I Do, I Do, I DO! Believe in Ghosts

By Sarah

The major news media seemed shocked last week when an expertly timed poll revealed that one third of us believe in ghosts.

Well, duh. Everyone knows that if you don't believe in ghosts they come to haunt you. Look at this guy. Thanks to his skepticism, he has a spooky back seat driver.

Frankly, I don't know how a person can't believe in ghosts, though I doubt highly that ghosts haunt graveyards in order to spook the occasional curious crowd of teenagers. That makes no sense. The living spend very little time around the place where their remains will lie, so why would they haunt it when they're dead? That's like going on vacation and showing slides of where you threw your trash.

No. Ghosts are merely reflections of obsessions. The lighthouse caretaker who is so bound by his duty to insure no ships crash on his coast that a certain part of his spirit still cannot leave. The nurse who walks the halls caring for patients. The murder victim who, having died prematurely, continues to believe she's alive. Ditto for some children or teenagers.

How do I know? Because the British say so. Our friends from London are perfectly sane, normal people (aside from a rather odd Big Brother fascination) who talk about ghosts like they discuss dogs. (Though perhaps not with the same loving tone.) To them, ghosts are just what come with old houses - on the same par with a creaking floorboard or a tipped foundation. Slightly troublesome, but not concerning.

For example, Anna - the wife and mother in this family - tells the story of a house her friend owns that  is haunted by a nanny who patrols at night insuring everyone is safe and sound. Anna herself has seen this specter moving from room to room, through walls and such. One afternoon she looked up to see the nanny peering at her from the upstairs window.

Still don't believe me? Consider a former editor of mine, a delightful woman not given to fancy in the least who, after living in her Manhattan condominium for many years, woke up one night to find a nicely dressed old man studying her from across the room. After giving her a good long look, he neatly draped his coat over his arm and walked through the wall.

She never saw him again.

But forget hearsay and friends of a friend. Here's a video posted on youtube (one of several) showing a ghost who haunts a pantry that opens and closes at night. For full effect, I'd watch this one first and then this one and finally, this one, the freakiest of all. (Though what the hell is a short escrow.) Also, here's a website (of many) devoted to ghost photographs.

(Okay...so I procrastinate when I'm hammering out first drafts.)

Here's my favorite. It's of a Toys 'R Us where strange things were happening, toys were falling off shelves (is that strange for aToys 'R Us?), etc. It's the guy leaning against the wall in the back. He wasn't there when the photographer took the photo.

Or was he? Here's a link to read more.

Do I believe in ghosts ? Well, that depends on how you define ghost. Charlie and I had our honeymoon haunting I've told you about in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. And then there was this cottage my family rented on Lieutenant's Island off of Wellfleet. It was an old duck hunting cottage, isolated and small. A tinderbox. Even as a teenager I could not sleep in the back bedroom because "something" would visit me at night. Sometimes I'd feel fingers running through my hair, other times I'd wake bolt upright, frightened out of my wits. I hated that room.

Years later, when my brothers and I were renting the cottage and overlapping stays with friends, my brother asked if I'd ever felt odd about that back bedroom. He and his then wife had actually seen the ghost. A friend of mine woke up screaming in that room claiming there was a hand around her neck while my best friend since age four, a devout Catholic and Stephen King freak slept like a rock.

So those are my ghost stories. You've probably got a rational explanation for these sightings. (I'm reading Alan Lightman's book now.) Or maybe you believe, too. Either way, there is no better season than now, when the line that separates the living from the dead is at its thinnest, to dish.

Happy Halloween!

Sarah

Comments

[Tammee]

I have been hovering around the site without posting, but just can't be in place where ghosts are discussed and not tell my tale. My mother, aunt and her friend (and me) were all staying the night at the friend's apartment. We were all lying on her great big bed laughing and telling stories. As the friend and my aunt talked about what a loser the friend's ex husband was (who had died), there was a major slam to the bottom of the bed and a scream from my aunt. My mother and I were terrified and the woman just said, "Oh that's him, he's just mad." My aunt said her back was hurting so we took a look and she had a big red handprint on her back. Not a good rest of the night I can tell you.

