Ghosts - what are they really?

[Wolf]

When I was at Uni in the late 80's and early 90's I would often take the opportunity over the holiday periods to travel and get a job to earn some spending money for Uni.
In 1989 I spent the Christmas holiday break in the Big Smoke (Sydney) because that was where my girlfriend of the time was from.

Normally I can't handle cities for more than a few days. I find the air cloying and polluted, the dense population uncomfortable and miss the open spaces of the bush too much. However I was lucky and quickly got a temporary job in the National Parks and Wildlife Service based on Nth Head. It was a great job as I was in the bush in the middle of the city, working all around the north shore of the harbour building walking tracks and maintaining the parks.

For those who don't know, Nth Head was where the old Quarantine Station was built. Since Sydney was settled it was where literally shiploads of people emigrating had to go and live if a disease broke out on their long journey to a new life. Here they waited to die or eventually recover and be declared disease free.

It is a very interesting place of old buildings made up of houses for the doctors, guards and nurses, and hospital wards, storage sheds, a wharf and a morgue... complete with old, carved stone morgue slab still in situ.

The scenery and views of the harbour are spectacular but it must of been a terrible place of purgatory for the detainees. Having completed a long and arduous sea journey all they could do was wait to die with the others from their ship dying around them. Unable to enter their new country and new life and unable to return from whence they came must of been agonising beyond any illness they suffered.

Indeed proof of such agonies can be literally read in the stones there. Down near the old wharf the inmates killed time by carving into the sandstone the names and dates of the ships they came in. And up on the high cliff edges looking over the harbour they carved their names and final messages into the living rock, often into the very spot they then stood on to step off into the void to smash onto the rocks far below in one last desperate attempt to escape their situation in life by committing suicide.

It is a beautiful yet sad place and as a Park Worker I got to enter many places tourists are not allowed to go. In fact it was our job to keep the place maintained and the historical buildings standing. To help with this the Service put some of the longer term workers into the houses that stood there... well those that would. The rent was free of financial cost (an obvious benefit for expensive Sydney as you got to live rent free in 'gated' residences right on the harbour) but there WAS a price to be paid.

Most workers preferred to live in the suburbs and pay rent for one reason... you didn't have to be there at night.

In fact, when I was there I believe only three workers lived in the dozen or so houses... a couple of rangers and Ray, the mechanic. I hardly ever spoke to the rangers but worked with Ray often. He was a heavy drinker in his 40s and rough as guts but a decent bloke all the same. His wife had left him years ago but that was not why he drank.

I found out he drank so he could sleep. If he didn't wipe himself out good and proper the ghosts would bother him all night!

Personally, because I was living far away in Rhyde at my girlfriend's parents home I had to get up at 5am and catch two buses, then walk the couple of ks from Manly to Nth Head in order to get to work by 7:30 every day.

Often I was the first to arrive and one morning I arrived to find Ray asleep in front of the lunchroom door half lying inside a hessian grain bag he had found!

After waking him and asking what the hell he was doing in such a state I discovered he had not drunk quite enough that night and the spirits had driven him out of his home. He was a tough bastard and I got the impression he was not really that scared of them. It seemed to be more annoyance at not being able to sleep that had driven him out. I remember thinking it was 'spirits' alright... the liquid variety... and got on with my day.

My boss arrived and was not surprised at all. Apparently it was quite common for Ray to greet him as he unlocked the door to the office. This incident sparked some of the other longer-time workers to share their own experiences with us newer guys (there were two of us who had just started). I found out that none of them would work around the old hospital alone even during the day.

One rather large Italian bloke (I forget his name) told us of helping one of the rangers with a guided tour of the hospital. Although it was a number of buildings the main hospital was two main wards in one long structure. Each ward was separated by an enormous double fireplace with doors on both sides to allow access from one ward to another.

In each ward the beds were lined up a few feet apart along both walls under the windows. they were those old steel frame beds that weight a tonne but were on wheels. As the tour of about a dozen tourists went from one ward to another they passed through one of the doors and rather than walk out the door on the far side of the other ward they simply came back though after a couple of minutes... to get one hell of a shock!

