Modern-Day Ghosts

Robbrent

Robbrent

Justified & Ancient
Joined
Apr 27, 2008
Messages
1,337
Location
United Kingdom
We hear a lot about ghosts who appear to be from bygone days Victorian, Tudor etc, but we don't hear of many ghosts from recent times this puzzles me, populations have risen massively over the past 50 years, so where are the ghosts wearing 1970's flares and 3 star jumpers or 1980's shell suits or Punk Rockers you would think there would be quite a few sightings or hauntings with them involved but all we seem to get are very old ghosts from a time where we have no living memory.

It's one to ponder
 
Actually there are quite a few when you read through local ghost books. To add my own account, posted somewhere else on the forum - I went into a bookshop (now long defunct) in Woking on a hot summer's day and wanted to go down a narrow dead-end aisle on the first floor (that's UK first floor, i.e. upstairs) to look for any fortean books in the New Age/Religion/Spirituality section but there was an ordinary-looking lady stood half-way down the aisle, blocking it, while she leafed through a book. I entered the aisle and started looking at the books near the entrance to the aisle, waiting for the lady to finish and ask to pass me; I could still see her out of the corner of my eye flicking through a book. In the end I got inpatient and decided to ask her if I could please get past. I turned to face her... and there was no-one there! I was shocked, and searched the whole first floor, but there was no-way she could have got past me without asking permission, and I could still see her until the moment I turned to talk to her.

It only occurred to me later that she had been wearing a thick winter coat on a hot summer's day - but it was definitely modern clothing.
 
MorningAngel said:
I think the problem is old fashioned ghosts are more noticeable. A ghost in contemporary clothing who was real looking wouldn’t be noticeable unless they were in an unusual place or as above they disappear.
Click to expand...
Good point but with fashions changing so much even within a few years, you would notice someone dressed in say 70's style flares it just puzzles me,
 
Robbrent said:
Good point but with fashions changing so much even within a few years, you would notice someone dressed in say 70's style flares it just puzzles me,
Click to expand...
Flares are coming back and all the shops are horrifically filled with 90s style clothes. There was an old guy once with a teddy boy hair do and clothes that went. I did wonder if he was a ghost but I think he was just a guy that hasn’t changed his style for decades. I think some things would be more noticeable than others like someone with a beehive and 60s make up. But most people don’t wear high fashion. I wouldn’t think anyone dressed normally for the last thirty years would make them stand out.
 
Robbrent said:
Good point but with fashions changing so much even within a few years, you would notice someone dressed in say 70's style flares it just puzzles me,
Click to expand...
Have you seen fashion? If I saw someone wearing a 70's outfit, I'd be far more likely to think 'there's someone who shops in vintage shops, or has just discovered their mum's wardrobe' rather than 'there's a ghost'.

I would guess that any 'modern' ghosts are slipping under the radar by being mistaken for the living.
 
You may be living in a house that was built pre WWII, chances are there have been quite a few people who have lived and died in that house, or have some form of emotional attachment, does anyone report seeing ghosts in their houses that are relatively modern I get that they could pass off as living people however if they appeared in your house (as most sightings do) you think about the amount of people that have died since say 1970? Surely we should be seeing lots of reports of fairly modern ghosts rather than Victorians etc
 
Robbrent said:
You may be living in a house that was built pre WWII, chances are there have been quite a few people who have lived and died in that house, or have some form of emotional attachment, does anyone report seeing ghosts in their houses that are relatively modern I get that they could pass off as living people however if they appeared in your house (as most sightings do) you think about the amount of people that have died since say 1970? Surely we should be seeing lots of reports of fairly modern ghosts rather than Victorians etc
Click to expand...
Probably not that many. Depending on the age of the people that have lived there. Also a lot of people die in hospital.

I’m sure I know of a least one account of someone seeing someone they didn’t know in their house and them seeing them too. But then is that ghost of time slip territory?
 
