Topic: I saw a ghost tonight.

[Beav]

Without knowing all the techniques its hard to say exactly how he got it that accurate, and also because we weren't there we don't know how spot on he was or how he got to his answers (ie "I'm getting a J... could it be Jane, Janice.. etc).

But, as a guess. The first one, men are 90% skeptical of this stuff, so that's an easy hit off the bat. The older the man, usually the more skeptical of this sort of thing is.

Again, we don't know how he gave that answer, could have been a fishing answer like "she was I'll wasn't she, came on a bit suddenly..." then expanded from there.

Kids, don't know how, again, unless they were cold reading techniques and by that point he wanted to fill the gaps.

New York is an exceptionally popular destination for holidays/honeymoons etc.

It's fascinating how much you can get out of a person you don't know, I mean look at Derren Brown, he can deduce hugely detailed information just from body language.

[Alan_X]

Just for observational reasons I was watching Colin Fry earlier. He's an absolute fraud as has been found out as such but it got me thinking about mediums in general. My uncle went to see one after his wife passed as she was deeply into it and he had always been sceptical at best, in fact he used to mock her about her beliefs quite often!

So he went to have a personal reading up where he lives near Glasgow, this is about 18 months back. The medium said to him I have your wife here, Angela. He went on to say about how she finds it so amusing he's came to a medium after the stick he gave her. Correctly said how she passed, names of their kids, and how he shouldn't feel wrong about going to visit New York again which was where they went on honeymoon. Now to my uncle it doesn't actually matter too much if the medium guessed and hit the jackpot, to him it's brought comfort which cannot be understated.

Now, I guess everybodys reaction would be the medium guessed and used cold calling and this time he was right? I'm not saying it's not that, I just wondered how the hell he was so accurate.

If the medium got everything right with no cold reading or fishing (which I doubt) then it's probable that he did some basic research before your uncle got there for his appointment. Deaths are reported in local papers and obits will have te names of the deceased and usually have names of any children. Mediums are lying shitbags. Your uncle may feel he's got some closure but he didn't hear from his wife - he was lied to by a manipulative prick who told him what he wanted to hear for cash.

What's the name of this medium? I'll go into partnership with him on the James Randi challenge. There's a million dollars going for someone like him if he can really speak to the dead.

[zero zero]

My uncle went to see one after his wife passed as she was deeply into it and he had always been sceptical at best, in fact he used to mock her about her beliefs quite often!

It might be as simple as your uncle went to see a medium that your aunt had previously used.

[Effes]

I've never bothered looking in this thread before - highly entertaining.

[scropper]

Hilarious - bunch of muppets believing in ghosts...

[Roady]

there was an medium night at my local not so long ago.we chipped in for one of us to get a reading..i ended up doing it and it was shite.she went on and on egging me to speak and give a clue,open questions looking for something to pick up on.kept totally quiet only said yes or no.it was shite.these people are manipulative robbing twats...the whole thing should be banned as far as im concerned.theyre thieves who rob from the vulnerable

[Phil M]

there was an medium night at my local not so long ago.we chipped in for one of us to get a reading..i ended up doing it and it was shite.she went on and on egging me to speak and give a clue,open questions looking for something to pick up on.kept totally quiet only said yes or no.it was shite.these people are manipulative robbing twats...the whole thing should be banned as far as im concerned.theyre thieves who rob from the vulnerable

Why'd you give her your money then?

[fingermouse]

I was standing outside a boozer down in Brixham a few years back, having a smoke, and this middle aged women struck up a conversation. Anyhow, after a bit she somehow got onto supernatural stuff and told me she was a local clairvoyant or suchlike. So I challenged her to reveal something about myself that she possibly couldnt know.

She looked me right in the eye, swear to fuck,and said 'you're a goalkeeper but havent played for a while due to a knee injury'.

I'm pretty sceptical about stuff like this, always have been. But ever since this encounter ive been completely stumped as to how she could have possibly got this so right? I said nothing that could enabled her to even make a lucky guess.  To be honest, it chilled me to the bone.

And before anyone says, no I wasnt wearing a green shirt with '1' on the back and walking with a limp. 

[StrikingMidfield]

UFOs and stuff like that don't really scare me much, but ghosts and demons and crap like that? Terrifies me. Honestly, I'd love to see a real UFO, but a ghost? I'd be running as fast as I could in the opposite direction until I drop. People that hunt for ghosts and stuff like that in places like Cemeteries and old jails? Props to ya, but I can't even watch shows like that.

