Paranormal Phenomena

[Tsuyoiko]

We've had threads about paranormal phenomena before, but I started this one to answer some points made by Tokis on the Religion thread, which I didn't want to derail.

What about paranormal phenomenon that multiple people experience in good conditions (plenty of light, both people not tired, no shadow tricks etc)?

Mass hallucination?

I have experienced paranormal phenomenon that i just cannot explain in a rational/logical/scientific manner and i have known many other people whom i trust who have also experienced strange phenomenon.

The lack of an obvious scientific explanation doesn't necessarily require a paranormal explanation. So many phenomena that used to seem like magic are now perfectly understood by science. Also, there might be a rational explanation that you just haven't considered. Maybe if you gave us some examples we could suggest a possible rational explanation. This link and this one have some tips on how to eliminate rational explanations.

I've also experienced ostensibly paranormal phenomena on several occasions, most of which I was able to explain after some thought. I've seen UFOs and "ghosts" and experienced telepathy and clairvoyance. I can't explain all of these experiences with certainty, but I don't think any of them are paranormal. A couple of examples might help.

I was supposed to be on the ferry that capsized in the Zeebrugge disaster, but a few days before I became anxious and refused to go. When the disaster happened, both my parents and I believed that I had had a premonition. Nowadays, I think that a better explanation is that I was anxious about going abroad for the first time and that it was just a coincidence that that particular ferry capsized.

As a teenager I was into astrology and Tarot. About 15 years ago I volunteered as a fortune teller at the village carnival. At the time I believed these phenomena were real. The response to my readings was so positive that at the time I believed the Tarot worked, although I was aware even then that I didn't understand how I was reading those things in the cards. I still remember two specific examples. I read cards for a little girl accompanied by her mum and commented that although she was healthy she had to be careful what she ate. The mother was taken aback as the child had been diagnosed as a coeliac a few days before. Secondly, I spoke to a young woman with two children and told her that she was married to her childhood sweetheart. Again, she was amazed and told me that she had married her first love; they had been together since she was 14.

At face value, such specific readings might seem hard to explain. However, I think that what I was really doing was cold-reading. The little girl was probably very thin. The age of the young mother's kids probably tipped me off that she had them young, and her wedding ring gave away the fact she was married.

While my latter explanation is based on assumption, it's better than the paranormal explanation because it involves only well-understood phenomena. In other words, if there's an explanation available that is already understood to science, then the need for a paranormal explanation is eliminated.

 

[Haruspex]

If something is capable of occurring, then how could it not be normal? Paranormal and supernatural are used interchangeably and I don't want to make the mistake of equating the with the other, but a paranormal phenomenon, as Tsuyoiko pointed out above, either yields to analysis through science or it is, purportedly, supernatural. Now, my problem with the latter is that if a phenomenon is supernatural then how did it occur? How is it supernatural if it did, in fact, occur? The natural world yields to analysis and if something, hypothetically, does not, then it is not part of the natural world. If it is not part of the natural world and it does not yield to analysis, then how can a human, who is part of the natural world and is limited in comprehension and senses to the natural world, form any knowledge of what is transcendental? If I can't form any knowledge of supernatural phenomenae, what reason do I have to believe that such phenomenae can exist?

 

[Mai chan]

Hello,

God has created human beings but in addition to that race ,there are other races that no body knows at least we believe in them.

we have the angels and demons and that's a truth we have djin and I do believe in them.I can tell you that those creatures inhabit my old grandpa house and that's a truth,a lot of family members experiences some thing in that house.For example they can see a copy of the same person I mean they see the real person and the unreal person.They can smell the scent of meat that is cooked yet they didn't do it.These are just some real things.

 

[Mycernius]

God has created human beings but in addition to that race ,there are other races that no body knows at least we believe in them.

Blind assertion. If you make such statements back them up with relative evidence.

we have the angels and demons and that's a truth we have djin and I do believe in them.

It is not a truth, it is an assertion.

I can tell you that those creatures inhabit my old grandpa house and that's a truth

No, it is an assertion

a lot of family members experiences some thing in that house.For example they can see a copy of the same person I mean they see the real person and the unreal person.They can smell the scent of meat that is cooked yet they didn't do it.These are just some real things.

If your family believe in the supernatural, then they will always go that way when faced with something unusual. You believe in such things so you would automatically say it is the supernatural. All these acts most likely have a mundane explanation such as change in wind directions and smells coming from elsewhere. I am not clear what you mean by a copy of a person. Personal testimony is not usually accepted as evidence of the supernatural. What is required for the various things to be reproduced in a controlled enviroment. James Randi is willing to pay out $1 000 000 for any evidence for such things. So far no-one has even managed to back up their claims.

 

[RolandtheHeadless]

I believe that we don't yet know all of nature's laws and properties; but I don't believe in the paranormal or supernatural.

Most such sitings and experiences can be attributed to flaws in human perception. Humans are not reliable witnesses; our senses aren't always accurate, and our brains fill in the gaps. People used to see ghosts, angels, or demons; now they see Bigfoot or flying saucers.

These flaws in our ability to perceive and translate what we're seeing into reality are why five different witnesses to an accident will tell five different stories about what happened.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Hiya ^_^ .

Well here is a few of my paranormal experiences (haven't had any for about 4-5 years now, but over the course of my life i have experienced quite a few, mostly at my mothers place).