Here are some I've posted.
Where a story uses the term 'I', that's me, Scargy.

Jan 2023 -
Our nearest hospital is a big purpose-built 1970s building; well, it's getting like a little town now, what with all the improvements and additions.

Here is some weirdness I've heard from a reliable source.

1. In a certain hospital lift, an elderly woman sometimes appears after the door has closed. Source has seen her, possibly more than once.
Source took a friend to try out the lift in the hope that the ghost would appear to both of them, but the friend ruined it by screaming her head off in fear. Lightweight.

2. A man will walk in front of people along the Top Corridor, then disappear. Source has seen this too.

3. The operating theatres were closed down when new ones were built. Staff were happy because Theatre No. 3 was heavily haunted. Taps would turn on, light flick off and on etc and small equipment would be moved around, all when staff were present.
Plumbing and electrics would be inspected with no faults found.

After every day's work large equipment would be wheeled away from the walls by staff so the cleaners could access that part of the floors.
When the cleaners came on duty everything would be back where it was in the daytime.

Caused some friction between the cleaners and theatre staff as the cleaners would grumble about having to move it all themselves!
Source witnessed all this many times.

At some point there was a plan to hold a ghost vigil overnight but everyone chickened out. Probably too tired, being overworked NHS staff.

So as I was going to that very hospital the next morning after hearing all this I decided to ride the Haunted Lift. It's one I used when I worked there although the ghost business was new to me.

I called the lift, braced myself, stepped in and looked forward to a scare.
Sadly, it was Mrs Apparition's day off.
I'll certainly try again though.

.......

I used to have a job where I'd have to patrol at night. Part of the building was single-storey with a flat roof. When I walked along the corridor there in the early hours I'd often hear someone walking on the roof above me.

The floor was carpeted so it wasn't my feet and part of the job was accounting for everyone on site and I'd know nobody was up there.
I could easily check for intruders but there never were any. I just got used to it like everyone else.

.....

...Reminds me of the care home where I worked, where after a resident died her room was found set up how she liked it at night (all the lights on, doors open etc) when it had been only just been checked by a night carer.
The carer had reached the far end of the corridor, turned round and seen the lights etc and had hysterics. She had to be more or less physically restrained from scarpering and leaving the place in breach of staffing regulations.

....

I was walking off a ward. The way out was along a wide corridor which had lines of chairs stacked up along one side. Some of the stacks were very high.

As I walked I suddenly noticed a woman walking in front of me and thought ‘Where did SHE come from?’
She’d seemed to appear from nowhere and certainly hadn’t left the ward shortly before I had or I’d have seen her.

She wore a calf-length pale coat with the hood up and her hands in her pockets, no handbag.

(I was heading towards the cloakroom to collect my own coat and handbag. If she worked there she’d have stored her coat in there too.

Also, it was high summer and not only did she have her coat on indoors, having the hood up looked strange.)

I could see her lower legs so she had a dress or skirt under it.

Then - one of the high stacks of chairs started to vibrate as if someone was holding and shaking it, though there was nobody near it.

As the woman went past it, the top chair lifted clean off the stack, rolled forward in the air and fell on her!

As I opened my mouth to warn her, the chair passed through her and landed with a big clatter on the floor. She was gone, just disappeared.

I didn’t even have time to stop and gawp, and a few seconds later I reached the chair.

As it was in the way I picked it up and placed it on a stack. Not the one it came off though as that was too high for me to reach.

......

My mother's retirement complex has only been standing for a few years and already has anomalies.

For example, staff see people walking about on the CCTV screens in the early hours and send people out to investigate in case it's someone with dementia having a wander.

They can then see the staff member standing next to the wanderer, and will ring them and say 'Look to your left! She's walking off down the corridor!' But the person they've sent can't see anyone.

Some night staff won't patrol alone any more, and a couple of the visiting night carers have refused to set foot in the place.
This last is a big deal as visiting carers are poorly-paid and need all the work they can get. They're not in the habit of turning down jobs.