While they had been in the other ward talking (for only a couple of minutes as there was nothing different to see, both wards were mirror images of each other), somehow the beds had all been moved and piled into the centre of the room in one big pyramid structure... without a sound!

Needless to say, it freaked out all involved, including the ranger who lived there and up to this stage had been disbelieving of any ghosts. He had not seen or heard any because he was living in the main house which had been occupied by the head honcho. Apparently this house was one of the few not haunted.

Because that day myself and the other new guy were supposed to be whipper-snipping around the hospital area I dismissed the story as an attempt to mess with us and got on with it. The other guy did not want to work near the hospital so I did that area myself... alone.

At first I was fine, busy with the job at hand. But it was not long when I began to feel the hair on my neck and shoulders rise. It felt like I was being watched from the hospital windows and as I type I can feel my hair rising and a sweaty chill all over my chest, neck, scalp shoulders and arms reliving the memory. At first I kept on with it and refused to look up at the windows in case I saw a face looking out at me. But the chill grew in intensity and I got angry at feeling scared. I worked away from the windows a little... there was no way I was going to look up while standing right under them... then, trying to catch whatever it was by surprise, I suddenly spun around and looked up, half expecting to see one of the workers staring at me through the dusty windows.

There was of course, nothing there. Admonishing myself for being an idiot I got back to the task at hand and finished the job. I didn't look up again and did the rest of the job with all my hair raised and chills coursing through my body, despite the midsummer heat and sweat pouring off me.

Now, up to this point my view on ghosts was non committal. I had 'experienced' similar feelings before at various times when I had scared myself into a chill, especially when younger... and even enjoyed the thrill of feeling such things. One of my favourite authors of the time was Stephen King (even though I never actually felt 'scared' while reading any of his books with one exception... when one day at home alone and reading one of his better books the shed door on my parents property had started squeaking despite no wind. I had investigated with the hair on my arms on end but found nothing of course.)

But this particular morning working around the hospital was not fun. The chills were so bad I felt physically sick by the end of it. When my break came I sat on the steps of one of the other buildings and ate my smoko looking directly at the dusty hospital windows, never seeing anything at all (mind you I could barely see through them they were so dirty). The entire time the chills ebbed and flowed in never-ending waves that were interesting to experience but not fun at all.

The job was only for 6 weeks and at the end of it my boss asked me to stay. He even somehow managed to sack another worker so he could offer me a permanent position! (something not easy to do in the public service)

But I enjoyed the student life too much and even though I was in the bush every day I was living in the city and missed the 'real' bush terribly. Before I left for Qld, he let me take a ute on my last day and go all around the harbour taking photos of where I had been working.

One photo I took was of the old morgue, complete with stone slab carved to allow the blood to run off into a bucket. I got a shock when this particular photo was developed. Although I remembered the walls of the small room to be dirty but basically whitewashed and clean, in the photos there was red splotches on some of the walls. It looked like blood had splattered everywhere!

Now this could be false memory... perhaps those splotches were always there but I had not noticed them. And perhaps my creeped out feelings around the old hospital was simply imagination... but it led me to create a theory about what 'ghosts' are...

I suspect them to be 'echoes' of human electrical memory. Our thoughts create literal electrical energy as the neurons in our brains fire. Perhaps, when under enormous emotional stress this electrical memory is so strong it can 'echo' through time? This could explain why when people literally 'see' ghosts the ghosts often are going about their business, ignorant of the people watching. They are literally seeing the 'memory' of long gone people... the 'echoes' of their existence in the house, or whatever.

[Simon M]

I agree with you about them being 'recorded' impressions, emotions or experiences left behind in a location by living people.

It's an idea I've heard before, and when you think about the repetitive nature of most ghost stories (people often report seeing the same images or experiencing the same things), a recording of sorts seems like a good description.

This old made-for-television movie is a good illustration of the concept you've described -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... tvJWKaDI9s

As for poltergeist type stuff, I've read theories that state this type of phenomena is created by telekinetic energy created by living people - perhaps in response to the presence of the same type of energy (electromagnetic fields?) that allows 'ghosts' to be recorded.

