How do we explain ghosts?

[Nessie]

But that is all you have. Stories.

From credible witnesses who have positions of responsibility that they can undermine by telling fabrications.

It is assumed that ghosts are dead people. Of my ghost stories, only one is potentially linked to a death and it may be a coincidence. The haunting of the house I lived in may have been happening before the death.

The gunshot story is not assuming the girl who was seen was the person shot. The lady and the book and the lady in the bedroom are not linked to deaths at all.

It is assumed hauntings are dead people from the past. But is that necessarily what ghosts are?

 

[Nessie]

Plot Hole
If the minister throws the "cursed book" into the fire and thus it is destroyed then how in hell did the maid see this happen before? The previous person would have also destroyed the same book.

The way it was related was the staff member walked in to see the minister next to the fire, which had a book in it. If you walked in on someone who had just thrown a book into a fire, you would still see it. A book does not burn away like a single piece of paper in a matter of seconds.

 

[Pope130]

I am not surprised, since unless someone is filming/photographing at a very specific time or has the presence of mind in what would be shocking situation to start filming or photographing, what are the chances of capturing a ghost on a camera/phone?

In the early days of photography, when only a tiny percentage of people had cameras, and those were unwieldy devices taking quite some time to get into action, ghost photos were more common than they are today, when nearly everyone has a camera in there pocket, ready to go at the touch of a button. This makes no sense, If any phenomenon is of fairly consistent occurrence, then the number of observations should be proportional to the number of observers.

In other areas of public interest, aircraft crashes, building collapses, tornadoes, meteors, celebrity sightings, pratfalls, ridiculous outfits, and so forth the number of photos has vastly increased. By contrast, photos of ghosts, UFOs and cryptids have decreased.

 

[Nessie]

In the early days of photography, when only a tiny percentage of people had cameras, and those were unwieldy devices taking quite some time to get into action, ghost photos were more common than they are today, when nearly everyone has a camera in there pocket, ready to go at the touch of a button. This makes no sense, If any phenomenon is of fairly consistent occurrence, then the number of observations should be proportional to the number of observers.

In other areas of public interest, aircraft crashes, building collapses, tornadoes, meteors, celebrity sightings, pratfalls, ridiculous outfits, and so forth the number of photos has vastly increased. By contrast, photos of ghosts, UFOs and cryptids have decreased.

There was a time when ghosts were a popular effect to be created by photographers. I think that the very nature of early cameras and the time it took for images to appear, meant that ghostly images were relatively easy to create.

 

[wasapi]

I am wondering why the idea of a ghost looking like someone with a sheet over them, originated. At least, when I was a child I believed they were Casper-like, but much creepier. Of course I gathered the information from comics, low budget scary movies, and other kids.

My parents said that ghosts weren't real. Oh right, as if they knew anything.

 

[kellyb]

I am not surprised, since unless someone is filming/photographing at a very specific time or has the presence of mind in what would be shocking situation to start filming or photographing, what are the chances of capturing a ghost on a camera/phone?

Are ghosts far more rare than giant meteors in the sky?

 

[kellyb]

From credible witnesses who have positions of responsibility that they can undermine by telling fabrications.

Did any of your witnesses experience these negative consequences from telling their story?

 

[Nessie]

Did any of your witnesses experience these negative consequences from telling their story?

The two cops got a lot of ridiculing from colleagues. As for the rest, I do not know.

After we admitted to hearing the footsteps in the house, we were told that other residents had had similar experiences.

 

[Axxman300]

I am wondering why the idea of a ghost looking like someone with a sheet over them, originated. At least, when I was a child I believed they were Casper-like, but much creepier. Of course I gathered the information from comics, low budget scary movies, and other kids.

My parents said that ghosts weren't real. Oh right, as if they knew anything.

Funeral Shrouds were common until embalming became a thing. Helped with the whole "risen from the dead" thing. Also a common trick of the eye in low light, which was standard before electricity.

 

[Axxman300]

I am not surprised, since unless someone is filming/photographing at a very specific time or has the presence of mind in what would be shocking situation to start filming or photographing, what are the chances of capturing a ghost on a camera/phone?

Considering the number of cellphone videos of spontaneous events, many catastrophic, I'd suggest the odds are pretty good these day.

 

[kellyb]

Considering the number of cellphone videos of spontaneous events, many catastrophic, I'd suggest the odds are pretty good these day.

Lots of people have video cameras recording most rooms in their homes now all the time, too.

 

[p0lka]

The two cops got a lot of ridiculing from colleagues. As for the rest, I do not know.

After we admitted to hearing the footsteps in the house, we were told that other residents had had similar experiences.

Well, the two cops did let a witness leave the scene of a potential gunshot incident, in ridiculous circumstances,
so yeah, i think they deserve the ridicule, heh.

