‘Ghost or timeslip? Ten momentary glimpses of the past from Mumsnet
**Here are ten brief encounters that don't quite fit the mould on a current Mumsnet post discussing ghost sightings:**
**LifesTooShortToLearnPolish** *05/03/2024 20:22*
...I did have a visual experience of my own in my bedroom of my student flat, about 35 years ago. It was a weird old place. In a dim corner I saw a man with a blazer and hat standing in the corner. He looked annoyed. I ran out to get my flatmate but no one was there when we went back in. Felt a bit stupid.
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**Londongirl78** *05/03/2024 20:34*
We have a large Jacobean mansion near us - it's used as a library, social events, weddings etc. It's also set within a park. During lockdown it was closed to the public and all staff were furloughed - completely closed up. Myself and one of my DDs was walking our dogs within the grounds. We heard lovely music coming from the house - we looked through [a] window and there was a female figure playing the piano. She looked up at us and smiled. She was wearing old fashion[ed] clothes, and was definitely a spirit as she was quite clearly semi-transparent. We ran! Spoke to a landscaper the next day and he confirmed the house was shut. When I told him he wasn't shocked and said she is one of many spirit residents.
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**NotNowNorman** *05/03/2024 21:13*
I grew up by the seaside in a big old house which had originally been an Edwardian boarding house. When my parents bought it in the 60s as a young couple, it came with a (living!) lodger in the top floor flat; she was a lovely retired lady who used to babysit me and my sisters. She moved out as we grew up, and as a teenager I had her old flat to myself: bedroom, bathroom, kitchenette and a spare room with a big bed opposite the old fireplace.
Years later, Mum and I were discussing moving the furniture around in that spare room, and I suggested moving the bed to face the window, instead of where it was. I reminded her that the bed had once faced the sea because I distinctly remembered, as a child, popping in to say hello to our lodger's guests who'd been staying there. I had a vivid memory of a nice older couple sitting up in bed, having a cigarette and a cup of tea (this would have been the late 70s, so not entirely unusual). The lady's hair was piled on her head, in a high bun. Mum went white and said that not only had our lodger *never* had anyone to stay, but in the entire time she'd lived in the house, the bed had *never* been in any other position.
It's literally only dawned on me now that it was a bit odd that our lodger chose to sleep in the small bedroom when she could have had this big room instead. Hmm.
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**CatamaranViper** *05/03/2024 21:26*
I worked in a bar that used to be part of an old bank from the early 1800s. There was a section that had a wall that used to be a walkway between sections of the bank so was now the wall that separated two different bars.
I was bringing a group into the section and someone asked why "that couple" was in Victorian fancy dress. I had no idea what she was talking about, then she asked where the door led to and again I was confused. I showed her it was a solid wall and she went white as a sheet. She saw a couple walk through what she assumed was a door, in fancy dress. There was no couple. There was no door.
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**Aposterhasnoname** *05/03/2024 22:19*
DH and I were wandering around the churchyard of an old church in the centre of Leeds. We'd stopped to look at something and a young lad walked past us towards some steps that lead to the gate out. He looked perfectly normal - jeans, a backpack, headphones. We followed him to the steps but when we reached the top he was nowhere to be seen and the gate was closed. We thought it was odd as he'd not really had time to go out and close the gate after him, and there was nowhere else he could have gone. But when we got to the gate it had a huge rusty old chain and padlock on it, clearly hadn't been opened in years.
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**shockthemonkey** *06/03/2024 12:41*
From my second floor bedroom in boarding school saw a young girl running down the road past my window. She was too young to be a schoolgirl (secondary school), and more to the point she was not wearing uniform. In fact what she was wearing was totally wrong for the season: light summer dress in mid-winter.
Then I realised she seemed a little bit see-through, then I saw her put her foot right through the speed bump. She was carrying her sandals in her hand, too.
Then she kind of dissolved just as she was about to go out of view. The road snakes back into view a few yards further down, but she didn't reappear and there was nowhere else she could have gone unless she had inexplicably decided to hang out behind a wall.
I spent ages trying to explain it all away, as I liked to think of myself as a no-nonsense evidence-based scientific type.
I did also check with others and didn't find anyone else who'd seen similar.
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**Laiste** *06/03/2024 16:33*
...Late 1980s. I saw a woman on her hands and knees scrubbing the steps of a building in London at 2am. As I drove by I saw one of those cloth turbans round her head with the tie at the front. I saw her side on, I saw the silver bucket on the steps next to her and I saw her pinny tied at the back. I could see her rocking back and forward scrubbing.
I was so confused I turned the car around as soon as i could (1/2 minutes max) and drove back past and there was no one there. Steps were dry.
...A couple in navy blue waterproofs walking straight towards us across a huge flat field, 10 meters away apx. I felt they had seen us and I was going to greet them when they got nearer, like you do.
They disappeared into nowhere. DH had seen them clearly too.
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**ScaredSceptic** *07/03/2024 00:17*
...I'd been at a friend's house for the evening. I left at around 1am to drive the five minutes home. She lived on a modern housing estate off the main road of a village. I left her estate and turned on to the main road, which was well lit (it was about 20 years ago, before they started switching the street lights off at night).
As I drove along the main road I saw, sitting on the kerb facing the road, a young boy with a border collie dog. I'd guess the boy was around 8 years old. He had short dark scruffy hair and was dressed in grey formal shorts, a striped woollen tank top with a short sleeved shirt underneath (I realised afterwards that they were old-fashioned clothes, what I would describe as 1940s era clothes) and he appeared quite unkempt.
I was so shocked to see a child sitting by the road at that time and I slowed down and looked right at him as I drove past, and he looked back straight into my eyes, his head moving from right to left as he kept watching my car pass. He looked unhappy.
I immediately turned the car around and drove back (a matter of seconds), and there was nothing there.
I know it was late, and maybe it was a trick of the (street)light or something but I was certain I saw that boy and dog.
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**Northernsouloldies** *Yesterday 02:42*
20-odd years ago, York Castle Museum. ...It was a regular visit. I looked through the spy-hole of the padded cell: a figure appeared with straggly hair, cloth shirt with lace ties. I jumped backed, told my sister to look - she said, "Nothing there."
...This visit was long before projected images like there is now.
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**zingally** *Today 11:19*
...My dad, who never believed in ghosts, was walking past a churchyard one day, when he saw this man come out of the churchyard gate and start walking ahead of him. He was dressed kind-of old fashioned, and carrying a scythe over his shoulder.
A noise behind Dad made him turn, for less than a second, and when he looked back, the man with the scythe was gone. There was literally nowhere he could have gone in less than a second.
**...And some observations upon the common points in many of these encounters:**
**cunningartificer** *06/03/2024 06:30*
When people say that modern ghosts aren't seen, as they sometimes do, I think it's interesting to read some of the encounters here with modern-seeming people where no one would think anything of it if they hasn't disappeared while being watched/ walked through walls etc.
I wonder how many ghosts we might pass every day on the tube or in a crowded street without realising?
I suppose in the past people would immediately recognise someone out of place and now perhaps less so, hence more ghost stories from earlier days...
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**HashBrownandBeans** *06/03/2024 18:11*
I have a theory that you can tell a real ghost sighting by the person recounting the story mentioning the clothes in great detail. I think the energy finds it easier to manifest the clothes and we as humans "see" them more easily. Just a scroll through this thread and so many people can recall the exact clothing. I find it quite fascinating.
**Source:**
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5022305-have-you-or-anyone-you-know-ever-actually-seen-a-ghost
*(minor edits for clarity)*’
https://www.reddit.com/r/timeslip/s/MSi3GkKwZ5