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Ghost Objects

SimonBurchell

SimonBurchell

Justified & Ancient
Joined
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Messages
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We've all heard of phantom buildings, cars and buses but if inanimate objects can become 'ghosts', then why should they be limited to transport and dwellings? What about phantom phone-boxes, or lamp-posts, or trees, or just about anything else? Any-one had any encounters with furniture that shouldn't be there, that mysteriously vanishes? Or anything else?
 
(I apologise in advance)

Simon Burchell said:
Any-one had any encounters with furniture that shouldn't be there, that mysteriously vanishes?
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We once had an ocassional table!

:D
 
The Flying Dutchman story/myth would be a sizeable ghost craft.

Would a ghost city take the form of being in a place yet never being able to find it again?
 
Surely if a person appears in front of us, then disappears mysteriously, or goes "Wooo!" or whatever, we're quite likely to accept we have seen a ghost. However, if an inanimate object (table, tardis, cheesegrater, whatever) does the same, we're more likely to apply the word 'hallucination' to what we have witnessed.
I'd say that if the sorts of things going on which make people see ghosts, that is, 'people ghosts', (tormented undead spirits? Psychic echoes? Sub-sonic vibrations? Ergotism?) are the same sorts of things that cause people to perhaps see 'not-people ghosts', then we have a situation where two or three different words, with very different implications attached, are getting used:

1) If I see a person dissappear through a wall, I've 'seen a ghost' - I will therefore assume that there is a mystery which I have witnessed which may involve the undead/ the enernal soul.

2) If I see a table float through a wall, I could be 'hallucinating' - I will therefore assume that there is something physically or mentally wrong with me, which has caused my senses to be tricked.

3) If I see a large lake in an area of desert, and run towards it only to find it ain't there, I've seen a 'mirage' - I will therefore assume that there is something special about the environment I'm in which has caused my sense data to be confused.

So, we can use loads of different words to describe the phenomenon of seeing stuff that 'isn't there' or isn't tangible in the same way that we are, but when the stuff in question appears to be a person, the word we use carries lots of implications about souls, afterlives, etc (and keeps Derek Acorah in business).

Hope that made some kind of sense.
 
A few years ago my Uncle and Aunt (now deceased) went for a little drive to find a twee pub to get an evening meal and take up the atmosphere.

They were on holiday in the Cotswolds and knew the area extremely well having been there on many occassions with their caravan to different sites. They finally came across a pub, I think it was called The Fox, had a splendid dinner and spent the evening chewing the fat with the landlord, his wife and a few locals.

Although the the landlord and the locals seemed a bit old fashioned and yokely, my Uncle and Aunt both had one of the most pleasant evening of their lives and vowed to return to the pub towards the end of their holiday as the food was great and the whole ambience fantastic.

They spent nearly 3 hrs searching for the phantom tavern a couple of days later. Everyone they asked seemed to be unaware of it's exsitance and/or swear blind that there were no pubs of that name or description in the area.

My Uncle tried to remember who the brewery was who owned it, to ring their head office and try and track it down. He tried a few big name breweries but drew a blank each time. They did go back to the Cotswolds again on holiday quite a few times before my Aunt died but they never found the pub again.
 
There was a thead about vanishing trees a while back which I meant to reply to, but I've never manged to find it again :confused:

Jane.
 
Re: The vanishing pub

Tyger Lily said:
....finally came across a pub, I think it was called The Fox, had a splendid dinner and spent the evening chewing the fat with the landlord, his wife and a few locals.

Although the the landlord and the locals seemed a bit old fashioned and yokely, my Uncle and Aunt both had one of the most pleasant evening of their lives and vowed to return to the pub towards the end of their holiday as the food was great and the whole ambience fantastic.

They spent nearly 3 hrs searching for the phantom tavern a couple of days later. Everyone they asked seemed to be unaware of it's exsitance and/or swear blind that there were no pubs of that name or description in the area....
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There is a similar story about a family who stayed in suspiciously old-fashioned hotel in France and then were never able to find it again, I think in Jenny Randles' book 'Time Storms'.

I seem to remember an article in Fortean Times a few years back with the same story and other vanishing hotels inns and cottages (Does anybody have an reference?)

It sounds more like the idea of a timeslip, or a step sideways into a parallel universe than a haunting...although all the explanatins are equally unlikely (or likely).

