Share with us your own ghost / spirit sightings!

[WitchAndShaman]

Very recently Debi posted a link to a story about first responders’ paranormal reports including some ghosts. Inspired by that continuing thread, I wanted to ask if any of you have ever “seen” a manifestation of a ghost or spirit?

I think I have probably had a dozen spirit related encounters in my lifetime and four of those included what my conscious mind perceived to be the sighting of (most or all of) a human form.

One of those sightings happened in a supposedly haunted hotel in New Orleans. There were other events that happened during my short stay there but this is probably the most relevant one.

I went to New Orleans on an impromptu vacation with a close female friend. Though we were not a couple, we were close enough and comfortable enough to sleep in the same bed so we shared the owners suite in this massive, almost cavernous, labyrinth like hotel. The hotel was antebellum or very nearly that old for certain.

This sighting occurred during the last few minutes we were in the room while preparing to checkout. The bedroom had a private bathroom but it was two or three paces down a hall. I had gone into the bathroom for a final bio break before checking out and heading to the airport. As I exited the bathroom and stepped into the bedroom, my friend was standing on the far side of the room with her camera in her hand, facing the doorway I just came through, with a look on her face that I will never forget.

I asked her, “What?”. No response so I repeated my extremely short question twice more ramping up the urgency in my voice each time. I walked towards her and she lifted the camera to hand it to me. She was able to get out enough words such that I got a reasonably clear understanding that she “saw” something in the opposite side of the room near the doorway I just came through. I turned and didn’t see anything there.

She again lifted the camera towards me and told me to look at that same spot through the camera. I did and immediately dropped my hand with the camera to my side. It was now her turn to ask me “What?”. She asked if I saw anything and I nervously said, “Nope...”. She told me to look again. Knowing I had lied, I refused to look again. But she insisted. This time I was more prepared so I took a good long look - probably five full seconds - before handing the camera back to her.

I didn’t say anything. I just grabbed both our suitcases and ran out of the room, down the hall, and out the door. She wasn’t far behind.

We checked out, got a cab to the airport, and flew all the way back to San Diego without saying much of anything to each other the rest of the day. We were both in a bit of shell shock.

We didn’t talk about what we saw for more than five years. One night I handed her a pad of paper and a pencil and asked her to draw what she recalls seeing that day. I did the same on a separate pad angled so neither could see the others’ art work before it was completed. [Gotta run for few minutes to deal with dogs. I’ll finish the story shortly. Sorry,]

 

[WitchAndShaman]

[Okay, finishing the story now.]

We turned our drawings outwards toward each other to see at the same time. The images were very nearly identical - same pose of a woman facing us at about three-quarter stance (you know turned away very slight from full front) with one foot slightly ahead of the other and arms slightly bent at the elbows but with both hands pointed down.

The difference between the drawings was that hers was 100% complete with details mine didn’t have. What I saw originally when I looked both times at the ghost was the complete outline of an entire person; but, the details were only visible to me for a few inches in from the edges of the body. What I mean is that I could seen complete hands and arms and feet but I could not see the details for example of the front of the skirt, nor the front of the blouse, nor even the face. I could tell there was a hat, but I could only see the edges or the outline but none of the details. It was like I had seen a complete outline of a woman with about 25% of the details radiating in from the edges/outline but nothing in the middle of the body.

And, “No, in any of the three times I suspect the two of us had the camera pointed in the direction of the ‘ghost’ did either of us think to snap a photo.” For me, I was too shocked to think clearly and I was using all of my attention to purposely make mental notes about the image I was seeing. My mind totally lost comprehension of the fact that what I had in my hands at that very moment WAS a tool to capture visuals! I know, what a dork. Truly.

So one of the questions I’m left with forever unanswered is would that still camera have been able to record the ghost? And further, how much of the ghost would have been in the photo? The whole thing as my friend had seen it or just the outliney portions I had seen?

Footnote - this post also ties into another thread recently opened about why we don’t have more photographic evidence of cyptids. Because of dorks like me who forget they have cameras.