 

[kellyb]

Funeral Shrouds were common until embalming became a thing. Helped with the whole "risen from the dead" thing. Also a common trick of the eye in low light, which was standard before electricity.

Ooooohh! Duh! I'd never even thought of that before.

 

[Matthew Ellard]

...... unless someone is filming/photographing at a very specific time or has the presence of mind in what would be shocking situation to start filming or photographing, what are the chances of capturing a ghost on a camera/phone?

In the early days of photography, when only a tiny percentage of people had cameras, and those were unwieldy devices taking quite some time to get into action, ghost photos were more common than they are today, when nearly everyone has a camera in there pocket ....... If any phenomenon is of fairly consistent occurrence, then the number of observations should be proportional to the number of observers.............. By contrast, photos of ghosts, UFOs and cryptids have decreased.

I totally agree with Pope130's observation. The volume of ghost photos has decreased yet the number of ready cameras and ease to take a photo has increased exponentially.

I additionally suggest that the changing manner ghosts look, between old film and modern digital images had been dependent on the change of technology, which further indicates forgery. Otherwise it means ghosts have evolved and changed dramatically over the last 150 years.

 

[Nessie]

I totally agree with Pope130's observation. The volume of ghost photos has decreased yet the number of ready cameras and ease to take a photo has increased exponentially.

I additionally suggest that the changing manner ghosts look, between old film and modern digital images had been dependent on the change of technology, which further indicates forgery. Otherwise it means ghosts have evolved and changed dramatically over the last 150 years.

The ghost stories that have me convinced there is something out there, involved people thinking they were seeing or hearing other real people, until they realised they were not. By then it was too late to whip out a phone and photo what had been seen. The problem is knowing what you are seeing in time to react.

I have never believed that spooky shapes, shadows, ghosts in sheets, headless people and that form of ghost to be real and they can be explained.

 

[kellyb]

The ghost stories that have me convinced there is something out there, involved people thinking they were seeing or hearing other real people, until they realised they were not. By then it was too late to whip out a phone and photo what had been seen. The problem is knowing what you are seeing in time to react.

I have never believed that spooky shapes, shadows, ghosts in sheets, headless people and that form of ghost to be real and they can be explained.

Like I said, lots of people have cameras recording all the time in their homes now. Cops in the US wear body cams now, too, quite often. Where are the ghost pics/videos from them?

 

[steenkh]

Like I said, lots of people have cameras recording all the time in their homes now. Cops in the US wear body cams now, too, quite often. Where are the ghost pics/videos from them?

Well, there are they videos of moths close to the camera that are posed as ghost pics!

But even these are disappearing as the frame rate goes up.

 

[Axxman300]

You're confusing the idea of credible witnesses with independent verification but they are two separate things.

I have reports from:

Police Officers
Security Guards
Accountants
Fire Fighters
EMT's
US Army Rangers
US Special Forces operators.
US Army Snipers
USMC Scout Snipers

I don't have any from:

Scientists
Medical Doctors

Hack ghost hunters love to throw around the phrase "Trained Observer" as if the extra training some professions receive make them infallible. If this were true cops wouldn't be shooting unarmed suspects because they moved their hands the wrong way. Yes, they can spot things that untrained people are never aware of but they're still human and subject to the same mistakes in perception everyone else can make.

Many of those people on that first list work LONG hours each day, and each week. Fatigue is the largest problem in law enforcement which goes unaddressed due to budget and manpower shortages. How sharp is a cop in his 10th hour of his or her fourth 14-hour day? Guess what? They're going to see things wrong. Hell, even doctors fall victim to fatigue and make catastrophic mistakes.

When a Special Forces guy tells me a cool story about seeing a ghost in Iraq I believe him, I believe he saw something. But that still doesn't make the ghost real. Keeping the two things separate is key to unlocking the real mystery.

 

[theprestige]

I am wondering about ghosts and how rational minded people claim to see them. When my mum was a child she claimed to see three shadows, she awoke from a strange noise coming from the window and then three spirits appeared and one pointed at her. How do we explain when people claim to see ghosts?

The more I think about this, the more I think it's the wrong way around. We don't explain ghosts. Ghosts *are* the explanation.

We experience or hear about some phenomenon without an obvious cause, and we offer ghosts as an explanation for what was observed.

We see this most clearly in Nessie's anecdotes. Something was observed how to explain it? Ghosts? Error of perception? Error of memory? Unreliable narrator?

 

[Nessie]

Like I said, lots of people have cameras recording all the time in their homes now. Cops in the US wear body cams now, too, quite often. Where are the ghost pics/videos from them?

I have not looked to see if there are any credible recordings.