1. The old man in my mothers house (she lives in a big old farm house on her farm, the house is about 600yrs old);

One day my mother discovered that there was dry rot in the floor boards in the corridor at the front porch of the house. So we called in 2 guys in to remove the floor boards and get rid of the dry rot.
My mother had to go to the bank, so she told the guys she would be back in 20mins.
When she came back, the 2 guys said to her "Oh we didn't know that your father was in the house" and my mother replied "My father doesn't live here, he lives in Australia, and there are no old men in this house at all (just me & my mum).". But the guys said "When we came back from a coffee break while you were away, we both saw an old man walking down the corridor- we both said hello to him but he didn't answer and just walked into another room at the end of the corridor and disappeared".

This was not the first time i had heard of this happening. As a kid i saw exactly the same old man in the house- when i was a little kid my mum used to go for long evening art classes in the village, and as i grew older i was increasingly left in the house all on my own during these long hours with no babysitter. I also remember seeing an old man walking down the corridor- because his back was turned at first i thought that it was my mother (and that she had come back early) but as i called out the ghost just turned into the room at the end of the corridor- i ran after the ghost (not realising it was a ghost) and saw that it was an old man, but in the next room he just walked into another one and disapeared completely, never making a single sound '_' .

I also remember the ghost when i was really little (like 4-5years old). My brother saw the same ghost (he's 2 years older than me) on a few occasions in the corridor. He used to talk to the ghosts in the house and he said the old man lived under the carpet under the floor boards in the corridor. I remember how we called him "Mr. Nobody" because he had "no body". As little children we tried to talk to him, but he was highly unsociable and we used to p*ss him off.
That was just a childhood experience, but because i am not the only person who has seen the old man ghost (workmen, my brother, cleaners etc) i can not find any rational explanation for this ghost '_' (by the way whenever people used to see the ghost it was almost always on bright sunny days in good conditions etc) .

(More ghostly experiences in a mo)

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Other ghostly mums house experiences were not so spectacular (but obviously absolutely freaked me out at the time);

2. The cellar;

There's a big old cellar in my mums house- i never liked the place as a kid, but me & my brothers meccano set was kept down there and so i went down there to play anyway.

One day i was about to go down the stairs into the cellar, but instead of going straight down i stood at the top of the stairs just looking down them for a moment. But then someone gave me a big shove from behind!
I almost fell down the stairs.
At first i thought it must have been my brother, so i looked around the house- there was no-one in the house (both my brother & mother were working outside). But i distinctly felt 2 hand shove me against my back (with a distinct nasty intent)!

Another time, some years previously, i was also about to go down the stairs into the cellar. Usually i immediately turned the light on at the top of the stairs before going down them, but this time for some reason i decided to walk down the first few steps and look into the room below.
What i saw astonished me!
I saw these 2 bright lights- like sparklers- whizzing around the floor of the cellar (about 10inches above it). They chased each other at fast speeds around the cellar floor, and they were very bright & sparkly. I stood looking at these two lights chasing each other for a minute or too, absolutely memorised by them. Then i suddenly decided to turn the lights on, but when i did and looked back down the stairs, they light beings were gone '_' .

Unlike a lot of paranormal experiences, i didn't get any bad vibes or instinctive fear from these light beings, but unfortunately i never experienced them again (i remember as a kid for weeks on end after that i tried to find the lights again, sometimes trying to "catch them out" by sneaking into the cellar or quickly rushing in there while it was dark, but after a few months or trying i never saw them once again).

'_' .

(More ghostly experiences in a mo).

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

3. The Attic;

In my mums house there is an attic, a full-on loft conversion with bedroom, bathroom, kitchen & sitting room. It appeared to be a very nice place.

But for me, it was one of the no-go area's in the house. I could handle going in all the other rooms in the house, but the Attic was one of those places that i just found terrifying; looking up the stairs when the lights were off, you got a distinct bad feeling from the place- instinctive fear.

My mum made me do a hell of lot of daily chores in the house, with vacuum hoovering being one of the main ones (used to do 2-3 rooms a day- she was pretty OCD). But the Attic was one of the places i refused to hoover.

But one day she was nagging me really badly to do it, and eventually i gave in and thought "What the hell; its a bright sunny summers day, all the rooms in the attic are well light and look friendly enough- its not like you get hauntings on days like this, eh?".
So i went up there to hoover the rooms in the attic.

And everything went great. After finishing hoovering the last room in the attic, the sitting room, i turned off the hoover and decided to look out of the top window for a bit, as it was a lovely summers day and i could see all of the back gardens from the window- a great view.
But as i stood there looking out of the window pondering the view, i smelled the smell of strong perfume- it came out of nowhere. And it was definitely a perfume smell- it smelled like that sort of strong cheap perfume that old ladies wear all the time. The smell enveloped me and then the next thing i became aware of was someones putting there arms over my shoulders around my front collar bones from behind me.
As i realised this i froze.
I looked down, but i could see no arms around my chest in front of me, yet i could feel them. I quickly came to my senses and turned around- whatever it was released me, and then the smell of perfume quickly dissipated.

I quickly exited the room and ran down the stairs, leaving the vacuum hoover behind. I don't know what that thing was (ghost?) but i never went into the attic again for quite a few years. Let sleeping lions sleep?