[SarahS]

Tammmeeee!!

I may not sleep, either!

[Abbe]

I love a good scary story, on the page and on the screen, but I've yet to personally encounter any otherworldly phenomenon. Not even something remotely coincidental or creepy... so I remain a skeptic.

[ArkansasCyndi]

Oh - I love ghost stories! My dad's office is haunted by an old man. Thin. Black, I think. Dad says when he's working alone, it's not uncommon to hear file drawers opening and closing. Others in the office have heard it also.
The little girls down the street used to come visit "the old man".
Then, the garbage collection agency decided they would no longer get the trash from the side of the building and that the office would have to use one of those big green monsters that you roll to the street every week. Dad's employees never rolled the trash to the street but left it on the side of the house (didn't know they were supposed to). The trash guys reported that they felt so sorry for the old man standing on the porch when they picked up the trash, they never made him roll out the trash bin.
I've never seen this ghost and neither has dad. But he did research into the building and knows who the old guy was. Since the ghost doesn't do anything destructive, they just leave him alone.

[Mary Storyteller]

Cyndi: Since the ghost doesn't do anything destructive, they just leave him alone.
Seems the best advice to me -- if I person was good in life, why would they a little thing like death change that? I said that to the little ones at the Historic Haunting last weekend. We were to be "not too scary" for the benefit of the little ones. It was great fun!
Pam, we have to get together for coffee soon . . . .

[Felicia Donovan]

Sarah:
Greetings from the Seacoast of New Hampshire. I was never a believer until just recently. I have my characters explore the paranormal a bit in the second of The Black Widow Agency series, SPUN TALES (due out in July, 2008). The four fun Black Widows have quite an entertaining debate over whether ghosts exist or not.

Borrowing from the popularity of the Ghost Hunters TV show and their group, TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society), some of my gal friends and I have formed our own little ghost hunting group. We call ourselves the "Paranormal Maidens Society" or PMS for short. I'm not sure who should be more frightened, us or the ghosts.

Felicia Donovan
Author, THE BLACK WIDOW AGENCY Series
www.feliciadonovan.com

[Kerry, the Martial Tart]

What cool stories! I don't have any of my own, but have friends and family members who have experienced things not easily explained. One of the really cool things about being a scientist is knowing how very much we don't know; it leaves me lots of latitude to be skeptical on the one hand (such as where profits are involved), but open to possibilities on the other.

[Mary Storyteller]

Toni, just got to your story -- marvelous! what a nice ghost!

[Mary Storyteller]

and just read my earlier post -- when I was obviously distracted . .
should be
if a person was good in life, why would a little thing like death change that?
Fits Toni's ghost perfectly!

[j renee stuart]

Okay... a little late to the party tonite, but - here goes. the house we live in is over 100 years old (and - oh yeah... borders a cemetary... duh)and has had some very strange happenings.
One time I was standing in the living room with some friends when a decanter flew off of a book shelf and almost hit one of my friends who was standing ten feet away.
Another time, Attila-the-Husband and I were awakened by a heavy scent of roses (early spring, nothing in bloom - and the windows were closed, anyway) The smell dissipated in a few minutes but the dog sat in the middle of the room and barked.
And then there's the upstairs bedroom. Five people (myself included) have experienced what can only be described as an 'entity' that pushes you down into the bed so that you can't move or breathe. It was quite un-nerving. The first time I convinced myself that I was just dreaming the whole thing. After it happened again (and to other people) we did a cleansing ritual. Seems to have helped.
As far as the John Edward thing... My best friend and I spend a lot of time at Gettysburg. Two years in a row, I saw a shooting star over the Devil's Den (yes, we were on the battlefield after dark...naughty us) A few months after I saw the second shooting star, my friend went with a group to see a spiritual reader. She asked if someone in the group had recently been to Gettysburg. My friend's hand went up. She asked, "Did you see a shooting star there ?" Deb said, "No, but my best friend did." The woman then told her, "You tell your friend that that was a message from her grandmother, that everything's going to be alright." Whenever things get rough, I think of my grandma's message, and I know it'll all be okay.