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The Ghost That Wasn't There

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Anonymous

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Bill

Some years ago a friend of mine owned an old Elizabethan house that had been built in 1569. It was basically sound but in a bad state. It was empty except for a few rooms in the old servants quarters. This part had electric light, the rest of the three story building had none.

Late one day I was checking that everything was secure and walked the various corridors in the three storey tall wings of the main house, closing doors and shutting windows and gradually working my way to the exit in the low two storey servants quarters. By the time I had finished it was beginning to get dark. My eyes were dark adjusted and I knew the house well so had no trouble moving around. When I reached the servants quarters one of the rooms, the old kitchens from 1569, still had a light on. The lights were modern fluorescent and I pushed the door open, reached in and clicked the switch off. As the lights went out I was surprised, shocked, to see something floating in the upper part of the room over against one of the walls. I pressed myself against the wall and stared.

http://www.forteantimes.com/happened/noghost.shtml

Link is dead. See post below for complete text.
 
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I had to reply and say that I have also experienced a ghost that wasn't there.

Some years ago I was working in a shop and was in the store room. I was standing in such a way that there was a large pile of boxes between me and the door and these partially obscured the door frame.

I saw a person walk through the door into the storeroom and stop behind the boxes. I assumed that it was a child or teenager because they were very small in height and went to see what they wanted but there was nobody there.

Instead of being afraid I just felt that I must have been mistaken and that there must be a rational explaination. After about five minutes or so I realised what had happened. Somebody had walked passed the door down the corridor outside but the way that the boxes were stacked and the angle I was standing at made it look as if they had walked into the room behind the boxes. This was why I thought they were small, the person was further away that they appeared to be.

I can't help feeling that some other person who had the same experience would run out claiming that the storeroom was haunted, however it was an optical illusion.
 
As I was going up the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today
I wish that man would go away!:D
 
I work in a shop and a couple of weeks ago , at about 7.00 in the evening , I heared a long mournful sigh ! It was very close and quite unnerving . Then I realised it was the small hard drive connected to one of the tills , it is getting a bit old and rattly and some moving part inside was slowing down and speeding up . I have heared the sigh a couple of times since and it still gets me even though I know what it is .
Marion
 
As I was going down the stair
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today
I think he's from the CIA.

I've seen lights ghosting. I've never thought they were ghosts.

I did once see what looked incredibly like a sci fi UFO. It was very cool. As it turned it was actually clearly a passenger aircraft, just because of the angle it resembled a disc like object!

People only see what they want to see.
 
things that arn't there

I once saw a UFO. Now i'm more sceptical about there than about ghosts ect.

It took the form of three lights in the sky that seened to be moving in an established patern.

I studied it for about 10 minutes before realising that it was searchlights being bounced off the clouds.
 
I had a ghost leap out in front of my motorbike once, when I was riding home from work late at night. This human shadow shot across the road right in front of me. I did an emergency stop any test examiner would be proud of, it really shook me up, for about five minutes until I realised what it actually was.
I'd just ridden out of a wooded area, and under the first streetlamp for a couple of miles. My own shadow ran out in front of me as I passed under the light. It happened faithfully all the nights after, and still gave me a jump even though I knew what it was.
 
mistaken etheral identity

At least you admited that it was not a ghost/ UFO/ ABC.

I wonder how meny sightings are inface just misinterpated opitcal illusions ect. It does no good to anyone who is actualy interested in phenomina to have all these 'errors' being repeated.

Just remember kids: it's probably just an overactive imagination. Always chek the label before washing.
 
Walking past a church yard at dusk one evening, I looked up a saw a woman clothed all in white, like a shroud, with a white veil. There were facial details, folds in the robes, everything. Instead of walking quickly in the opposite direction, or any sensible thing like that, I walked closer to it. On closer inspection, the 'woman' proved to be branches of a tree in front of a large white headstone. Just to prove to myself what I had seen, I walked back to where I was when I saw the woman. Now, in spite of knowing exactly what caused it, I still saw 'her'. I even took someone to the exact spot and showed it to them. It was quite clever stuff!