(More ghostly experiences in a mo)

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

4. Random mums house happenings;

a. Saw a ghostly lady once (i was in my bedroom with the door open when i saw the figure of a pale ghostly lady in dress just walk past the door). A very short but vivid experience.

b. Noises: Back in my mums earlier art class days, i did have a babysitter- my brothers horrible godmother Lisa (miserable, stern, strict middle-aged woman- never smiled and didn't seem to like the company of children much >_> ).
Whenever she was "babysitting" me i used to try and stay out of her way and get on with my own thing as much as possible (eat some food, do some homework, watch some tv). One particular night she was doing her usual thing- snooping around the house - when i was sitting on the toilet. All of a sudden a huge terrible sound came out of nowhere! It sounded like the house was falling down around me! The terribly loud sound was made out of many terrible loud sounds (i could only describe them as pots & pans being banged together, floorboards being bent & creaked, a hundred people storming down the stairs, screeching sounds, house shaking- it was crazy).

The terrible noise went on for about 2 minutes, and it was unreal in its sounds and loudness (it shook too). I just sat there petrified on the toilet. Then as quickly as it started, the sound abated. There was sudden absolute quiteness.
I wiped my butt, flushed the toilet and quickly came out of the bathroom, only to see Lisa coming out of my mothers bedroom, absolutely white faced like she had seen a ghost.
She said "What on earth was that Elizabeth??!!!" and i stumbled to come up with an answer (i had no idea what had just happened either!) and in my shocked state i just came up with a lame guess-work answer, saying that how sometimes the floorboards creaked a lot in the summer (caused by contracting as humidity levels lowered) and that it sometimes sounded pretty loud etc. But it was actually nothing like this!
Lisa persisted questioning me for a little longer, before deciding to leave me (even though she had half an hour left looking after me) and speed off in her car.

Maybe there was some sort of structural phenomenon to explain this experience, but the whole experience was distinctly eerie and after Lisa left i looked around the house for a long while to see if anything had changed and nothing had changed at all- the floorboards weren't even creeky.
So i dunno what happened with this one, but it never happened before and never happened since this one (even my mother had no idea how to explain it, and she's been living in the house for donkeys years). Weird '_' .

(More ghostly experiences in a mo)

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

5. The Flat;

About 4/5 years ago i used to live in this flat with my guy in the same town as we currently live in, yet very much on the outskirts of the town.

It was a very remote place- the flat was actually a very small barn conversion and we lived in the top half of the barn while the bottom half rooms were used as storerooms which my Landlord used as storage rooms for his antiques (his main business was as an antiques dealer).

At first the place seemed completely not haunted (my cup of tea !), but as time went by i experienced an increasingly amount of paranormal phenomenons, and by the time we were almost about to leave the place i couldn't wait to get out of it.

Noises in the Flat 1;
The first time i experienced anything weird there was when my brother came around to stay for 2 nights- we hadn't seen each other for many months and had barely had any time to speak to each other, so when we finally got to see each other we had a lot to catch up on and were avidly chatting away well into the early hours of the morning.

Suddenly we heard some noises from in the storerooms down below- my brother said "What was that!?" but i said it was just nothing. But the noises grew stronger and we both distinctly heard the sounds of footsteps and of things being moved around below. So i said to my brother not to worry about it- that my landlord often worked well into the early hours of the morning in his storeroom, and that this was probably just such a night.
My brother thought the noises were really eerie though and it took him a while to ignore them again.
The next day i went to my landlord and asked him if he or anyone else had been in his storerooms that night and he said "No, not at all". But me & my brother both heard noises coming from there!

And these storerooms were like vaults- they had huge heavy metal bolted & chained doors on them and the rooms were so well sealed that not even a mouse could have gotten into the rooms.

Yet the next night me & my brother heard exactly the same thing at exactly the same sort of time, and again the next day my landlord knew nothing of what had happened.

I thought to myself that noises are just noises though, so i decided to just put the incidents to the back of my mind after my brother left.


The creature in the bedroom;
A few weeks later we had a mouse in the flat. It was just the one mouse, and i eventually caught it (left out a bag of hamster food and waited for the mouse to go in, then closed the bag when the mouse was in it and then released it into a feild a long way away). But during the few weeks it lived in the flat, it became ridiculously tame and one night it even scampered under the bed covers while i was awake in bed!!

I'm not scared of mice, but this mouses unnatural tameness did put me very much on edge (had problems falling asleep at night after it started scampering into the bed) and so even long after i got rid of it i was on edge for months to come.

The bedroom of the flat had really bad vibes, and one night i was desperately trying to fall asleep. But i sensed the presence of an individual in the room, a malicious spirit- i had a strong feeling of someone staring at me intently. I told myself to get a grip, but i couldn't get over this feeling that a malicious spirit was in the room.
I was so scared i had the duvet covers pulled overmy head. But after a while i got pissed off about this spirit, and trying to convince myself that it didn't exist, i said out aloud "If you do exist, then show me a sign, because i am sick of your games and just want to go to sleep". A few moments of nothingness passed and i relaxed, and then bam! Someone thumped me on top of my head! The duvet covers compressed into that of a fist shape!!!

I completely freaked out. I lay there stone still, sweating with fear, until exhaustion finally overcame me and i fell asleep.

But that wasn't the end of it.

This "creature" tormented me from then onwards in the night in the bedroom for many nights to come. If the first physical experience wasn't enough, it then developed the habit of pulling the bedsheets at the bottom of the bed! I would be sitting in bed, wide awake, watching with terror as something pulled on the bedsheets at the bottom of the bed- i would see them moving and feel them being pulled, creases moving rapidly across the covers.


I natually developed quite bad insomnia at this point. But one night my mind rebelled and i had a terrible "nightmare" that night. I say "nightmare" but it felt eerily real (like as if i wasn't dreaming at all).
In the nightmare i saw the malicious spirit in its physical form- it looked a lot like the Incredible Hulk, a green giant walking demon. I looked out of the bedroom window and saw it walking down the driveway, approaching the flat- i was absolutely terrified of it, yet i knew that if it managed to get to the flat far worse things were to come i would never be rid of it. So i shouted at it from out of the window, telling it to go away and rest it peace etc over & over again. Eventually i won the battle of strength and it slowly turned away and started walked away down the driveway.