[Barneylfc∗]

UFOs and stuff like that don't really scare me much, but ghosts and demons and crap like that? Terrifies me. Honestly, I'd love to see a real UFO, but a ghost? I'd be running as fast as I could in the opposite direction until I drop. People that hunt for ghosts and stuff like that in places like Cemeteries and old jails? Props to ya, but I can't even watch shows like that.

Me, my bird, her ma and her mate went to Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast on Halloween night last year. It was gash. A few clunks and clicks here and there, being led by a guy with a flashy purple light telling us of how a weeek ago someone got their £2000 camera ripped out of their hands and smashed against the wall. Fucking do one. We were going through the underground tunnel from the courthouse to the gaol itself, I threw a 2p coin along the ground. People shit themselves because of it and the guide said noises like that are a regular occurence in the tunnel due to the shackles. It was a complete con.

[Anywhichwayicant]

Me, my bird, her ma and her mate went to Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast on Halloween night last year. It was gash. A few clunks and clicks here and there, being led by a guy with a flashy purple light telling us of how a weeek ago someone got their £2000 camera ripped out of their hands and smashed against the wall. Fucking do one. We were going through the underground tunnel from the courthouse to the gaol itself, I threw a 2p coin along the ground. People shit themselves because of it and the guide said noises like that are a regular occurence in the tunnel due to the shackles. It was a complete con.

[Finn Solomon]

Exactly.

I once came up with a crude means of estimating the number of bodies in a typical old style small town or village graveyard before cremation became prevalent.

(Population of the area that the graveyard is for) / (Average Life Span of the population) = Death Rate per year (assuming equal birth/death ratio and constant population).

So for example...

If the population of the community is (only) 1500 and the average life expectancy of the community member is 65....

1500/65= 23 deaths per year so in 100 years there would be around 2300 burials and in 1000 years 20700.

That's an awful lot of ghosts that seem to be missing from these graveyards.

We should be seeing hordes of them if their existence is to believed.

Ah but you're assuming every dead person comes back as a ghost, when the stories say that only people with unfinished business or a desperate need for vengeance manage to pierce the veil of the living.

[Alan_X]

Ah but you're assuming every dead person comes back as a ghost, when the stories say that only people with unfinished business or a desperate need for vengeance manage to pierce the veil of the living.

1 in 100 would be a reasonable estimate for such cases - that would give a couple of hundred ghosts per graveyard.

And if it's the manner of their death that creates ghosts - why aren't there reports of ghosts in all types of buildings? They always seem to be in dark places, with poor visibility, and in buildings where you'd expect a lot of noises anyway through building movement and draughts.

[Beav]

I love the whole "unfinished business" idea. Who decides if theyve business to finish? Is there a ghost voting process that you have to go through to be granted ghost status? What if they forgot to mail a letter, is that unfinished business?

[Barneylfc∗]

Or didn't put the bins out?

[Effes]

But they may only allow so many ghosts to come back.

It might be something like the customs at the airport; and all these ghosts are getting screened and interviewed before they are
allowed back through to the "living side" - maybe like the DHSS.
"So tell me what opportunities you will have on the other side?"

[Finn Solomon]

I love the whole "unfinished business" idea. Who decides if theyve business to finish? Is there a ghost voting process that you have to go through to be granted ghost status? What if they forgot to mail a letter, is that unfinished business?

Usually strong emotions have something to do with it.

[Elli]

Me, my bird, her ma and her mate

and a bucket of vindaloo?

[Port_vale_lad]

Don't believe in ghosts,never have,but saw something once that i cant explain.

Many years ago at school there used to be a kind of after school club / volunteer program at the old chatterly whitfield pit,used to be good a good laugh,we would go down there explore at bit,hide and seek,footie just generally pissing about.

To get to the pit you would have to walk down a narrow country lane with steep enbankments covered with trees on either side of the road

Me and 2 other lads set off down the road after school,its only 5 mins walk down the road,just before we went round the last bend and under the entrance i glimpsed something at the top of the bank standing between 2 trees,the perfect outline of a man but completely jet black with a black halo around his body,i could make out he had a flat cap on and was holding something in his right hand,don't know what couldnt make it out but he just stood at the top of the bank head slowly turning as we walked past,looked back when we got to the entrance and he was off the bank and standing in the middle of the road about 30ft away,just standing there exactly the same pose as at the top of the bank.

Mates never saw anything they thought i was taking the piss out of them,they still do,neither of them believe me to this day.When we finally made it to the rest of the group the couple who were in charge tried to send me home because i was that shaky and pale they thought i was ill until i burst into tears because i couldnt face walking up the road on my own so i think to shut me up they gave me a lift home.

Covered in goosepimples writng that,i can still see the thing in my head now like it was yesterday,just the strangest thing iv ever seen,to this day if im walking the dog i tend to avoid walking past the pit entrance and walk the longer way round the fields.