I was talking to some spiritualists some time later, and we were discussing optical illusions etc. They wondered why I refused to accept I had seen a ghost. I explained it was because I hadn't. But they insisted that I had seen a ghost and refused to accept what I had seen. Which, considering some of the stuff I have seen, is rubbish.
 
not really a ghost story but...

a few New Year Eve's ago I was walking home from the pub and decided to take a short cut through the cemetary (as you do when a bit drunk!). It was a really cold winter with about an inch of snow on ground and, naturally, I fell over - leaving a perfect "person print" on the grass behind me. Well, a few days later a letter appears in the local paper from a man saying he was walking through the cemetary and saw this human-shaped indentation in the snow - he was convinced he had evidence of a soul rising from the grave. There were even follow-up letters from other people saying they had seen it too and a short discussion about how there were footprints leading away from the figure (nobody seemed to notice the footprints leading to it). I wrote to the editor to explain, but they never printed my letter!

J
 
LOL @ mejane's story.
That's just soo human! Why print the mundane truth when fantastic fiction is so much more fun!
 
"The truth is just an excuse for a lack of imagination"

:)

(Can't possibly credit this quote as it comes from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and no one can know I've ever watched it)

(damn)
 
this happened to me just the other day. I was up late at night watchin some tv, when i looked to my left on my family room wall and it looked like there was a floating white blob just floating in the air, but turns out it was just how the light from the tv hit the wall that made it look like it was a ghost.

also i remember one time before going to bed i looked out my bedroom window and saw a ufo, i was so sure i had seen one, i got so excited, when i looked again it was just a star. lol yes i too believe that we only see what we want too
 
body prints

I loved the graveyard reserection story.

To quote Clive Barker: 'What's a reserection without a few laughs?'
 
I did a massive shop after work last week. Driving home, around 6.30pm, it was, of course. pitch dark.

Once I left the lit roads and headed across country, the narrow roads are dark, single tracks, and unpopulated. It's rare to see another car, especially at this time of the year.

I was driving along, playing the radio, feeling smug that I had done such seasonal shopping as we would require when I glanced into the rear view mirror and nearly leapt out of my skin. Staring at me from the back seat, in the gloom, was a large white face, with two huge dark circular eyes!

I think I let out a strangled sort of 'squeal' and almost ran into the ditch, and it was only then that, in the headlights of a tractor coming the other way, did I realise that the 'face' was nothing more than a pack of kitchen rolls, unbagged and thrown carelessly on top of all the other shopping. I was looking at them 'end on' and that's why they looked like a face .....

At that point I was quite glad that I HAD been on my own, as I didn't have to explain why I made such a strange noise!![/img][/code]
 
The last couple of months before xmas I was doing a bit of temp work that was handily placed for me to cycle there along the local river bank. Since work started at 7.30 in the morning, it was always dark, turning to dusky light as I rode the 40 minute journey every day. Whilst I was pleased to find out that there were an inordiate amount of other cyclists and dog walkers around even at this ridiculous time in the morning, there were times that I was cycling alone with only the light with the dying battery gaffer taped (I broke the fixing) to the front of my bike.

To set the scene, the river bank is quite remote seeing as I live in a rather big city. It's flanked mainly by playing fields and factories, but it was a section surrounded entirly by scrub and trees that my encounter took place.

I was cycling along, daydreaming as usual, when I became aware of a figure in front of me. It was a black figure, easily seven feet tall and apparently cloaked which moved, nay glided, across the pathway in front of me and into the light covering of trees.

Of course, being of the modern age, the instinct that said "Ahhh its an otherworldly being" was overridden by my instinct that said "You can't be late for work" and i continued to ride towards this thing, my eyes fixed on it as glided through the trees towards the river......

As it glided through the trees.......and metamorphasised into a leafy branch to my right which had been out of focus as i looked in the distance in front of me and seemed to move because I was moving. The whole encounter lasted no more that five seconds and it did put the willies up me a bit but, to be honest, the fact that it was just a trick of the light was just, well, disappointing.
 
Sometime last year I'd gone to see a friend at university, but due to having work early in the morning I wasn't able to stop over. By the time I was driving home it was very late at night and I was tired (it wasn't helped by the fact that earlier on I'd took a wrong turning in the dark and got lost for 20 minutes). After eventually finding my way, I drove down a familiar road. It was on the outskirts of a small village, with large trees on the right side and hedgerows/fields on the left, and was a downhill slope. As I rounded the top and drove down I saw a huge figure- about 8 foot tall- standing by the side of the road. He has hunched over and carrying a lighted lantern on his back. I jumped out of my skin because he'd suddenly appeared and there was no way I could avoid going past him.

When I drew closer I saw that the 'giant' was actually a bit of stone and some trees, while the lantern was infact a roadsign that had been reflecting my headlights. I laughed when I realised, but for those few seconds beforehand it was terrifying.