This may all sound really stupid, but the next day the bedroom felt a lot better- the bad vibes in the bedroom went away and i was never harrassed by the spirit again.

But the noises in the storerooms below continued, and everytime i questioned my landlord about them he always said that he had not been in the storerooms that night at all etc. And i know he was telling the truth about this. But the noises weren't just confined to footsteps - you would hear heavy things being slowly dragged around the floor, sounds like giant vases smashing or things being quickly moved or knocked etc. Noises to loud to deny, and it wasn't just my brother who also heard them.
It was full-on poltergeist activity in that place.

And one day in general conversation, i was talking to my landlord in his antique storerooms when i noticed that there were plenty of non-antique items (random knives & forks, mugs only 10 or 20 years old, kitchen pans etc). So i asked him "Why do you have this random non-antique stuff with your antiques?" and he said that he bought most of his stuff in big lots at auctions, where belongings of the recently dead (who hadn't included such belongings in their wills or when their relatives were selling off possessions to raise money for funeral costs etc) were sold. These were all items owned by people who were alive up until very recently, and many were very personal items.


So i dunno. Maybe the antiques were haunted. Maybe there was another explanation for the sounds & poltergeist activity etc- i know for certain it wasn't people in the storerooms who caused the noises, nor animals, but even if they were then how come nothing was ever found broken even when you heard things smashing and how do you explain the spirit in the bedroom etc?

Hmm...

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

My "Moral of the story";

I never ever went looking for ghosts or paranormal stuff, i even try avoiding even thinking about stuff like this as much as i can. But over the course of my life i have experienced many things that cannot be scientifically/logically/rationally/whatever explained (these stories are just some of my experiences that spring to mind).

But i don't think it is a good idea to go out searching for ghosts or spirits or whatever. I think people who do that are stupid and don't know what they are getting themselves into. I think if ghosts do possibly exist then firstly;
a. We should leave them well alone. I think they are dangerous and i think there are possibly many more fearful things out there other than ghosts (ghosts are simply the spirit of a dead human, but how do you know that you are actually always dealing with a human spirit and not something posing as it etc? There are possibly some very scary & dangerous non-human beings/things out there).
We shouldn't go disturbing the spirits for fun.

b. Evidence gathering- i think it will come in time. I think the main problem though is that all paranormal studies have not been thorough, well funded or long lasting- and almost all of them have been undertaken by either people unhealthily obsessed with this sort of stuff, or by unscrupulous individuals who go out faking these things on camera so they can run a cheap brain-numbing TV series on it all etc ("Most Haunted" anyone lol?).


Do i believe in ghosts? Probably more "yes" than "no". My logical, rational, science thinking side tells me to disbelieve in these sorts of things. Yet i cannot discount all my paranormal experiences with explanations and the possibilities of the universe always lead me to keep my mind open about these things.

 

[Haruspex]

i can not find any rational explanation for this ghost '_' (by the way whenever people used to see the ghost it was almost always on bright sunny days in good conditions etc) .

'Woman lived hidden in Japanese flat'
To tell the truth, if people started seeing an old dude in my house, I'd probably presume that a corporeal existence gained access to it. Humanity has been able to make records for thousands of years now and there are now over 6 billion people using billions and billions of appliances, tools, buildings, spending hours and hours in each other's company or presence and so on and so forth. Surely there will be events that leave people perplexed. It is all a lack of information.

 

[Tsuyoiko]

I'll offer some alternative explanations, not because I think they're correct, or even better than yours, but just to demonstrate that there are alternative explanations that are at least as plausible.

1. The old man in my mothers house

Could be a tramp, or perhaps you "remember" something that never happened. I've done that before - recalled something that I thought I remembered, only to be told I can't possibly remember it because I wasn't there, or it happened on TV.

I admit that it sounds completely out there to even suggest that a tramp could be wandering around your house for years, but in all honesty, is it any more crazy than the idea that dead people come back as incorporeal versions of themselves and wander around other people's houses?

But then someone gave me a big shove from behind!
I almost fell down the stairs.

This sounds a lot like an electric shock or it could be a muscle spasm. I got shocked by an electric fence once when I touched it with my hand. I felt nothing in my hand, but had a sensation just like being kicked or punched in my spine.

I've also had muscle spasms in my back that feel just like a largish flat object pushing against me, with a kind of electrical tingling.

I saw these 2 bright lights- like sparklers- whizzing around the floor of the cellar

Glowworms. Note that they prefer a damp, shadowy environment.

But as i stood there looking out of the window pondering the view, i smelled the smell of strong perfume- it came out of nowhere. And it was definitely a perfume smell- it smelled like that sort of strong cheap perfume that old ladies wear all the time. The smell enveloped me and then the next thing i became aware of was someones putting there arms over my shoulders around my front collar bones from behind me.

I think the fact that you were near the window is significant. The smell was probably coming from outside, and when the wind changed it dissipated. The feeling of constriction came after you sensed the smell, so it seems like a reaction to it. Perhaps the unexpected smell made you feel anxious, causing the feeling of constriction, which can be a symptom of panic.

Saw a ghostly lady once (i was in my bedroom with the door open when i saw the figure of a pale ghostly lady in dress just walk past the door). A very short but vivid experience

The fact that it was short makes me think it's your mind interpreting a random sight into something that makes sense. It was probably a shadow passing across the doorway that had the vague shape of a lady, so your brain interpreted it as such.