There's one particular 'haunted' spot which I visit every time I'm over there. Haven't seen anything yet but I'm hopeful.

...

When I was learning to drive buses I saw a ghost at a bus depot.
I'd got off the bus to go for lunch and was heading for the world's greasiest works cafe which was straight across the concourse.

Outside the cafe I could see a man in overalls sitting, grinning broadly at me. He was tall with a balding head and gaps in his teeth. I smiled back at him then looked left and right before walking across in case any vehicles came in- it's busy and quite a dangerous spot if you don't watch out.

When I glanced back- he was gone. I'd only looked away for a couple of seconds. I rushed over and checked the chair. It was heavily encrusted with pigeon crap! Obviously nobody had sat on it for months.

Whoever he was, he could see me, and thought I was hilarious.
 
Last edited:
SimonBurchell said:
Also, although I did not actually see the ghost, when I lived in a haunted house in 1981-82, the ghost would have dated to sometime in the 70s. When I get some free time I'll head off to the Surrey History Centre and see if I can get a specific date for the tragedy that initiated it.
Click to expand...
That’s was horrible. Some inconsistencies between the stories though.
 
MorningAngel said:
That’s was horrible. Some inconsistencies between the stories though.
Click to expand...
Yes, that was from memories of attending police officers collected for a policing history book, taken decades after the event. I am pretty sure they are describing what happened in the house that I later lived in.
 
SimonBurchell said:
Yes, that was from memories of attending police officers collected for a policing history book, taken decades after the event. I am pretty sure they are describing what happened in the house that I later lived in.
Click to expand...
Proves how fallible the memory can be. You think something like that would be stuck like glue.

When did you find out about it?
 
MorningAngel said:
Proves how fallible the memory can be. You think something like that would be stuck like glue.

When did you find out about it?
Click to expand...
On the day we moved out, my parents told me that someone had killed their kids in the house and that was part of the reason we were moving. Later I heard someone else off the estate mention that the house I was moving out of was where this mum killed her kids.
 
SimonBurchell said:
On the day we moved out, my parents told me that someone had killed their kids in the house and that was part of the reason we were moving. Later I heard someone else off the estate mention that the house I was moving out of was where this mum killed her kids.
Click to expand...
Wow. So did they know all along? Did a lot of paranormal things happen?
 
Robbrent said:
We hear a lot about ghosts who appear to be from bygone days Victorian, Tudor etc, but we don't hear of many ghosts from recent times this puzzles me, populations have risen massively over the past 50 years, so where are the ghosts wearing 1970's flares and 3 star jumpers or 1980's shell suits or Punk Rockers you would think there would be quite a few sightings or hauntings with them involved but all we seem to get are very old ghosts from a time where we have no living memory.

It's one to ponder
Click to expand...
Yes, the 'famous' hauntings repeated ad infinitum in the media are of ghosts from bygone times, however the research undertaken by the likes of Rob Gandy (road ghosts), Sean Tudor (Bluebell Hill and road ghosts), Andy Gilbert (Police sightings) and @RuthRoperWylde (UK ghosts in general) have all unearthed sightings of ghosts in contemporary clothing. Also the tsunami ghosts of Japan: https://allthatsinteresting.com/tsunami-spirits is another great example.

So what is at play here is a media bias towards the same old hauntings and dodgy supposed ghost photos that get rehashed time and time again. Here is a random example:


Plenty of ad revenue but little in the way of new ghosts...
 
Robbrent said:
You may be living in a house that was built pre WWII, chances are there have been quite a few people who have lived and died in that house, or have some form of emotional attachment, does anyone report seeing ghosts in their houses that are relatively modern I get that they could pass off as living people however if they appeared in your house (as most sightings do) you think about the amount of people that have died since say 1970? Surely we should be seeing lots of reports of fairly modern ghosts rather than Victorians etc
Click to expand...
Think I have mentioned before ,my sister still fairly frequently dreams of our childhood home, mixed in more modern dreams.I have wondered if the people who live there now ever see her wandering around in her dreams ?
 