Poltergeist activity is often recorded in the presence of small groups of young women going through puberty at the same time (or this is what I've read) and it's been theorised that it may be an unintentional burst of telekinesis produced by a person, or by groups of individuals, but not under their conscious control.

The article I read this in was from an old copy of The Unexplained Magazine but this link sort of explains the concept -

http://www.prairieghosts.com/poltergeists1.html

And this book, apparently, is a compilation of the articles from that old magazine -

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/330 ... space-time

[Yowie bait]

I agree with you about them being 'recorded' impressions, emotions or experiences left behind in a location by living people.

It's an idea I've heard before, and when you think about the repetitive nature of most ghost stories (people often report seeing the same images or experiencing the same things), a recording of sorts seems like a good description.

This old made-for-television movie is a good illustration of the concept you've described -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_cont ... tvJWKaDI9s

As for poltergeist type stuff, I've read theories that state this type of phenomena is created by telekinetic energy created by living people - perhaps in response to the presence of the same type of energy (electromagnetic fields?) that allows 'ghosts' to be recorded.

Poltergeist activity is often recorded in the presence of small groups of young women going through puberty at the same time (or this is what I've read) and it's been theorised that it may be an unintentional burst of telekinesis produced by a person, or by groups of individuals, but not under their conscious control.

The article I read this in was from an old copy of The Unexplained Magazine but this link sort of explains the concept -

http://www.prairieghosts.com/poltergeists1.html

And this book, apparently, is a compilation of the articles from that old magazine -

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/330 ... space-time

Some great theories there Simon. Healy and Cropper , in the book 'Australian Poltergeist ' talk of possible and unintentional "polt mediums". People whio dont know it but are conduits for Poltergeist activity. Similar to what you mentioned about the telekinesis and emf.

[Simon M]

It's certainly a reasonable idea, I think.

Like the other stuff mentioned in this forum, it's clear that people tell stories of ghosts based on the experience of something, they just don't really know what that something is.

I think it's possible we can all tune into emotional echoes in a particular location. Even when it's not a 'haunted' place by reputation, we've all been to places where we didn't feel as if things were okay, or as they should be. That may be a less potent version of a haunting.

[Yowie bait]

Yeah ive felt that hair raising feeling at times and worked myself up over nothing as well. Ive heard and read a few times how people get a bad feeling leading up to " ghost" encounters. Sometimes so used to it that they know something is going to happen. Could they be causing or projecting it?

The left over energy or image is another theory that could be plausible. The whole phenomona could be a mix of alien abduction, interdimensional beings, sleep paralasis, waking dreams etc or even " ghosts" of people who have passed somehow.

Certainly is a lot of people seeing them.
I think Wolfs question. "What are they" is a good one!

[Wolf]

My wife, who I believe 100% has seen ghosts, literally.
As a child she saw a stranger wearing old style clothes walking behind her father at the kitchen bench.
This sort of thing lends strength to my 'electric memory' theory. There were many other 'experiences' with all the members of her family at that particular house. It also had a granny flat that her parents tried to rent out but the tenants kept leaving because of the ghosts.
She has also told me of being very ill in bed and being tended by an old lady. Her mother walked in and saw the old lady sitting on her daughter's bed. The old lady looked up and disappeared!
This sort of thing weakens my theory for how can a memory react to the present?

[Yowie bait]

My wife, who I believe 100% has seen ghosts, literally.
As a child she saw a stranger wearing old style clothes walking behind her father at the kitchen bench.
This sort of thing lends strength to my 'electric memory' theory. There were many other 'experiences' with all the members of her family at that particular house. It also had a granny flat that her parents tried to rent out but the tenants kept leaving because of the ghosts.
She has also told me of being very ill in bed and being tended by an old lady. Her mother walked in and saw the old lady sitting on her daughter's bed. The old lady looked up and disappeared!
This sort of thing weakens my theory for how can a memory react to the present?

Yep there is a lot of sane people seeing these things and in the shape or form of humans that they either know or have never met. A freind of mine stayed over at another mates place once.