I have two experiences like this. When I was at primary school, there was an old photo of the stately home that used to be in the woods behind the school. There was a white smear in the photo, that everyone believed was a ghost. It looked very much like a dark-haired lady wearing a long white dress. Nowadays, I'm pretty sure it was just a smudge on the lens or something floating past the camera as the picture was taken.

Several years ago I was in the car with my husband, driving slowly along past a phone box. I saw a man inside the phone box talking on the phone. As we passed he disappeared completely. I had this terrible feeling of dread because what I had seen made no sense. But then I thought about it and realised that what I had seen was just my brain interpreting random shadows, reflections and lights bouncing off the car windows and the three glass walls of the phone box, into something that made sense. We expect to see someone talking inside a phone box , so that's what my brain thought I had seen.

All of a sudden a huge terrible sound came out of nowhere! It sounded like the house was falling down around me!

I've experienced this from three separate causes.

My grandparents lived a few hundred metres from an opencast coalmine. Everyday at 3pm they would set explosives. When they went off, there would be an extremely loud bang, accompanied by various smaller sounds of things falling over. We would all get roped in to hold down the ornaments on the mantelpice so they didn't get broken

Another one is earth tremours. We get them every few years around here. The last one was a couple of years ago, centred on Wolverhampton I think. I was awoken by a feeling like being tipped out of bed, accompanied by various banging and clattering noises, as doors rattled and all the coathangers moved inside the wardrobe.

Lastly is the sound of gravel being tipped out of a truck. If you haven't heard that before, you seriously don't want to. I've heard it a couple of times and it scares the living crap out of me. There's a loud metallic banging as they tilt back the trailer, then a horrible rushing sound as the gravel falls out. Gives me the creeps just to think about it

EDIT: all this talk of strange noises must have creeped me out. My rabbit just tipped over his litter tray and I jumped out of my skin

But the noises grew stronger and we both distinctly heard the sounds of footsteps and of things being moved around below.

Rats. They came in in crates or when the doors were open and lived in there. Since they're nocturnal they only moved around at night. The storeroom probably had some natural acoustics that amplified the sounds.

But i sensed the presence of an individual in the room, a malicious spirit- i had a strong feeling of someone staring at me intently. I told myself to get a grip, but i couldn't get over this feeling that a malicious spirit was in the room.

The fact that you characterise the presence as a malicious spirit shows that you aren't being objective about it. Never trust anything you think you've experienced when you are lying in bed. Your perception of when you are awake or asleep is not trustworthy. Many, many times I've elbowed my husband because he's snoring and he swears black's white that he wasn't even asleep. I've woken up to hear him talking in his sleep, only to be told that he's talking to the ghosts and can't I see them. In the morning he remembers the dream and always says it doesn't feel like a dream at all, although he knows it was. I've woken up to see faces or random strings of numbers floating on the ceiling. Just the other day I had to ask my husband if something really happened because I couldn't remember if it was real or a dream.

As I said, I'm not saying that my explanations are what really happened, but hopefully they are at least as plausible as the supernatural explanations

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

^

1. Very unlikely, as IMO;

a. This person would have had to have been living unnoticed in the house for 15/20+ years, which would be a feat in itself.
b. The farm is in a really isolated location- although we were technically in a village, (which was pretty much in the middle of nowhere itself) the farm was on the very outskirts of the village in an area surrounded only by other large farms which were separated by large distances. Usually homeless people live in area's of more civilisation, you don't really get homeless people living on isolated farms far out in the countryside (although it is possible i guess). But;
c. The old man never made any sounds whatsoever (no footsteps etc). Which would be a real challenge in itself- even as a skinny light 10year old kid, it was almost to walk along that corridor without making any sounds. For a fully grown man of good weight to do it, it would be a near impossible.
d. The old man walked at a steady but not particularly fast past. Yet even if you chased after him, in the next room he would always disapear. But the 2 rooms at the end of the corridor had no furniture that anyone could hide behind (they were sparsely decorated as they were rarely used for anything) and the windows were always locked. So how an old man could completely disappear within mere seconds without making any sound whatsoever, is something i find very hard to explain (i tried explaining these things to myself at the time, walking from one room to the next to see how long it took etc, but i still came up with no explanation) '_' .


2. Definitely not an electric shock. We had electric fences on the farm and i got zapped by them a few times, but in sensation they were nothing like this. I've also been zapped by other electrical appliances (plugs, fish tank heaters etc), but this definitely wasn't anything like that.
Even if it was a muscle spasm, it would have had to be a very bizarre one- not only did i feel pushed by 2 hands on my back, but i was knocked forwards with quite some force and almost fell down the stairs. To be knocked off my feet from a standing still position, this is very weird '_' !

3. Definitely not glowworms. Glowworms issue a low level glow type light, (quite greenish/yellowish), but these lights were as bright as white electrical light and looked almost exactly like the sparklers you get as a kid on Guy Faulkes/Bonfire night. They were also whizzing around the floor, distinctly chasing each other, at fast speeds (faster than a glowworms flying speed).

They are also very unlikely to be glowworms as over the years my mum had many wildlife surverys done on the farm as we discovered that there were Stone Curlews living on the farm (they are a very endangered ground dwelling type of bird). So we got people from wildlife conservation trusts to survey the farm to see if we could turn up any more endangered or threatened animals. The survey picked up some more under threat or endangered creatures like various butterflies & moths, but no glowworms (a threatened species). And the searches were very thorough, so i think it is also unlikely that they were glowworms because of this.

