have happened within my close and wider family. I could tell the tale* of one of the siblings being in the next family home [their own children, teens at the time, not present ] as an adult visiting the parents when an ornamental 'frame' containing a collection of ornamental spoons mysteriously floated about a foot away from its normal secure wall fixing parallel to the floor then suddenly dropped as if forced or flung onto the poor individual [the fixing was sound when examined and the frame would have had to be lifted off it!]. I think there is enough weirdness in this post already though.

Kind regards all.

* Dang! I did tell the tale. :)

Edit - minor change to repeated wording, a few spelling corrections and rewording of a fragmented line.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top