The family mentioned nothing of ghosts but when he got up for a pee in the middle of the night, an old lady walked into the toilet before him and closed the door,

He waited politely outside until another family member came out and asked what he was doing waiting outside the toilet. He mentioned he was waiting for the grandmother to finish in the toilet.

They said the grandmother wasnt there and thats just the old lady who " lives" in the house. A ghost they see regularly and goes through the motions of living in the house. Of course they opened the door and there was no one there and Yeah im pretty sure she flushed the loo as well!lol

Ive spoken to other sane and very down to earth people who have had deceased relatives visit them and relayed the stories under a great deal of distress and almost unable to get the words out to tell.

Ive had experiences myself but only twice have i seen human like forms with features. One i knew and one i didnt. Most i have written off but theres a couple of experiences that i cant figure out at all. If they were " real" then theres some weird s#@t happening out there.

They seem to want attention...

[Lozza62]

I have no problem believing in ghosts as my grandmothers house was haunted and things happened that were seen by all the family and went on for years until the house was sold.I think there might be something in residual energy under the right conditions causing ghosts or enabling ghosts to appear.I find it amazing that ghosts can be recorded on tape as in audio and they also show up in photos.How can that be if they arent real?

[Wolf]

Leaving aside all instances where I potentially 'sensed' ghosts because of being simply spooked out in a park or similar at night, or while whippersnipping around the Quarantine Station hospital... I clearly remember one ghost that repeated itself to me many times.

One of my closest mates lived in one of the oldest homes in Toowoomba. It was a truly beautiful place with huge wooden panelled walls, verandahs, fireplace old sheds and massive dig trees we built tree houses in when younger.

Through my uni years I often crashed at this house or spent long nights sitting in the dark around the fire in the lounge room during cold Toowoomba winters. His folks spent months every year traveling abroad during this time.

One night while sitting near the fire I brought up something that had intrigued me for years but I had never spoke of it. You see, countless times I had sat there watching the fire and heard a dog scratching its ear behind me only to turn and there was nothing there!

Each time I expected to see my freind's dog, Heidi. And each time was momentarily confused when she was not there. I never bothered thinking on it too much because I knew he did have a dog.

But This time I had turned in my chair only to remember that Heidi had died of old age months previously!
I turned to my friend and told him I had just heard Heidi scratching her ear.

He said, that's not Heidi, that was a ghost dog that he had been hearing all his life in that house.
His words made me remember all the times I had heard this scratching when visiting, even during the day. It was sort of spooky after that, but because it was a dogs ghost it strangely didn't bother me like it would have if it was human.

Other freinds would hear it too and ask my mate if he had a dog.

[Tim*]

I can't offer any insight into what ghosts may be, but this is my one and only ghostly experience that puzzles me to this day.

I would have been 20 at the time and was living in an old rural farm house surrounded by cane fields. I later discovered it was, originally, a sewing shed and had been repurposed as a house.

As the area was low lying and flood prone, it was high set on stilts and had a set of 20 odd stairs that led to a smalll porch at the front door.

Inside the house, the window above the kitchen sink overlooked the porch at the front door so from inside the house, you could clearly see somebody walking up the steps before coming to the front door.

On this night I was sitting on the couch watching the idiot box. I had a clear view of the kitchen window from this position. Anyway, I was sitting there when i heard the jingling of keys. If you can imagine the sound one might make as they walk along juggling their keys in one hand. I thought this was strange as I wasn't expecting visitors at that hour. As I listened to the jingling of keys I saw the sillhouette of somebody climb the stairs and cross the porch. I waited for a knock at the door thinking this person would want to have a good reason for disturbing me at this time of night. But the knock never came, so I got up and opened the door but there was nobody there.

As I had a clear view to the porch there was no way the person could have turned around and walked back down the stairs without me seeing. To jump off the porch without breaking bones was an impossible feat. That only leaves one possibility?


That experience seems consistent with your idea Wolf that ghosts are on a loop, an idea I've heard before.

At no time that night, or any other time, did I pick up any unusual vibes from the house.