3. Possible i guess. But the smell was very strong (and definitely smelt more like cheap perfume than the roses growing in the garden etc) and the window was closed shut (very tightly too as it was so stuck shut & no-one could open it). Perhaps it was a laspe of my senses as i relaxed. But its still a highly weird experience '_' .

4. Seeing something in a photo is very different to seeing something moving right outside your bedroom door though. I've seen some spooky photo's before too. Even the phone box indicident you mentioned- you were in a car being driven, so your brain only got a moment to take in what had happened. But i was sat still in bed in a relaxed situation, yet out of the blue i saw this figure walking past when there was no-one there '_' .

5. Quite possible. I think this is the least paranormal experience either way though. I think if there is an explanation, the tremor one is the most likely- it definitely wasn't a gravel truck or anything like that though as i was used to hearing heavy machinery and vehicles working on the farm all the time (it was very busy during the harvest season, with people working 24/7 on it) and this was nothing like that. The crazy noises were also definitely coming from within the house and not outside.

6. Hm i don't think that the noises were rats. I've lived in houses with rat problems before, but i think it is very unlikely it was rats (not just because the noises were like the usual ones created by rats) because;

a. Footsteps. This was one of the most common sounds. And it was definitely footsteps as you would hear the feet scuff off the floor sometimes as the being walked. But there was absolutely no way someone could have broken into that place as;
b. The doors were garage-sized & made out of heavy metal (which created a lot of noise as the doors were opened) and were bolted shut with heavy metal bolts and thick chains. The rooms of the storeroom were concrete lined on all sides and there were no windows in the rooms. The landlord had also installed a very sensitive security/burglar alarm system which was sometimes even trigered by badgers outside. There was almost no way you could approach the place when the alarms were on without setting them off. And they were always on at night when the landlord wasn't working in the rooms.
c. There was no source of food for the rats. If the rats overcame the mission of digging through the concrete floor etc, there would be nothing for them to eat in a place like that- and usually rats are attracted to certain places because they have a source of food. And all the feilds surrounding the site were grazing only, so there was never any wheat etc for rats to eat. Rats are very common in urban area's, but its very unusual to get them in countryside places with no human created sources of food.
d. Smashing sounds. On quite a few occasions, i heard smashing sounds that sounded exactly like the sound that would be created if a large ceramic vase fell off a shelf- but whenever i queried my landlord about stuff like this, he always said that nothing at all had been broken of recent (especially not any ceramics etc). There were other weird sounds too like the sounds of heavy objects being dragged around etc.

IMO, the only way a lot of these sounds could have been created was if a person had been in those storerooms. But no-one could have gotten into those rooms unnoticed. And i had a very good friendship with my Landlord, we hung out a lot together in his storerooms (he always had a lot of interesting antiques and he was a really nice cheerful guy alround etc), so there was absolutely no reason for him to lie about him being down there etc.

So while noises can be explained in a lot of incidences, i still think the incidents at the flat cannot be explained adequately :? .

7. Hmm i couldn't have been more awake during these incidences. Sometimes they happened shortly after getting into bed, when i hadn't even begun to feel tired and was just reading a book etc. My senses were very alert back then what with the mouse incident and all of that. But i definitely think this spirit was malicious as i was gripped by an intense overwhelming sense of fear when it was in the room (while in some other paranormal experiences i haven't been scared at all, like the incident with the lights in the cellar). Assuming ghosts exist, i do think there are good ones & bad ones.


But yeah, anyways...Thanks for your interpretations on what may have happened ^_^v ! I think you are right about the tremor and the sounds in my mums house, and possibly right about the experience in the attic and some of the other experiences. But the other incidences (like the old man in the house, the lights in the cellar and the haunting at the flat), i still think there is much that is unexplainable about them still :? .

 

[hitsugayaOMFG]

Blind assertion. If you make such statements back them up with relative evidence.
It is not a truth, it is an assertion.
No, it is an assertion
If your family believe in the supernatural, then they will always go that way when faced with something unusual. You believe in such things so you would automatically say it is the supernatural. All these acts most likely have a mundane explanation such as change in wind directions and smells coming from elsewhere. I am not clear what you mean by a copy of a person. Personal testimony is not usually accepted as evidence of the supernatural. What is required for the various things to be reproduced in a controlled enviroment. James Randi is willing to pay out $1 000 000 for any evidence for such things. So far no-one has even managed to back up their claims.

she was just saying what she believes you don't have to be a douche bag
wouldn't it be just the opposite for you if your family doesn't believe in the supernatural than you would always go that way when faced with the same thing
theres lots of evidence randi probably just won't accept anything unless its something he can just say "oh well the light reflected off that mirror there and combined with the dust in the air made the illusion of a person while the footsteps were just an audible response from your brain after interpreting that the bright dust was a human being" he doesn't believe it so nothing you give him would suffice unless it was on the perfect day with 50 people that all witness it and still he would be hesitant
the spirits are intelligent and don't go around showing themselves to everyone "hey guys over here"(with an eccentric voice and wave)
anyways i believe in the paranormal since i've also had experiences of my own and that spirits are the residual energy of a physical form of life that had once existed since energy can't be created or destroyed only transformed it must be transformed into an energy that we have yet the technology to study accurately and record

 

[Half-n-Half]

'Woman lived hidden in Japanese flat'

That is one of the single scariest things I have ever read.