Robbrent said:
We hear a lot about ghosts who appear to be from bygone days Victorian, Tudor etc, but we don't hear of many ghosts from recent times this puzzles me, populations have risen massively over the past 50 years, so where are the ghosts wearing 1970's flares and 3 star jumpers or 1980's shell suits or Punk Rockers you would think there would be quite a few sightings or hauntings with them involved but all we seem to get are very old ghosts from a time where we have no living memory.

It's one to ponder
Click to expand...
Here's a purported ghost in 1970 flares ..

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ng-goods-REI-Bay-Areas-HAUNTED-Toys-R-US.html
 
I appreciate the tidbits revealed by fact checking at the end. I'm not at all convinced by the infrared photo from the seance, but if there was any truth to the assertion that stuff flew off the shelves unbidden, it must have been a rotten experience for the store manager. Imagine trying to explain that to upper management. ("Well, sir, our high rate of breakage is due to ghostly activity on the premises . . . ")
 
Back in the 90s my friend old me about a ghost she had seen. She was in the venture scouts (so was I later but it mainly involved going to the pub). There were a few of them waiting around a bonfire. Some messing around with it. I guy approach my friend and said they shouldn’t mess with it and then he wandered off. But where he went was straight through a brick wall! None of the other had seen him and when she mentioned it to the older members of the group they told her about one of their friend who had died messing about with a bonfire. And one of the guys still had the burns on the inside of his jacket from trying to put him out.

I never had any reason to disbelieve her. I’ve had a Google but can’t find anything. But this was the time before the internet. Old stories aren’t on there unless they have been uploaded.
 
I was thinking today what if some of the people going around in masks today aren’t just people still being cautious but are ghosts/time slips from the last four years. Modern ghosts or time slips you wouldn’t know unless it was someone you knew wasn’t about any more.
 
Ooh! I have a wee one :)

Last December I was in a local independent supermarket - actually quite large, but built around 2005, although on land already owned by the family firm that opened it and replacing some of the old smaller supermarket shop & bakery that preceded it. IIRC the main building is on what was the storage yard/vehicle parking area. Although it's not cheap, it's a big draw to the (often elderly) locals as the parking is good, it's a sensible size, there's a nice cafe and clean loos. It's still family owned and they sell all kinds of nice things alongside the bog roll and crisps.

I like to go there for Christmas gifts as they stock a lot of different, posh and unusual chocolatey things for presents. I was standing in front of the shelf, 'scanning' as I call it - taking in all the different delights with my eyes - when 3 or 4 boxes of something fell off the shelf in a row to my left.

There was a staff member a bit further along to my left and I said something like "I'm sorry but it wasn't me, honest, guv!". She replied, as we both bent to pick up and replace the boxes, "I believe you! Stuff happens in this shop all the time, even when we're closed, I think we have a poltergeist" !!
 
I believe you AnonyJ,

In my area a nice place to walk is one of the American Civil War Battlefields where 25,000 men died on December 31,1862.

We were in the welcome center and gift shop when a book came flying off the shelf.

The Federal Park Ranger near us just laughed and said it happens from time to time.

This battlefield is at times spooky.
 
I just came across this in Phantom Ladies: The New Edition by Andrew Green and Alan Murdie, page 77, from Ludlow in Shropshire.

"Dennis Ainsley from Andover was recently making his way to the 17th century Feather Hotel in The Bull Ring when he saw the figure of an 18-year-old girl with long black hair wearing a mini-skirt and, of all things, a transparent ɓlouse, walk "straight through my parked car. I couldn't believe my eyes," he said. On reaching the hotel he told the licensee, Mr. James Falconer, of the amazing incident expecting a guffaw of laughter in response. He was very surprised at the reply. "Oh yes. That must be the same girl who walked through a sports car near here in 1962."
 