I've had plenty of other times that I have had that dreadful feeling of being watched but never accompanied by a sighting or other experience. I usually put it down to my mind assessing the surrounding environment as potentially dangerous and my body responding with a fight or flight response.

[carrie palmer]

They are all around. They do exist. They do see us. I strongly believe.
When a person dies his spirit gets separated from the body. And the spirit roams around.

[Wolf]

They are all around. They do exist. They do see us. I strongly believe.
When a person dies his spirit gets separated from the body. And the spirit roams around.

Not long after my Dad died my wife woke up in the middle of the night to see a tall, shadowy figure standing over my side of the bed, looking down at me sleeping. She 'knew' it was my old man and sensed he wanted to give me a hug. He had not been one for affection while alive and she believed he felt guilty for that. Perhaps it was this guilt that held him here for a short time.

I have heard others speak of feelings that keep spirits 'attached' and unwilling to leave the 3-dimensional physical world. It is like their attachment to the physical prevents them from being able to see the 'door' they must pass through to completely leave this world for the 'other side'.

[Wolf]

I've had plenty of other times that I have had that dreadful feeling of being watched but never accompanied by a sighting or other experience. I usually put it down to my mind assessing the surrounding environment as potentially dangerous and my body responding with a fight or flight response.

Well put. I have had many of those experiences over the years, perhaps they are simply a remnant of earlier times in our evolution. Or perhaps we truly sense something is indeed watching us.

[Tim*]

Yeah, I guess it could be either/or Wolf.

Only thing I do know for certain is the fight or flight response is real, we use it everyday.

The people that want to believe it's a paranormal related thing will run with that.

[Yowie bait]

I have no problem believing in ghosts as my grandmothers house was haunted and things happened that were seen by all the family and went on for years until the house was sold.I think there might be something in residual energy under the right conditions causing ghosts or enabling ghosts to appear.I find it amazing that ghosts can be recorded on tape as in audio and they also show up in photos.How can that be if they arent real?

Hey Lozza did you ever see anything at your Grandmothers house?

I suspect the old house i grew up in was haunted. I went there recently to visit my mum. When i walked in there i shocked what i thought was a white cat stopped in its tracks looking at me in terror. I realized it was some ferret type thing and then it went kind of transparent and disappeared under or into the couch. I was so convinced that i looked for it for 15 min or so and it was nowhere to be found. Not even under the couch . Maybe it was hiding from Wolfs mates ghost dog. Lol!

There is a place down the road from where i live now where they built on old graves . They relocated the headstones but not the graves. This is what ive been told by a few locals and i remember the small cemetery there from when i was a kid.

The old folks in the retirement home thats there now have apparently had all sorts of ghost trouble and poltergeist. They have had priests, ghost talkers, exorcists etc down there so ive been told.

We have things happen here too and were not far from there. We have paintings fall or jump off the wall, same one and same trajectory into the photos each time but i dont accept that as ghost. The things that really proved it for me was a short, thick low based, heavy ornament that was turned on its side with a loud bang while we were only a few metres away. We didnt see it happen but went over and couldnt see how it could possibly happen.!? Doeent sound like much but i cant find an explanation.

The other is cutlery rattling in the drawer in the kitchen when i was sleeping on the couch regularly for awhile( snoring, sleep running etc). There was no earth tremor, train,Plane etc or anything else rattling, just the cutlery in the one drawer. Now I'd heard things other nights and we have a clean rodent and pet free house. Id figured it could be geckos moving around, scratching and moving stuff but cutlery rattling in the drawer is something ive never heard and really freaked me out.

They also tap our heads among other things. It was funny till it happened to me..