The mind does play some tricks when it's tired :lol:
 
I was walking home from the farm where I used to keep my horse one rainy grey evening, I had my hood up and my head down trying to avoid the rain, when I heard a noise, I stopped and looked up and saw a disembodied head coming towards me. Well I just shat my pants (like you do) and stood there mumbling incoherently ... till something went "ding" and I realised the disembodied head was a guy, wearing a grey jacket, riding a bike. He didn't half give me a funny look as he passed ... :oops:

Another time when I was at the farm, it was pitch dark, I was standing under the light in the yard waiting for my dad to come pick me up. For several weeks there'd be hysterics over a "ghost" who could be heard stomping around the place ... I'm standing in this circle of light humming away to myself when I heard clomp clomp clomp clomp. I couldn't see a fecking thing in the dark and I nearly choked on my own vomit "oh my gawd there really is a ghost". Then I heard the farmer say "Oh hello, are you still here? I'm off to feed the calves ..." I was unable to form a coherent response. But I did have the satisfaction of telling the hysterical teenies about my encounter :lol:
 
Hecate, I had just gotten to the part about the white face with the dark eyes when my cell phone rang and I almost jumped out of my skin! :eek!!!!:

Anyway, while I do believe in ghosts, flying saucers and the Loch Ness Monster, the closest I've come to any of these was about 25 years ago on Hallowe'en. My mom, sister and I were out trick or treating and I saw a UFO. I was so excited, I shouted out and then realised it was one of those airplanes that run messages in lights along their sides. Boy, was I disappointed! :cry:
 
I remember one time a few years back I was walking home in the dark across a corn field when an alien craft appeared in the sky and came towards me at an amazing speed.

As I stood there, watched it, stomach churning, mouth agap, possibly drooling at the prospect of meeting an alien race it occured to me that it infact wasn't an alien spacecraft...

... it was a cloud with a circlular hole covering up the moon, the hole was growing larger, letting more moonlight through, and giving the impression that it was moving closer towards me.

Boy did I feel stupid!
 
Eyes Playing Tricks

Once upon a time in my teenage years, I was skulking around the haunted golf course near my parents' house with a friend after dark. I'll have to post the whole Golf Course Ghost story sometime as it's pretty interesting. Anyways, we came to the top of a small hill in the road and I looked out towards the ninth hole, which the ghost is said to frequent, and I swear I saw a woman walking! She was wearing a hoop skirt-style dress with a long train that flowed behind her as she walked, which happens to fit in very well with the ghost's description. I was shocked. Was I actually seeing the ghost? I alerted my friend - and only then did I notice that the "woman in a flowing dress" was just a triangular flag marking a nearby hole. The perspective had tricked me, and powers of suggestion had done the rest.
 
I belong to a Civil War reenactment group (15th Kentucky Volunteer Infantry U.S.A.). One spring a few years back we were having our annual training weekend, which we have the privilige of holding on a part of the Perryville battlefield.

One evening, after a long drill-session, we were staggling up a lane towards our camp, looking forward to a relaxing sit about the fire and a few beers before rolling up in our blankets. Suddenly a car rounded the curve about a hundred yards ahead. When its lights hit us there was a squealing of brakes, a short silence, then more squealing as the car ripped back around the curve in reverse.

We were confused for a moment then we realized what we looked like, a dozen or so tired, dusty, Union soldier ghosts.

Dib
 
Dib - that is so funny! I can just imagine the driver telling his/her friends the spine chilling details of their ghostly encounter.
 
Today as I walked out from the train station I had my walkman on, but through the music I heard a spooky cry/moan. First I thought it was a glitch in the music. Then I took off my earphones and didn't hear anything strange for a while. Finally the sound came back again. It was the rubber band/handrail of the escalator beside me that made this noise - but it only happened for a short moment during it's (long) circuit up and down the escalator. (Station Rotterdam Alexander)
 
Anonymous said:
Bill

Some years ago a friend of mine owned an old Elizabethan house that had been built in 1569. It was basically sound but in a bad state. It was empty except for a few rooms in the old servants quarters. This part had electric light, the rest of the three story building had none.

Late one day I was checking that everything was secure and walked the various corridors in the three storey tall wings of the main house, closing doors and shutting windows and gradually working my way to the exit in the low two storey servants quarters. By the time I had finished it was beginning to get dark. My eyes were dark adjusted and I knew the house well so had no trouble moving around. When I reached the servants quarters one of the rooms, the old kitchens from 1569, still had a light on. The lights were modern fluorescent and I pushed the door open, reached in and clicked the switch off. As the lights went out I was surprised, shocked, to see something floating in the upper part of the room over against one of the walls. I pressed myself against the wall and stared.

http://www.forteantimes.com/happened/noghost.shtml
Click to expand...