 

[Debi]

, I wanted to ask if any of you have ever “seen” a manifestation of a ghost or spirit?

I've seen many things over the years, including mists, shadows, The Hatman, etc. And yes, I've even seen a few actual "spirit" manifestations. The one I will share here I have shared in the past, but I use it because I have witnesses to it! (that always helps confirm you really DID see something!)

The house I live in now was my "rental" house for many years. We lived in the main house and rented this one out to a delightful couple and their adult Aspie son. Because my own son has Asperger's, we had a kind of bond. The adult son was named Jacob. He was a big guy of about 6'6" and around 300#. He was a gentle giant who had a horrible time with depression.

Jacob had just changed medications and was having a very bad time of it. One October day it just became too much and he took a gun his father had locked away (he broke the lock) and went behind my house down by the creek and shot himself. It was a true tragedy for everyone. He was cremated, and we gave permission to his dad to bury his ashes here on the then "rental" property.

Shortly after this, the house itself began to have a lot of activity. Lights going off and on by themselves, water faucets off and on, footsteps, etc. I came down and saged, we had their minister come out to bless the place, and things quieted for a bit. A few months later, I had the first visit from Jacob over at my house.

It started with my son seeing Jacob manifest in his room. Now, my son is psychic as they come, remained calm, and only broke part of my door down coming in to get me in my room. By the time I got there, Jacob was gone. A few days later, I saw him myself. He just appeared next to my bed. He still appeared all 6'6" of himself, and did nothing other than point down at the other house. I started talking to him telling him it was alright and that he could cross over, but at that point he faded out.

When his parents could no longer bear to live here, we decided to sell the other house and move into the "rental" ourselves. Since that time, we have seen Jacob several times, and usually in October. Sometimes he's nothing but shadow. Sometimes he's clear as a picture of himself but just see through. We continue to offer up prayers for him, we continue to care for the small "grave" on the property, we continue to talk to him when he shows up. It's normally preceeded a few weeks by some activity in our home so we watch for him. Mr. 18 had his first sighting of him last year, so we now have 3 of us who have seen him.

I've never even tried for a picture of him. It seems disrespecful in this case. And I know why so many don't get pictures of manifesting spirits...it happens so fast, and lasts for but a moment, it would be difficult to grab a camera, point and shoot in the time frame. As I've said before, paranormal activity doesn't happen like the movies. It happens fast and is usually very brief.

Wands, even if you had taken a picture, it may not have shown up. I do wonder why it was able to be seen through the lens and not by naked eye. There's something about cameras! I don't know if it acts as a filter to the energy so it can be seen or what? I think it's fantastic that you also had someone who saw the same thing! Confirmation....it's a gift.

 

[WitchAndShaman]

Sounds like some unfortunate life circumstances for Jacob and his family. However it was probably very helpful for both you and his Mom to have similar care giving needs and concerns and questions you could share with someone else.

Any idea Debi for why Jacob might continue to return?

As for confirmation, it was nice to have another person see the spirit - actually she saw it first - so I was her confirmation but it works both ways. I had two other things occur inside the same bedroom when I was alone. But one could have been my own desires manifesting and the other could have been apophenia. However I am typically critical of my surrounds, so I give it a greater than 50% chance that I correctly interpreted those events as attributed to the (up to that time) unseen spirit woman.

I too have thought about that question re: why was the spirit was visible through the camera's viewer and I choke for any answers. The thing that I found especially curious is why my friend and I both saw the spirit in approximately the same pose over the course of what might have been about a minute. The first thing that came to me was maybe a hoax put on by the hotel. But it would be kind of elaborate (I think) to create a purposefu illusion that was only visible sometimes though certain perspectives. Not really a very useful hoax when there are lots of chances for the hoaxees not to ever see the illusion.