AnonyJ said:
Ooh! I have a wee one :)

Last December I was in a local independent supermarket - actually quite large, but built around 2005, although on land already owned by the family firm that opened it and replacing some of the old smaller supermarket shop & bakery that preceded it. IIRC the main building is on what was the storage yard/vehicle parking area. Although it's not cheap, it's a big draw to the (often elderly) locals as the parking is good, it's a sensible size, there's a nice cafe and clean loos. It's still family owned and they sell all kinds of nice things alongside the bog roll and crisps.

I like to go there for Christmas gifts as they stock a lot of different, posh and unusual chocolatey things for presents. I was standing in front of the shelf, 'scanning' as I call it - taking in all the different delights with my eyes - when 3 or 4 boxes of something fell off the shelf in a row to my left.

There was a staff member a bit further along to my left and I said something like "I'm sorry but it wasn't me, honest, guv!". She replied, as we both bent to pick up and replace the boxes, "I believe you! Stuff happens in this shop all the time, even when we're closed, I think we have a poltergeist" !!
Click to expand...
I am quite often standing at the till when a bag of sugar falls off the shelf or several boxes of something all go one after the other. I hate to dispel the ghost theory but all that has happened is that someone has overfilled the shelf and left stuff only just resting on the edge. Eventually gravity will overcome and the teetering thing (or things, if it's several boxes as they are usually touching and one going will set the rest off) hit the floor, usually when nobody is near. We call it 'bring your poltergeist to work day'. But really it's a combination of overstocking and gravity. Unless you know that the boxes were right at the back of the shelf before they fell...
 
I found a brief report online that in 1967, a ghostly man in painter's overalls was seen in "the corridors" of Exeter University. He must be relatively modern. I'm sure I've heard "the corridors" specified to be in Nothcote House, which is where HR and the great and the good get to hang out.
 
I had an interesting experience yesterday. (I live between B'mth and Poole.)
I went to Bournemouth and walked briefly on the beach.
It was cold, so I walked back into the square and decided to get on the bus to Christchurch - not that there was any particular reason, but it is quite a long way from where I live.
When I got there, I walked to the river (all very nice and predictable) then decided to go into the huge church which gives Christchurch its name.

As I was walking back along the wall, I felt the presence of a long line of nuns.
It was a strange feeling -I was walking in the opposite direction, but I could almost feel their resistance.

Now ,when first moved to where I live, and visited Christchurch, I felt the same strange feeling.
Later, I couldn't recapture it.
But yesterday I did. (Shivers went down my spine).
I could half see their hands tucked out of sight in their habits. ~Very pleasing!
 
Recycled1 said:
I had an interesting experience yesterday. (I live between B'mth and Poole.)
I went to Bournemouth and walked briefly on the beach.
It was cold, so I walked back into the square and decided to get on the bus to Christchurch - not that there was any particular reason, but it is quite a long way from where I live.
When I got there, I walked to the river (all very nice and predictable) then decided to go into the huge church which gives Christchurch its name.

As I was walking back along the wall, I felt the presence of a long line of nuns.
It was a strange feeling -I was walking in the opposite direction, but I could almost feel their resistance.

Now ,when first moved to where I live, and visited Christchurch, I felt the same strange feeling.
Later, I couldn't recapture it.
But yesterday I did. (Shivers went down my spine).
I could half see their hands tucked out of sight in their habits. ~Very pleasing!
Click to expand...
I've had a similar experience walking a footpath which runs from Sinnington over Wrelton Cliff towards Pickering. Part of Sinnington is called Friar's Hill and there's a possible early medieval chapel that is now a farm barn. I was walking up out of the village and I could almost 'feel' monks walking the path with me. It was an interesting sensation, probably mostly in my mind but very vivid!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top