re: For the people who believe in or have claimed to see "ghosts" at some point...

My wife believes in ghosts. I don't. Your story, while nice, fits what I tell her constantly. Just because the answer isn't obvious or readily explainable doesn't make the answer automatically ghosts. Every ghost believer assumes that. "I don't know, therefore ghost".

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Just because the answer isn't obvious or readily explainable doesn't make the answer automatically ghosts. Every ghost believer assumes that. "I don't know, therefore ghost".

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I agree, it could have easily been an alarm that was set and a massive coincidence that that song was playing. It's just something I like to believe in and smile about on occasion.

Not sure that I believe in, but I have two instances that I can't explain.

One time my Dad and I were metal detecting in a large pine field. This field has history going back to pre-Revolutionary War times, as well both Confederate and Union activity. We hunted it a lot and have found a lot of stuff in it. Off to one side of the filed are two old graves with dates barely readable - one is 1830s and the other I couldn't make out. On this particular day, there was no wind. The ground was covered in pine straw and leaves - it hadn't rained for some time so y'all can imagine it would be practically impossible to walk quietly.

At any rate, while I was detecting I kept getting the feeling of being watched - so much so that the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I looked around and saw nothing so just brushed it off as my imagination. A little later I happened to look up and saw a man dressed in what appeared to be a confederate jacket, which I thought was odd because it was hot that day. The thing that scared me was that he made no sound walking - he was only like 20 or 30 yards away. He turned and looked at me but didn't stop and disappeared into the trees. Not a sound. Have only had that feeling of being watched there one other time.

The other time I believe I saw my Grandfather, who drowned when I was barely five. I was around 10 or so when I was playing in the woods behind my house - I think I was going to make a fort or something like that. As I was walking I happened to look up and see a man sitting with his back against the tree with a shotgun on his lap, and he was wearing an old flannel shirt and coveralls. What was odd about it was that there rays of sunlight coming through the trees to where he was sitting - not from all angles, mind you, but maybe he was sitting in a patch of sunlight. But he was kind of lit up I guess.

I turned around quietly and was going to leave and tell dad. Hadent taken no more than a few steps when I turned to look back and he was gone. I wasn't even sure I saw anything so for some reason I never told Dad. But it scared the hell out of me!

About 20 years later Dad was looking through some old pictures when I saw one of mt Grandfather - he was wearing the same shirt and coveralls as what I had seen. I told Dad about it and he looked at me as if I were crazy but the later said that he used to hunt squirells in the woods behind the house. Was it a ghost of my Grandfather? Who knows, but I can remember it as if it were yesterday.

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At both places we would see ghost cats. Can't explain why they were there. You'd catch a glimpse of a white cat chasing our other cats around the house.

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I buy into the theory that they are stuck here with unfinished business.

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1. If you claim to have seen or experienced the presence of a ghost one day, what was the purpose of it? Like why did the ghost make himself known to you? Surely ghosts are invisible so if they become visible to us, it must be for a reason right?

2. If ghosts can make themselves known to us, why don't they do it more? Think about it for a second. If you died and became a ghost but had the ability to appear to and communicate with humans, what would stop you from revealing yourself to your family and being with them? Why do ghosts hide from us MOST of the time?

3. Do ghosts just wander the earth doing practically nothing?

4. Does everyone become a ghost when they die? If so, why don't sightings happen more often then?

5. And what about this notion of a ghost haunting a place or something? This seems to be the biggest reason why people claim a ghost has revealed himself. Why would a ghost haunt a house or place of death? What would the ghost do if the house was torn down?

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1. They like fricking with people. We amuse them.
2. If you were a ghost would you want to hang around with a bunch of smelly, whiney, fricked up human beings?
3. Why not? Think of it as an eternal vacation.
4. Only people who believe in ghosts become ghosts. Everyone else becomes a pile of dust or ashes.
5. Ghosts don't haunt places, they live there rent free. Not a bad arrangement.

As a kid I used to have these crazy " dreams ". My room would be on fire and there would be this small distorted figure standing outside of my closet. I could never find the door because of the smoke so I would just scream and claw at the walls. My mother would soon come grab me and snap me out of it. There would be scratches in the wall and wall paper under my nails. This experience happened a few times.

My mother remarried and we moved out, it all stopped. My two sisters stayed in the house for another few years. I returned to dog sit when I was highschool and I had the same fricking happen again. I told my sisters about it and what they told me was shocking.

Click here to find out what happens next....

Just kidding. Anyways they asked me how I thought mom was able to afford the house as a single parent of 3 children. Of course I had no idea. I was told the house had caught fire and a child had died in the room I slept in for so many years. So to answer your questions.

1.) I don't think it was making itself known to me. I just think the energy lingered.

2.) going back to energy I think it takes a lot of it to produce a "ghost" and probably many more factors.

3.) How are we supposed to know?

4.) How are we supposed to know?

5.) I don't think ghost haunt places. I just think the energy is stored there. My experience of the world is different from yours. It would be like me watching my life movie and somehow a little bit of yours found its way onto the film and for a split second or so I saw you taking a dump on a toilet we shared.

It is intriguing. Ghosts. The thought of us living on and watching over people or haunting our enemies likely brings many of us some measure of peace. It not only eases the mind of the dying but of the survivors as well knowing that they will be there watching over them.

However, lets face simple facts. They don't exist.

First off, everyone knows that it is impossible to prove a negative. However, has any reputable source ever found any evidence of a ghost? Not a one.

I understand that many people experience things they can't explain. However jumping to the immediate conclusion that ghosts did it is just ridiculous. It is as bad as the so called God of the gaps. Well, gee, we don't know why something happens, so God did it.

Both ideas are wrong. Just because we don't understand something doesn't mean a ghost did it. When you see something that doesn't look like a plane in the sky, does your mind immediately go to alien spaceship? Well, I have no idea that some of the people here immediately jump to aliens, but lets be serious here.

Ghosts are one of the most studied things around over the course of history. Proving their existing, for whomever could prove it, would make them rich. Being able to communicate with them would make them richer. But yet, no one has been able to do so.

Does this not make people doubt their existence?

Look. I get it. We want something of us to survive after we die. We all find solace in that thought. Also, we want some portion of our loved ones who have passed to live on. It is all very comforting to us.

However, based on the evidence at hand, one has to make lots of leaps of faith to believe in ghosts. I don't like making leaps of faith to say I believe in something when all the evidence we have says that they don't exist.

I've never had any kind of super natural experience

I consider myself a practical guy. I never have been superstitious or the like. One night after a particularly long day at work, I decided to zone-out and watch some TV in the basement of our family's farm house. The original structure is from the 1840s and the root cellar has been finished out to be a true man cave with no windows.

I might have watched Cartoon Network for an hour or so and had three-ish beers and I began to get tired. At some point, I fell asleep but I awoke with a start and there was Space Ghost right there in the room with me! I remember when he was cancelled in the late '60s, I never thought I'd see him again. I haven't told anyone other than you all.

tl/dr: Ghosts are not real. They'd be able to do bad and good things if they were real.

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ideas are wrong. Just because we don't understand something doesn't mean a ghost did it. When you see something that doesn't look like a plane in the sky, does your mind immediately go to alien spaceship?

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Well if it can't be explained then that should give you even more reason to think a ghost since that can't be explained either. You contradict yourself in your post. You say ghost can't be proven or "explained" yet you acknowledge that people experience unexplainable things.