I'm guessing this story had a proper ending in the link, now lost to time?
 
ShadyCavalier said:
I'm guessing this story had a proper ending in the link, now lost to time?
Click to expand...

Here's the text from a December 2002 snapshot of that URL's webpage (retrieved via the Wayback Machine / archive.org) ...

The Ghost That Wasn't There

Bill

Some years ago a friend of mine owned an old Elizabethan house that had been built in 1569. It was basically sound but in a bad state. It was empty except for a few rooms in the old servants quarters. This part had electric light, the rest of the three story building had none.

Late one day I was checking that everything was secure and walked the various corridors in the three storey tall wings of the main house, closing doors and shutting windows and gradually working my way to the exit in the low two storey servants quarters. By the time I had finished it was beginning to get dark. My eyes were dark adjusted and I knew the house well so had no trouble moving around. When I reached the servants quarters one of the rooms, the old kitchens from 1569, still had a light on. The lights were modern fluorescent and I pushed the door open, reached in and clicked the switch off. As the lights went out I was surprised, shocked, to see something floating in the upper part of the room over against one of the walls. I pressed myself against the wall and stared.

Up high, in the corner between the wall and the ceiling was a ghost. A traditional "spook", dressed in white flowing robes with a pointed hood, the whole apparition moving slightly as it hung there, but perfectly visible in every detail. Oddly it was horizontal, rather than upright. With my heart beating somewhat more loudly than usual I reached my hand up and switched the light on. The ghost, flooded with light, was no more to be seen. I then did something which I felt afterwards was quite brave. I turned the light off again. The ghost was still there, up high at the top of the wall. But now it was not a "spook", it was a flickering, pulsating light, waves of dim brightness surging back and forth along a few feet of the wall.

What was it? It took me some minutes to see what it was... It was the residual glow in a fluorescent light tube. When a fluorescent light is turned out after having been on for some hours it doesn't go completely dark. There are instead faint waves of light that ripple from end to end of the tube. My eye - brain system had interpreted these as a ghost, and had indeed "built" a very substantial phantasm from a simple input.

The lesson for me was that if I had turned and run in fright then I would, even until today, still "believe" in ghosts and could describe in great detail one that I had actually seen.

SOURCE: https://web.archive.org/web/20011208103818/http://www.forteantimes.com:80/happened/noghost.shtml
 
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Here's the complete text:

The Ghost That Wasn't There

Bill

Some years ago a friend of mine owned an old Elizabethan house that had been built in 1569. It was basically sound but in a bad state. It was empty except for a few rooms in the old servants quarters. This part had electric light, the rest of the three story building had none.

Late one day I was checking that everything was secure and walked the various corridors in the three storey tall wings of the main house, closing doors and shutting windows and gradually working my way to the exit in the low two storey servants quarters. By the time I had finished it was beginning to get dark. My eyes were dark adjusted and I knew the house well so had no trouble moving around. When I reached the servants quarters one of the rooms, the old kitchens from 1569, still had a light on. The lights were modern fluorescent and I pushed the door open, reached in and clicked the switch off. As the lights went out I was surprised, shocked, to see something floating in the upper part of the room over against one of the walls. I pressed myself against the wall and stared.

Up high, in the corner between the wall and the ceiling was a ghost. A traditional "spook", dressed in white flowing robes with a pointed hood, the whole apparition moving slightly as it hung there, but perfectly visible in every detail. Oddly it was horizontal, rather than upright. With my heart beating somewhat more loudly than usual I reached my hand up and switched the light on. The ghost, flooded with light, was no more to be seen. I then did something which I felt afterwards was quite brave. I turned the light off again. The ghost was still there, up high at the top of the wall. But now it was not a "spook", it was a flickering, pulsating light, waves of dim brightness surging back and forth along a few feet of the wall.

What was it? It took me some minutes to see what it was... It was the residual glow in a fluorescent light tube. When a fluorescent light is turned out after having been on for some hours it doesn't go completely dark. There are instead faint waves of light that ripple from end to end of the tube. My eye - brain system had interpreted these as a ghost, and had indeed "built" a very substantial phantasm from a simple input.

The lesson for me was that if I had turned and run in fright then I would, even until today, still "believe" in ghosts and could describe in great detail one that I had actually seen.
Click to expand...
 
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