[Lozza62]

Hi Yowie Bait....My grandmothers house was a do drop in for all the family.Every Saturday night was card night and my family would sit round the big old wooden table and play 500 or canasta.One night they had all settled in the kitchen and started to play cards when the windows in the back bedroom started opening and slamming shut several times my father went into the room and all was quiet and he could see there was noone in the room(he thought it was us kids mucking about) he soon realised we were all in the lounge room watching TV.The windows were the old-fashioned push up ones we put a stick in to hold them up they used to be hard to open they would jam sometimes.This happened quite frequently.The toilet would flush with nobody in the toilet.The scariest thing was always directed towards my mum,sometimes when she walked up the hallway there would be loud knocking coming from the walls as she walked up the hall funny thing is it freaked us out but it didn't faze mum she believed it was family members just letting her know they are around,the knocking happened at all hours day and night but only to mum.Nan had an toaster that you pulled the sides down and popped your toast in....anyway late at night the sides used to open and flipped closed making a distinctive metallic clang.The doors used to open and close by themselves the doorknobs were a straight bar that you pulled down to open and countless times we were in the lounge room and we would watch the doorknob go down and the door open about halfway so we saw that there was nobody there and the door would slowly close and then the handle would go back up.The day the house was sold it was open house before the auction so people were wandering in and out all the windows started opening and closing in all the rooms at the same time then the doors started opening and slamming shut....we were concerned someone was going to get hit by one of the doors so our auctioneer quickly ushered everyone out to the backyard.To say it unnerved the people there is an understatement but only two couples left and the auction went ahead with every window and door slamming constantly.Don't think our family wanted us to sell the house but regardless it sold that day.I often wonder if the owners had the same happen to them or if it all stopped when we left.There were other things like the sound of heavy boots traipsing round the veranda even when the light was on and once again we could see noone was there.Everyone except me and my younger brother has seen my great grandmother sitting in the spot she used to sit by the combustion stove.After all that growing up I know ghosts exist.

[Yowie bait]

Wow thats mad! The ghost experts would call that classic poltergeist activity with your mum being the main target for some reason. That auctioneer certainly had their work cut out for him.Lol!

[Simon M]

I honestly think the reason they seem to react is that they're partial projections of the human beings who see them; a residual echo, or 'electric memory' as Wolf puts it. They have some form of physicality, which is why they're seen, photographed, heard and can open doors, etc.

Having never seen anything like this myself, I'm guessing, but the idea that they're partially generated by the observer's presence seems reasonable to me. It may be that the observer is the 'battery' that triggers/powers the existing 'recording' in that location.

This could be a potential explanation of the Yowie as well - a projection of the human subconscious which has a physical nature but which isn't actually alive. It's certainly a possibility I'd consider except for the fact that there have been sound recordings made where no human observer was present, which undermines my 'the observer generates the phenomena' concept. I tend to think there may be a correlation between people who see or sense Yowies and people who are sensitive to things such as psychic phenomena. Perhaps you need a certain kind of awareness, or to be 'tuned in' to a particular wavelength, to be able to notice certain things. That might explain why only a few people witness unusual phenomena and it is seen as a 'fringe' topic. If only a small proportion of the population are capable of witnessing certain phenomena, then the majority who cannot experience it have no reason to think about it.

[Simon M]

....of course, given Lozza's account, it may be that some of these residual energies are more potent or intense than others. Maybe some are so strong that anyone can see them manifesting themselves? I don't know, obviously.

[Yowie bait]

Yeah its a reasonable theory as any the projecting thing. What i said about that white cat ferret was actually like a memory as it was familiar.

It could have just been a sneaky little cat of course but its funny it sparked a conversation between my mother and i about a ferret type creature ( probably a qoull) we had both seen seperately many years ago.

I didnt know shed seen it and she didnt know id seen it either. Eventually we figured out we had both seen it probably the same morning and place but from different vantage points but neither had mentioned it!

[Yowie bait]

I think with ghosts experiences it is important to look for answers before jumping to conclusions. Like really is a painting falling off the wall or a light bulb blowing or dimming when a deceased persons name mentioned etc really ghost activity?

In a situation like Lozzas its obviously some serious activity with repeated happenings or stuck windows slamming but the odd well timed door slamming and being held down for instance can always be attributed to simply coincidence or sleep paralasis or similar condition which is a whole other phenomona in itself .

I know i would rather look for a logical explanation than to believe i was being haunted or attacked by ghosts. Of course theres always the unexplabable things as well and whatever they are, theyre usually labelled as ghosts.