[Roady]

Why'd you give her your money then?

because we were all dubious and wanted to test to see what shite they came out with.

[Phil M]

because we were all dubious and wanted to test to see what shite they came out with.

Least you've learned your lesson now eh?

[JohnHobbes]

I love the whole "unfinished business" idea. Who decides if theyve business to finish? Is there a ghost voting process that you have to go through to be granted ghost status? What if they forgot to mail a letter, is that unfinished business?

Or maybe a scoring system to determine your ghostly level. Forgot to mail a letter, you can haunt the post box for 2hrs once a month. Left out the bins, sorry just the few minutes for whenever the bin men visit. Waiting for Liverpool to win another league title? Total 24/7 apparition rights and carte blanche on whom you haunt.

[owens_2k]

No-one ever sees a ghost in the daylight do they?

[El Lobo]

Covered in goosepimples writng that,i can still see the thing in my head now like it was yesterday,just the strangest thing iv ever seen,to this day if im walking the dog i tend to avoid walking past the pit entrance and walk the longer way round the fields.

Can you draw us a picture of it?

[Riquende]

the perfect outline of a man but completely jet black with a black halo around his body,i could make out he had a flat cap on and was holding something in his right hand,don't know what couldnt make it out

[El Lobo]

It was a guitar in his right hand.

[redgriffin73]

and a bucket of vindaloo?

It was a guitar in his right hand.

These two posts just made me burst out laughing in the middle of the office.

[Dirk18Kuyt]

Without knowing all the techniques its hard to say exactly how he got it that accurate, and also because we weren't there we don't know how spot on he was or how he got to his answers (ie "I'm getting a J... could it be Jane, Janice.. etc).

But, as a guess. The first one, men are 90% skeptical of this stuff, so that's an easy hit off the bat. The older the man, usually the more skeptical of this sort of thing is.

Again, we don't know how he gave that answer, could have been a fishing answer like "she was I'll wasn't she, came on a bit suddenly..." then expanded from there.

Kids, don't know how, again, unless they were cold reading techniques and by that point he wanted to fill the gaps.

New York is an exceptionally popular destination for holidays/honeymoons etc.

It's fascinating how much you can get out of a person you don't know, I mean look at Derren Brown, he can deduce hugely detailed information just from body language.

But what are the odds of getting somebody's name, multiple kids names and holiday destination/honeymoon thing right? Must be millions to one of getting it all right straight off.

[Beav]

But what are the odds of getting somebody's name, multiple kids names and holiday destination/honeymoon thing right? Must be millions to one of getting it all right straight off.

Again, depends on how they got the answer. If he stood up and went "right, you're Geoff and your deceased wife Jane says don't worry about going to New York. Joe, Dave and Alice will be fine too" then yeah, thousands to one.

But, if they used cold reading the odds don't work because they are narrowing down the hit as well as the recipient filling in gaps.

Comes down to us not seeing it done, that's the problem with all of these psychic readings.

[Alan_X]

But what are the odds of getting somebody's name, multiple kids names and holiday destination/honeymoon thing right? Must be millions to one of getting it all right straight off.

The odds are tiny, but as there's no such thing as psychic contact with the dead it means the medium used some other technique - research or cold reading, maybe a bit of both and the subject fills in the gaps.

"She's here now - she says you should go back to... I can't quite get it?... somewhere?... your honeymoon?..." 

[medium leaves a long gap... waiting for the subject to feel the pressure to fill the silence...]

"...New York - that's where we went for our honeymoon!..."

"That's it... that's what she said... she said you should go back to New York..."

And that's the way it works. Mediums, the ones who 'get it 100% right', are very good at what they do. The subject thinks it's come from the medium but they've actually given most of the information. Another easy 'hit' is childhood injury or illness. We've all hurt ourselves as a kid, so when the medium says something vague about "something.... a broken bone when you were a child?..." it's 90% certain that it will be a hit, and the tendency is to fill in the detail.

And obviously most people who go to mediums are looking for comfort - they're predisposed to hearing the right answer, and like most of us they will try and help others out, even when the person they're helping is a cold-hearted shyster who's skinning them and telling them lies.

I don't know how Penn and Teller do their card tricks but I know they're tricks. Just because you don't know how something is done is no reason to believe in magic.

[Riquende]

But what are the odds of getting somebody's name, multiple kids names and holiday destination/honeymoon thing right? Must be millions to one of getting it all right straight off.

If any medium were to submit to a scientific analysis of their 'powers' where they had to replicate these 'successes' with a succession of random strangers under controlled conditions - then yes, the odds would be staggering.

