Extraordinary Evidence for Ghosts?

[SirPhilip]

Whether it was spiritual or not is not the issue. How it compares to your experience is.

Fill a pot full of water, boil until steam happens. Pretend steam glows and is blue and in a not-so-vague shape of a head, and gives off a bit of light. That's about it...

Besides being the No True Scotsman fallacy this is simply adding insult and compounding the arrogance of your position. There was positively no doubt. What I saw was clearer than the clarity you have communicated regarding what you saw. And I was considerably older.

If you were offended by my being dismissive, then my apologies. If you stand up right now, look behind you, and see a solid blue, self-luminescent form of a face sticking out of a wall for half a minute, you aren't going to sit back down and say that in good faith. You'll be curiously looking at medical literature and what it could possibly be otherwise with Beth (Mark?) and I.

If you do not equate it, then why do you bring it up except in an attempt to denigrate my experience.

Not my intention at all.

It is this type of response that leads me to question your sincerity again.
That's not completely true. It makes me think you are another example of what I was and another example of what so many believers are like. Sincere, but bound to their beliefs without recognizing the degree.

I don't want to believe one way or the other. I lean slightly towards strange natural phenomena of course, but only because I can't imagine it as anything else than glowing gas, and it provides closure to what was obviously observed. There's no belief or emotional investment in these types of cases. If you look at very rare cases where malignant phenomena happen, it is entirely different. In these cases, skepticism on their part is reversed - they end up taking rational explanations against their better judgement.

Someone presents a similar experience with mundane explanations and you resort to to rationalization and claims that my experience couldn't be like yours, else I would also believe.

Well, you haven't explained how you arrived at that closure either. If what you saw was:

- Under conditions where you weren't in trance, under the influence
of drugs, sleep-deprivation, or other self-induced states, but instead
high alertness (as would be the case in looking for people hiding somewhere).

- What you saw was semi-solid in color and persisted for the good part
of half minute, with a sharp, discernable, undeniable form.

Then yes, it is perfectly equated to what I observed, and your comparison
is valid and important.

No. People think they know, deep down, what is true and what isn't, and it most certainly has nothing to do with reasoning ability.

If people realize what they claim is questionable, it is either emotional attachment (it was a relative, my guardian angel, etc) or dishonesty. Pat Roberston has the same reasoning hardware as Randi does, but takes his stance merely because of social and cultural conditioning. He has his doubts and conflicts, knows they are valid, it is why it is necessary to reinforce them by making more people believe it, It is just dishonesty. Back to me, though, I think I know it was me, but deep down, I know it was an objective phenomena.

 

[CFLarsen]

Once a picture has been scanned and transformed into digital media, all bets are off - anyone can make convincing ghost pics with patience and a stolen copy of the latest Photoshop edition.

Heavens, you don't even need that.

 

[CFLarsen]

Interesting critique, although the guy says that he gets his pitures developed at Walgreens. Though he does do some photography for weddings on an amateur basis, he claims to only develop black and white photos since colour is expensive.

BING! BING! BING! BING!

Male Bovine Manure Detector just went off.

He lets this kind of photo handle by Walgreens?? No offense, but Walgreens are "production-line" photo developers. Why not go to some really professional, who will handle the film with the greatest care?

 

[Beth]

I don't buy this. I suspect you have no explanation you like as much.

Statements like this are why I avoid posting the details of personal experiences on public forums like this. I find this type of statement every bit as offensive as you do the argument that 'if you had seen what I had seen, you'd say what I'm saying'.

However, it does bring me back to my original point which was why I posted a very brief outline of my experience. I have NO rational explanation that would account for what I saw. Thus the only remaining rational expanations rely on the idea that I didn't actually see what I thought I saw: I'm lying, I'm mistaken in some way, I had a hallucination, etc. I do not accept such explanations. I saw something. I don't know what it was. Even though I cannot offer any proof other than my testimony, I know I'm not lying or mistaken about what I saw. I see no reason to think I had a hallucination on the way to class one morning. I saw something.

Now, it's easy for other people to quote Paine and assume I'm lying. Or simply assume that I didn't see what I thought I saw. My original point was that as the individual who had the experience, I cannot so easily dismiss it as being a lie or mistaken. So I'll continue to wonder what it was I saw.

 

[Soapy Sam]

Technical aspects aside, I'm pretty sure that if I just happened to be walking around a very grotty old house with a camera and take the time to get off a well exposed shot of a floating apparition, I'd also take the time to get the sucker in the centre of the shot. Or take many shots, perhaps in the hope that one of them will turn out and not be blurred or badly exposed.

What we have here is one well-exposed, reasonably focused and steady shot of a stairwell with possibly the most amazing thing the photographer claims to have ever seen just making it into the side of the frame. Bollocks, as we say in the UK.

This post wins the Soapy Sam Award for Concise Summation of What Should Have Been Blindingly Obvious to Everybody. Excellently put.

 

[Yeah_Right]

Thanks to everyone for their input, wether it be to analyse the photos, or to share a supposed sighting of a ghost. I never thought this was evidence, but I did want some experienced scrutiny of this photo. I thought about posting, with permission of course, some of the comments on this board to the Ghostly Talk board, but thought it wouldn't do much good, since those people are already convinced that the photo is real.

From what I heard on the archived webcast, the person that shot the photo, saw this ghost come up the stairs and go into a room and vanish. Too bad he didn't capture this entire sequence of events. They had video cameras planted all over the place, he should have grabbed one and filmed the "appariton", perhaps that might have been a bit more convincing.

The video cameras just caught sounds of things moving around and doors slamming shut, which was the result of "paranormal" activity, and the investigators were apparently outside when all this occured. They also had some glowsticks that were moved and buried under some leaves close to the house. One sorta interesting event was a window that was blown out as they were standing next to it. Of course this window was boarded up so they didn't see it occur. I am not sure if they ventured outside to see evidence of glass on the ground. If that did happen I am pretty sure there must be a parsimonious explanation. I would have loved to have been on that hunt to see what actually happened, especially when the photo was taken.

As for the posters that had their experiences, since I was not present I can't say one way or another what they saw. But since it is anecdotal testimony, and very subjective, well it just doesn't add up to evidence. Nuff said for now.