[Lozza62]

Hi everyone.....My family were convinced that the things that happened were caused by our deceased relatives.Nobody was ever harmed and after a while we learnt to ignore most of what was going on although it did scare a few visitors from the house.Most of the activity seemed to happen just before something big was going on or just before someone died ...it seemed to me they were warning us, a few days after that card night my nan's sister passed and that wasn't a isolated incident it got to the point we knew something was going to happen in the family especially the knocks foretold deaths,a fire and a serious car accident and it never failed.I know people are going to think it was just coincidence but when there was nothing happening the house had only minor activity.

[Lozza62]

Ghosts seem to have as many theories as to what they are as yowies.Why do they show up on film when a lot of the time the person taking the photo didn't see the ghost until after the pics were developed.The creepiest photo I believe is the one taken inside a church by a priest during the 60s of a hooded and long robed figure that the priest didn't see at the time.Way before the days of Photoshop its an authentic photo.Reminds me of the elephant man.

[Yowie bait]

Sounds ghastly Lozza! Like the yowie, ghosts are part of our culture in a big way. Without mentioning the ancient cultures and art, cave paintings, lore etc, theres heaps of ghosts in western modern culture manifesting in all sorts of ways. I doubt i could count all the ghosts in tv shows i watched growing up.

Ghost and mrs muir, my mother the car, spirit of 76,casper the freindly ghost, space ghost etc etc,just to name a few. Not exactly accutate portayals but quality programming nonetheless.

I didnt mention scooby doo as they were all proven to be hoaxes in the end...

[Yowie bait]

Whoops. Accurate portrayals...

[Lozza62]

The Ghost and Mrs Muir......your showing your age Yowiebait.....loved that show!

[Yowie bait]

The Ghost and Mrs Muir......your showing your age Yowiebait.....loved that show!

Yes a top show. Ive had the theme in my head all day! . I was born in 69 so got to enjoy the benefits of syndication and reruns except for my mother the car i think.. Another favourite was the munsters. Who would have thought that a bunch of ghouls could provide such wholesome family values?

[M-glass]

I can't believe this. I timed-out after writing a post that took an hour to compose.

[AL Pitman]

Hi Wolf
Does that mean that pooch is scratching at ghost fleas ??
Please don't tell me that those damn insects are haunting dogs poor dogs even after they have passed .
I hate fleas !!

[M-glass]

A man in his mid-60s died in the middle of the night. He'd been fine when he went to bed around 9pm. Three or four nights later, the deceased man appeared before his adult son in the backyard. The son reported this encounter to his wife moments later and said it seemed his father had wanted to say something to him. If that was the case, no conversation ensued because the son immediately and hurriedly returned to the safety of the house. This occurred several decades ago. I know the son and his wife very well. The wife remembers the incident clearly. Her husband now claims not to remember it despite that it upset him at the time it occurred

It's said that priests and other clergy are sometimes approached individually by several members of a family who've recently experienced a bereavement. In such cases, each person swears the priest to confidence before revealing the deceased has approached them either visually, audibly, or via other signs. None of them wants other family members to know of this

Years ago, one of the Australian women's magazines ( I think it was mid to late 1980s, Women's Day) ran a two-page article which I tucked into a book which is one of hundreds in containers in the basement garage. Maybe one day I'll come across it and be able to post further detail. From what I remember, however, it involved a married couple then in comfortable middle-age in, I think, Victoria. Their son had died in a traffic accident several months earlier. He was haunting them. The haunting was still in progress at the time the article was published. I wouldn't have revealed the situation before the world if it were me, but for whatever reasons, the couple had chosen to do so. That one article is all I've been able to find since

Photographs accompanied the article and I can remember them. In one, the wife is shown sitting in a very nice armchair. There was a photo of their television and living-room and another of their half-glass back door. According to the couple, on several occasions when the wife attempted to sit in her armchair, something invisible attempted to thrust her out of it and often succeeded. During the same period, their son had several times appeared in the upper, glass section of their back door, screaming for help and asking forgiveness. His mother, naturally, was suffering as result and her condition was worsening. The couple's television set was quite new and had been trouble-free prior to their son's death. After his death, the television was prone to malfunction and often switched channels or switched off suddenly. On a number of occasions, the couple's deceased son's face appeared on the screen