Edit: Oh look, someone tried it last year: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20145664

[BRdispatch05]

Only place to put this really, it goes along nicely with the ghost opening my cheese drawer.

I was about to go to sleep a few nights ago, when suddenly I heard what sounded like hail on my front door. I put on some pants and went to open the door, and when I walked in the kitchen it was already open (This is about midnight).I have no idea what was making the hail sounds, but it wasn't windy and nothing was going on outside.

  A little freaked out, more at the fact that my door was open in an apartment complex than at how it happened, I shut and locked it, and heard what sounded like a snap from a rubber band behind me in the kitchen. Freaked out I turned on my light, and turned around to discover my broom (which was in the corner of the room a few hours before) was perfectly propped under the chin of this Hawaiian tiki mask I bought from some guy a few months ago. I don't believe it was paranormal, but I have no explanation how my broom relocated itself to this position. It would have to had been placed there, I took a picture but my phone is out of commission at the moment.

[theredguy03]

A little freaked out, more at the fact that my door was open in an apartment complex than at how it happened, I shut and locked it, and heard what sounded like a snap from a rubber band behind me in the kitchen. Freaked out I turned on my light, and turned around to discover my broom (which was in the corner of the room a few hours before) was perfectly propped under the chin of this Hawaiian tiki mask I bought from some guy a few months ago. I don't believe it was paranormal, but I have no explanation how my broom relocated itself to this position. It would have to had been placed there, I took a picture but my phone is out of commission at the moment.

Do you have any pets in your house if so they could have moved it by mistake? Or you might have bumped into it without noticing when going down to inspect the door? Just trying to come up with a logical reason.

[BRdispatch05]

Do you have any pets in your house if so they could have moved it by mistake? Or you might have bumped into it without noticing when going down to inspect the door? Just trying to come up with a logical reason.

I have a fish.

Bumping into it is about the only thing I could come up with, but where it was before didn't coincide with the story if I did bump. I'm putting blacking out for three minutes and relocating my broom during that time before ghosts though.

[rafathegaffa83]

No-one ever sees a ghost in the daylight do they?

A cousin of my did.  Many years ago, his brother-in-law died of cancer. The first Sunday after the funeral, my cousin and his dad opted to go to the pub for a quick pint before Sunday dinner. The pub happened to be the former local of his deceased brother-in-law.As they walk towards the bar, my cousin claims to have seen the ghost of his brother-in-law standing at the end of the bar. My cousin started to go towards him, but the ghost began to move towards the exit. By the time my cousin had followed him outside, the ghost was gone. Funny enough, when he went back inside the bar, the face of the barmaid was as white as a sheet. Her first words to my cousin were "I saw him too."

[Zanchent]

I thought of this thread when walking past the phone box below tonight. I walk by it a few times a week(I live just round the corner), and every time, just after passing it, I hear a noise which makes it sound as though someone is messing around with the phone in there. Of course there's never anyone there.

http://goo.gl/maps/56PqE

It's starting to get fucking creepy

[BSBW]

I have a fish.
/quote]

That made me laugh.

[El Lobo]

Freaked out I turned on my light, and turned around to discover my broom (which was in the corner of the room a few hours before) was perfectly propped under the chin of this Hawaiian tiki mask I bought from some guy a few months ago. I don't believe it was paranormal, but I have no explanation how my broom relocated itself to this position. It would have to had been placed there

Could it be the ghost of Micky Mouse in his Fantasia get-up?

[Beav]

Broom questions:

Do you live alone?

Are you sure the Broom started in the corner?

Our memories are pretty crap, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if the broom was there to start with, but because you heard a noise and saw it with the mask you thought "it isn't usually there" and believed that it was in the corner. Happens all the time.

[Groundskeeper Willie]

One time, my fiancée was convinced she experienced something paranormal.

We have a shower in the basement level of our house and on the door to the bathroom is a sign that says "Toilet". When you close the door, the sign makes a certain sound. When she was in the shower, she started screaming like mad and came running up the stairs. She was really upset and said someone or something rattled the door when she was in there and she heard the "Toilet" sign rattle on the door.

Being sceptical, I went down there to investigate, but of course I couldn´t see anything. I tried to tell her that she was mistaken, but she remained totally convinced something had shaken the door, rattling the sign. Reluctantly she went down to finish up and I tried to come up with a reasonable explanation.

I went out into the kitchen, and there on floor was one of our dogs, chewing away on a big bone. When he moved it across the floor, it made a very similar sound to the one the sign on the door makes when you close it. The kitchen is above the downstairs toilet almost directly and the sound travelled down through the floorboards and that´s what she heard.

Case closed.