 

[Mycernius]

she was just saying what she believes you don't have to be a douche bag

Great, insults. She posted a load of blind assertions. You might be into woo, but I prefer to see the evidence behind it. This forum is for serious discussions, not for posted up woo and everyone going "ooo, I believe". You post up such things then have the evidence to back up such claims. You don't like then tough, that is nature of a serious discussion

the spirits are intelligent and don't go around showing themselves to everyone "hey guys over here"(with an eccentric voice and wave)

I hope you are joking, otherwise this is yet another assertion.

anyways i believe in the paranormal since i've also had experiences of my own

So have I, but I am not instantly going it must be supernatural. I was very much into the paranormal when I was younger. Most so called paranormal phenomenon have very mundane explanations. The problem is that even when faced with the explanation those who believe fervently will not see the evidence and make up their own explanations for it. One of the best expanations for seeing shapes in various forms is Pareidolia. Nothing to do with ghosts or spirits just the human mind seeing shapes and making them into recognisable objects.

 

[Haruspex]

anyways i believe in the paranormal since i've also had experiences of my own and that spirits are the residual energy of a physical form of life that had once existed since energy can't be created or destroyed only transformed it must be transformed into an energy that we have yet the technology to study accurately and record

What happens after death is well understood. Just open up a forensic medicine textbook if you want to see what happens to the dead.

As Mycernius pointed it out before me, this is the serious discussion subforum. If an inquiry into the reasoning behind a claim is not possible, then the claim should not have been posted here, ie, it does not belong here. We are not, here, concerned what people may think, we are concerned with what people can prove to, at least, some degree or to provide theories, not empty claims.

Also, elaborate claims require to be proven to a higher standard. Certainly, I think you will agree too, a claim that ghosts exist is fairly elaborate, ie, it requires a great number of premises to be accepted. Not to mention that these ghost stories could hardly get past Occam's Razor, even if the standard alternative is acute hallucination or something similar.

That is one of the single scariest things I have ever read.

Imagine that with a burly man who is an ex-wrestler and a sex offender, oh yeah and homosexual. Pretty bad odds.

 

[Mycernius]

That is one of the single scariest things I have ever read.

You never lived through the 80s when the man with the finger on the button was an actor in his 70s starting to slip into senility whose wife was heavily into astrology. And some people thought it was scary under GW.

 

[Half-n-Half]

You never lived through the 80s when the man with the finger on the button was an actor in his 70s starting to slip into senility whose wife was heavily into astrology. And some people thought it was scary under GW.

At least RR never stole food from your kitchen while you were gone

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Great, insults. She posted a load of blind assertions. You might be into woo, but I prefer to see the evidence behind it. This forum is for serious discussions, not for posted up woo and everyone going "ooo, I believe". You post up such things then have the evidence to back up such claims. You don't like then tough, that is nature of a serious discussion

I think the point Hitsugaya was trying to make is that you could have just asked her to elaborate on her beliefs or something like that, instead of just instantly putting down all her beliefs. I totally see the point you are making, but your manner does come off as quite aggressive, just 'sayin (don't shoot me lol!).

Serious Discussions needn't be a bear pit where people come to get their beliefs mercilessly shredded to peices ^_^v .

 

[Haruspex]

I think the point Hitsugaya was trying to make is that you could have just asked her to elaborate on her beliefs or something like that, instead of just instantly putting down all her beliefs. I totally see the point you are making, but your manner does come off as quite aggressive, just 'sayin (don't shoot me lol!).

Serious Discussions needn't be a bear pit where people come to get their beliefs mercilessly shredded to peices ^_^v .

Mai chan made claims. She didn't even try to convey that it is her opinion that x, y, she plainly made claims. A post so dismissive of any arguments and facts deserves no better. Joining the discussion so boldly is a signal to the extent that 'Look, I can fend for myself, no need to go easy.' and with the recent surge in the numbers of individuals who readily make ambitious claims with nothing to support them, the reaction, I believe, is entirely understandable. It needs to be made evident that SD is not a den of 'I respect your beliefs so please respect mine and don't question them.' a*se-licking so common elsewhere on other forums where people without the knowledge to construct an argument come together to show off religion. Sd is concerned with the truth as proven by evidence, proof or some sort of deduction.

That is not to say that there cannot be restraint, but it is certainly not due if someone dismisses a matter still being debated so easily by portraying participants who do in fact provide some sort of reasoning as misguided fools.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

It needs to be made evident that SD is not a den of 'I respect your beliefs so please respect mine and don't question them.' a*se-licking so common elsewhere on other forums where people without the knowledge to construct an argument come together to show off religion. Sd is concerned with the truth as proven by evidence, proof or some sort of deduction.

SD shouldn't either be a forum where 'I don't respect your beliefs so i'm gonna shred them to peices as soon as you speak up'.

There needs to be a middle ground.

How about: 'I will be polite & peaceful whether i agree or disagree with what you write, but please expect to stand up to questioning if someone disagrees with what you say etc'.
IMO even if you have a totally have a valid point there is no need for aggression, belief-bashing or cold or condescending attitudes etc (especially when someone has only made one post in a whole thread).

Serious Discussions has had a lot of issues over time concerning arguments breaking out between people and threads having to be closed as a result (even though i took a long break from Jref (time resources), coming back to it things don't seem to have changed that much).
You can debate the way someone constructs their post or puts forward their beliefs, but if people are being unessarily aggressive/condescending then it is only a matter of time before an arguement (predictably) breaks out. And once people start argueing, any discussion there was beforehand goes completely out of the window. IMO avoiding arguments in debates is very important to the productivity of a serious discussion/debate, whatever its topic. Many good threads have be ruined & closed as a result of arguements unnecessarily breaking out.