I can't remember the husband's profession, but it provided them with what appeared to be a comfortable lifestyle. He continued to work for the most part, although increasingly his wife's deteriorating condition necessitated his taking time from work. He confided in an associate who was, for the times, technically knowledgeable. The friend suggested the husband photograph his son's face on the television and the thrusting of his wife from her chair by invisible hands, if/when they occurred. The wife agreed to this. Some of the photos accompanied the article. A photo of the deceased son's face as it appeared on their television was shown (in the article) alongside a photo which had been taken while the son was alive. I remember spending several minutes studying the photos and they definitely seemed to me to be of the same individual

The couple had engaged a professional to attend to their malfunctioning television. He could find nothing wrong with it. When the problems persisted, the couple purchased a new television which became prone to the same problems as the first. It might be that they were on their third new television when the article was published. Doctors had prescribed various medications intended to help the wife sleep and relax. She was of normally stable disposition and the couple had, upon advice, taken a number of holidays. They were attempting to live as normally as possible and had dinner with friends, continued their usual hobbies and interests, etc. The camera used by the husband was newly purchased on advice from his knowledgeable friend. Photographic laboratories could find nothing wrong with the camera, nor were there signs of tampering with the photographs or negatives

The wife and her spouse simply wanted the phenomena to stop. She said 'pressure' sometimes prevented her from assuming her usual seat in her armchair. Two photos, taken in sequence, showed her attempting to sit in the chair followed by another in which she can be seen half on and half off the seat and off-balance. The couple had changed some detail of her chair but I can't remember if the original chair had been replaced by a new one or if the couple had swapped their chairs. Whatever the case, on occasion (not all the time) she was prevented from sitting/was pushed out of the chair. On several occasions, the couple had heard their son's voice and upon entering the hallway, they'd seen their son outside their half-glass back door, pleading to be let in and begging for help and for forgiveness. I'm not sure if the article included a photo of this. Apparently the son felt responsible in some way for dying in the car crash

It's difficult to imagine why a seemingly respectable couple would expose the above situation, which can only be described as hellish. Perhaps they hoped that by publishing it, someone would be able to help them resolve it? Back then, women's magazines were far less trashy than today, possibly because there was no competition from internet (Facebook, YouTube, etc.) and they were able to afford to employ decent journalists. Such magazines back then published the latest in medical research, etc. and I remember at around the same time, in the news, a doctor said the average housewife was often more informed than many in the medical profession who simply didn't have time to stay abreast of medical research

Whether or not the couple's ordeal was resolved, I cannot say. Were they being haunted by their deceased son or was the couple (either/or/both) externalising their grief via the phenomena they described, some of which was photographed?

In the Gold Coast Bulletin during roughly the same period, it was reported (in two separate articles, from memory) that a young woman had been badly injured in a car accident in which, I think, the driver had been killed. She was a single mother and had bought a very nice dress from an Op-shop for a fraction of what must obviously have been its original price. She was wearing that dress when injured in the crash. During her recovery, she learned more about the dress. It had been purchased originally for a young woman to wear to a graduation ball. That girl, the original owner of the dress and while wearing it, had died in a vehicle crash a month or two earlier. The girl who'd bought it from the Op-shop now believed the dress to possibly be cursed and responsible for the crash which had almost taken her life. A photograph of the second girl and the dress in question accompanied the article. Possibly, members of the family of the girl who had died (original owner of the dress) had contacted the second girl or the Op-shop to explain the history of the dress, but I can't be sure

Photographs of the second girl showed her to be conservative and intelligent in appearance and her comments were sober and considered. She mentioned that she'd had misgivings about the dress when she'd first tried it on but it had fit her perfectly and was of expensive cut and fabric. This and the fact it was so inexpensive had persuaded her to purchase it for a special occasion. Since leaving hospital, she had destroyed the dress in order what might be a coincidence or worse could not affect anyone else