EDIT: I can't find the French hotel story in Fortean Times. I did find the other story I was thinking about which was a vanishing cafe/inn in Iran FT 69: pp34-35 'Lunchtime at the Phantom Diner.'
 
Hopefully I shall be see seeing my Uncle in the next couple of months so I'll see if he can remember the actual year and area in the Cotswolds they were in or near.

My Aunt has been dead for 16 yrs nearly so his account of it may draw a blank. I can remember the effect it had on me when they told us the story though...the hairs on the back of my neck stood up, my eyes filled up with tears and I needed to go to the toilet real quick!! (I was about 13 at the time!)

Do people have time slips to the future? They seem less common than the ones back to the past.

I like the idea of a parallel universe though. Perhaps the Subtle Knife does exsist after all!!
 
Tyger Lily, if you're serious about tracking down this pub, I know I've seen red books that list all the businesses in towns, though I dont' know about for out of the way country places. Must be researchable somehow.

Of course (HERETIC) they might just have not found it again.. but that's a bit of a dull answer.
 
101 said:
If I see a table float through a wall, I could be 'hallucinating' - I will therefore assume that there is something physically or mentally wrong with me, which has caused my senses to be tricked.
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Good point. But what if three different people see a table floating through a wall at different times? Or even at the same time? They might each assume that they were hallucinating and not say a word, but a group of people seeing the same thing at the same time could not assume that it was a hallucination.
 
mejane said:
There was a thead about vanishing trees a while back which I meant to reply to, but I've never manged to find it again :confused:

Jane.
Click to expand...

A ghost thread? :D
I'll be getting my coat, now.
 
Google finds several references to the Cotswolds "Fox" - I leave Tyger Lily and her uncle to sort out if any of these are relevent!

There's also a story of a ghost farmhouse in FT 172, p.75 (it's in Indiana, USA.)
 
"There's also a story of a ghost farmhouse in FT 172, p.75 (it's in Indiana, USA.)"
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There's also a phantom house and car in Bachlor Grove Cemetary in Illinois, and one on Cuba Road in Lake Zurich, Illinois. Ghost houses, buildings, cars, boats/ships, all things we can go into. Odd.
 
Thanks Rynner.

I shall try and contact my Uncle this weekend (i'm sure he's going to think I'm a complete nutter!!) to see if he can throw any light on the where abouts of the mystery tavern.

I just hope he remembers all this as well as I do!!
 
Perhaps I've been owning a ghostly hairclip, then. I had it on last night, took it out of my hair, and put it on the dresser.

This morning -- no hairclip.

The thing is 4.5 inches long and 3 inches wide, at least. Where's something like that got off to unless it was not there to start with?
 
Tyger Lily said:
My Uncle tried to remember who the brewery was who owned it, to ring their head office and try and track it down. He tried a few big name breweries but drew a blank each time. They did go back to the Cotswolds again on holiday quite a few times before my Aunt died but they never found the pub again.
Click to expand...
The proper ending to this story should be "we contacted the brewery, and they said they did indeed have such a pub. However, it had been closed down and demolished fifty years ago after the landlord shot his wife and hung himself in the cellar....

Seriously though, if it was a timeslip wouldn't beer be tuppence a pint? And if so, how can I get there?
 
Ah! Now it's my husband's blue cap gone missing.

Could our possessions be becoming ghostly bit-by-bit?
 
Elisheva said:
Ah! Now it's my husband's blue cap gone missing.

Could our possessions be becoming ghostly bit-by-bit?
Click to expand...
Or maybe there's a satin bower bird living in your wardrobe. (What colour was the hairclip, again?)
 
James Whitehead said:
My favourite inanimate ghostie is the spectral bag of soot which was
said to haunt a lane in Crowborough:
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Well, you don't hear something like that every day...

A ghost doll just turned up in the letters page of the latest issue of FT (#172). It's also on the 'it happened to me' thread:

http://www.forteantimes.com/happened/raggedyann.shtml
 
(What colour was the hairclip, again?)
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Kind of you to ask.
The hairclip is fake-tortoise-shell brown; it's neither blue nor shiny.

But, what if there's a ghostly satin bower bird around? Hmm.
 
Elisheva said:
Kind of you to ask.
The hairclip is fake-tortoise-shell brown; it's neither blue nor shiny.

But, what if there's a ghostly satin bower bird around? Hmm.
Click to expand...
Hmm, indeed. 'Twould seem that ghosts are colourblind. That would explain why it took the hairclip.
 
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