So while i agree with Mycernius's points, i disagree with the attitude/manner he puts them across, as even though he is not directing his comments at me, i can also detect an aggressive/condescending attitude. You may think that someone's beliefs are the most stupid, backward or badly voices ones in the whole world etc, but its still good practice to follow a peaceful & polite code of conduct when discussing/debating subjects ^_^v .

 

[Haruspex]

SD shouldn't either be a forum where 'I don't respect your beliefs so i'm gonna shred them to peices as soon as you speak up'.

A debate is where you need to prevail over your opponent by way of providing arguments. Pointing out the utter lack of justification behind a claim is an excellent way of shredding a belief to pieces, which will probably have the effect of defeating the opponent. It is the way it is. Hostility is more towards facile or absent reasoning than towards individuals and the only person to blame for the facility of an argument is the person who puts it forward.

There needs to be a middle ground.

There is middle ground, people like Tsuyoiko or yourself, among other folks, but that doesn't put an obligation on the rest of us to follow your example. It is an example, one alternative of the many. There are numerous other forms of style that are still within the boundaries created by the rules applicable.

How about: 'I will be polite & peaceful whether i agree or disagree with what you write, but please expect to stand up to questioning if someone disagrees with what you say etc'.
IMO even if you have a totally have a valid point there is no need for aggression, belief-bashing or cold or condescending attitudes etc (especially when someone has only made one post in a whole thread).

How about 'Through rigorous and ruthless scrutiny we will see which one of us prevails.' There is no reason to criticise people for making valid claims and pointing out the truth. The forum regulations are silent on the issue of manner and only go on to provide for sanctions for grossly inappropriate behaviour and they are enforced. I don't see a reason to make this section of the forum a haven of peace as the regulations provide for no such thing. Also, if you introduce rules on respect and whatnot, this bit of the forum will quickly become an overpoliced swamp of stupidity where stylistic considerations are more important than the underlying truth people wish to convey.

Fair enough, if uncensored swearwords and curses are used, that is grossly inappropriate, as that is extraneous to what a post attempts to convey, but my mind cannot conceive of a scenario where it is reasonable to penalise a written statement, without extraneous bits, that does nothing but points to an existing fact.

Serious Discussions has had a lot of issues over time concerning arguments breaking out between people and threads having to be closed as a result (even though i took a long break from Jref (time resources), coming back to it things don't seem to have changed that much).
You can debate the way someone constructs their post or puts forward their beliefs, but if people are being unessarily aggressive/condescending then it is only a matter of time before an arguement (predictably) breaks out. And once people start argueing, any discussion there was beforehand goes completely out of the window. IMO avoiding arguments in debates is very important to the productivity of a serious discussion/debate, whatever its topic. Many good threads have be ruined & closed as a result of arguements unnecessarily breaking out.

Every participant is responsible for his or her own temper. It is none of my concern that my pointing out a fact may cause another participant to lose his or her temper and enter into a murderous rage. It is very similar to the heckler's veto where counter-demonstrators cause a demonstration to be dispersed through their own wrongdoing, denying the innocent initial demonstrators the ability to enjoy their right to demonstrate so long as they are within the boundaries of law. In short, the person in the wrong is not one who drives another to break the rules through genuine and honest argumentation, but the person who goes on the disregard the regulations.

So while i agree with Mycernius's points, i disagree with the attitude/manner he puts them across, as even though he is not directing his comments at me, i can also detect an aggressive/condescending attitude. You may think that someone's beliefs are the most stupid, backward or badly voices ones in the whole world etc, but its still good practice to follow a peaceful & polite code of conduct when discussing/debating subjects ^_^v .

I am not concerned with the style of his points. He is will within the boundaries laid down by the regulations and so I have no reason to complain. He could be considerably more polite if he wanted to, but he, like anyone else, has the freedom not to act in such a polite fashion. Surely he knows better than us whether he finds the effects of his words agreeable or not.

 

[Hezam]

sometime i feel like "I did this before" ..but i don't remember when.
I haven't seen anything like Ghosts or Spirits...In my homeland the people speak about a fairy with donkey leg (i don't know right or left),in Yemen and Saudi Arabia it's very common,but yet i haven't seen her/him.
But i saw Magician eating glass !! i was shocked,he eat alot of glass infront of my eyes.

SD shouldn't either be a forum where 'I don't respect your beliefs so i'm gonna shred them to peices as soon as you speak up'.

There needs to be a middle ground.

How about: 'I will be polite & peaceful whether i agree or disagree with what you write, but please expect to stand up to questioning if someone disagrees with what you say etc'.
IMO even if you have a totally have a valid point there is no need for aggression, belief-bashing or cold or condescending attitudes etc (especially when someone has only made one post in a whole thread).

Serious Discussions has had a lot of issues over time concerning arguments breaking out between people and threads having to be closed as a result (even though i took a long break from Jref (time resources), coming back to it things don't seem to have changed that much).
You can debate the way someone constructs their post or puts forward their beliefs, but if people are being unessarily aggressive/condescending then it is only a matter of time before an arguement (predictably) breaks out. And once people start argueing, any discussion there was beforehand goes completely out of the window. IMO avoiding arguments in debates is very important to the productivity of a serious discussion/debate, whatever its topic. Many good threads have be ruined & closed as a result of arguements unnecessarily breaking out.

I completely agree with you,but who's gonna understand ? !!

There is middle ground, people like Tsuyoiko

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