I do have a far reaching and what could be possibly an unpopular idea though. This hypothesis is based upon many different events, reading, research, and observations. And, I think this hypothesis might only make sense in situations of intelligent hauntings - maybe not for residual ones. Here goes...when spirits are "seen" by others, they are appearring in a form that the spirit recalls even if that is not what the spirit looked like at the time of their death nor how they looked for most of their life. For example, a spirit might recall their corporeal body in an idealized state - like at a point when they were young and pretty. A spirit might recall their corporeal body as they had seen them self repeatedly in one of the few photographs they had during their life. Think for just a moment about how rare photography might have been to common people back in the early 1900s and earlier. So my hypothesis is that we might not be seeing spirits in human form in a way that mimics what their bodies actually looked like but instead how the spirit recalls their own body to look. Those can be two different states. And if a spirit can physically manifest a human body like image, why would they not manifest in a manner that they want to be seen as.

Putting two and two together Debi, that might be an explanation for why the image my friend and I saw appeared to be almost still...like, a photograph.

 

[Debi]

Any idea Debi for why Jacob might continue to return?

I wouldn't even guess on this one. Facts I do know are that his dad has never let go of him and still feels guilt and his ashes are here on the property. Other than that is pure speculation on my part.

 

[WitchAndShaman]

I wouldn't even guess on this one. Facts I do know are that his dad has never let go of him and still feels guilt and his ashes are here on the property. Other than that is pure speculation on my part.

Glad you shared that personal and really touching story with us Debi. Nice that it has a positive example of spirit encounters.

 

[Debi]

Your theory of how people see themselves is one I've thought about myself. I still "see" myself as that 20 yr. old of long ago in my head. It would be perfectly natural for a spirit to project that when manifesting. And it would take energy to "move" within this plane, so a spirit holding one pose could make sense.

 

[WitchAndShaman]

Thought I would share a second one of my very few ghost/spirit sightings. This occurrence was much less distressing for me than the one I shared from New Orleans in opening this thread.

This happened in 2001 or 2002 when I was looking to buy a new home in San Diego. At that time I was touring a lot of model homes. This sighting happened in what I knew was a brand new model home as the land it was built on had been cow pastures for at least the prior 30 years. I know that with certainty because I had driven by this large piece of land, with clear visibility of that exact plot, probably an average of once a week during that same 30 year period. The hills here were probably graded down by the land developer by as much as 10’ to even out the elevation before the new homes were built. So it is a given there had not been a home in that same spot in at least the last quarter of the 1900s. I don’t know about the history of the land prior to that time though. I’m placing emphasis on that point in case anyone wants to consider residual versus intelligent type haunting at all.

I had been given brochures, containing home floor plans, by the sales office before being released into the models.

In this one particular two-story home, there was a bedroom at the top of the stairs that was laid out in kind of an “L” shape. By that I mean that the room was mostly a rectangle being much longer than it was wide; and, at the end opposite the entry doorway, and on the same wall, was an alcove about 3’ deep and maybe 5’ wide. Hope that explains the “L” shape well. The alcove was not visible from the hallway nor was it easily visible from the doorway either because it was on the same wall as the doorway.

Any hoot. I climbed the stairs and headed for that room first because its doorway was directly across the stairway landing.

As I entered into the doorway, I noticed a person to my left inside the room; so I stopped just barely inside the doorway and turned to apologize for interrupting their own model tour. There was a woman bent over at the waist with her head poking into the alcove. For an instant, I could only see her body from the side as her head and face were obscured by the alcove’s wall. Then she straightens up and turns to me so I could see her in her entirety. She looked to be middle aged, average height, and over 200 lbs. She was wearing a floor length dress covered with a bib-like apron and a laced cap...something like what I would expect to see a Victorian era nursemaid to wear. She was completely grey with only differing shades of grey or black making her detailed features evident; she appeared to be solid rather than transparent. Then, a fraction of a second later, she vanishes. I might have blinked but I never looked away after she first caught my eye. I think this all happened in three to four seconds.

I was slightly stunned but not scared at all. However I didn’t really want to spend too much more time in that room. But before leaving, out of curiosity, I peaked into the alcove to find there was a crib pushed back against the alcove’s back wall.

I’ve inserted a picture below in hopes of illustrating what she appeared to be wearing.

 

[WitchAndShaman]

Your theory of how people see themselves is one I've thought about myself. I still "see" myself as that 20 yr. old of long ago in my head. It would be perfectly natural for a spirit to project that when manifesting. And it would take energy to "move" within this plane, so a spirit holding one pose could make sense.

I'm glad you are able to see how I framed my hypothesis Debi and can make some sense of it. I'm not inferring that you or anyone necessarily does or should agree with it. My Mom once told me - probably at the age of about 65 - that she had always perceived herself as her 17 year old self regardless of how she had aged.

So, let me share my (presently) final sequential step in that hypothesis.

I don't believe for a second that ghosts/spirits are only visible to those of us with demonstrated psychic skills. However, compared to the average "Joe Muggle", I can believe that it is easier and more likely for a psychic to see a ghost/spirit in clearly human form. Just like a psychic medium can “talk” with spirits in a way non-psychics do not.

And, it seems to me that statistically speaking most people who report sightings are generally reporting ghosts/spirits seen in their mist or orbs or shadows forms.

What I want to offer is that maybe those who see ghosts/spirits in clearly human form are not really "seeing" the spirit's form with their eyeballs; instead they are tapping into that spirit's own perception/recollection of their body's form. And, this is happening via psychic means or some other means of out-of-body-spirit-to-in-body-spirit communications. In short, the living human is "seeing" mentally a body that the ghost/spirit is portraying and then that mental image is often (not necessarily always) being wrongfully perceived as an actual physical, visual (related to mechanics of the eyes) experience.

This hypothesis does not intend to explain NOR refute all of the spirit world including how ghosts/spirits manipulate the environment around them like in poltergeist cases. It is just one humble psychic's musing about how it could be that many persons "see" ghosts/spirits in a human form which most of us (up to this point in time) will admit they do not happen to continue to live inside of. As always, I am 100+% open to continued discussions and musing about supporting, alternate, and conflicting ideas about this world.

 

[Benway]

I too have thought about that question re: why was the spirit was visible through the camera's viewer and I choke for any answers. The thing that I found especially curious is why my friend and I both saw the spirit in approximately the same pose over the course of what might have been about a minute. The first thing that came to me was maybe a hoax put on by the hotel. But it would be kind of elaborate (I think) to create a purposefu illusion that was only visible sometimes though certain perspectives. Not really a very useful hoax when there are lots of chances for the hoaxees not to ever see the illusion.

I do have a far reaching and what could be possibly an unpopular idea though. This hypothesis is based upon many different events, reading, research, and observations. And, I think this hypothesis might only make sense in situations of intelligent hauntings - maybe not for residual ones. Here goes...when spirits are "seen" by others, they are appearring in a form that the spirit recalls even if that is not what the spirit looked like at the time of their death nor how they looked for most of their life. For example, a spirit might recall their corporeal body in an idealized state - like at a point when they were young and pretty. A spirit might recall their corporeal body as they had seen them self repeatedly in one of the few photographs they had during their life. Think for just a moment about how rare photography might have been to common people back in the early 1900s and earlier. So my hypothesis is that we might not be seeing spirits in human form in a way that mimics what their bodies actually looked like but instead how the spirit recalls their own body to look. Those can be two different states. And if a spirit can physically manifest a human body like image, why would they not manifest in a manner that they want to be seen as.

Putting two and two together Debi, that might be an explanation for why the image my friend and I saw appeared to be almost still...like, a photograph.

First, was it a digital or traditional camera?

Second, what you say about the image being an image may be a big clue. What if you have this backwards? You are assuming that it was the ghost of the woman you saw, but you describe her in terms of an image and she was only visible when looking through a camera. What if the ghost is not the subject of the photograph, but the photographer, or perhaps even an echo of the action of a photograph being taken? By looking through the camera lens at that spot you were both recreating the taking of a photograph from long ago and some resonance with that caused you to see what that long ago (perhaps now ghostly) photographer saw. It may have been an important and emotional moment for him/her which either became imprinted on the building or else he or she was showing a memory to you based on an affinity for cameras. Perhaps somewhere out there is a print of the original photograph!