Ghosts and Ghouls

[Cast No Shadow]

Something weird happened last night. I turned all my lights off, fell asleep, then was woken up at 4 in the morning with all the lights on, and when I went and flicked the switch, they stayed on and just wouldn't go off. I figured, "This is going to be a good nights sleep..." So I tried to fall asleep with the lights on, then woke up at 7, with everything off again. And no, I didn't dream it!
I doubt this was anything ghostly, probably just something to do with the fusing, and I wasn't scared, just irritated.

But it got me thinking:

Do you believe in the paranormal?
If so, what?
Has anything strange ever happened to you?

 

[xaphania]

I'm not sure if I believe or not, but a couple of things have happened which make me think that there's something paranormal in the world.

A couple of years back I was on the Isle of Wight (the small, diamond-shaped island at the bottom of the UK) and I was on the beach with my sister. We were at the easternmost point of the island, on a wide beach surrounded by cliffs called Whitecliff Bay. I looked out to the sea and saw a boat - not the kind you'd expect to see in this day and age but a tall ship, what we'd think of as a 'pirate ship'.

I pointed it out to my sister and she said how strange it was to see a boat like that out and about - all you usually see there are continental ferries far off in the distance, modern yachts and motorboats. This tall ship was about midpoint across the bay, and seemed to be moving towards the cliffs. Then - one moment it was there, the next it was gone. We thought maybe it had gone around the cliff, or had been further out than we'd thought and had gone past our viewpoint over the horizon.

We thought nothing of it, really, until the following evening when we were doing a 'ghost walk' in the nearby village of Shanklin.

The host of the ghost walk took us out until we were looking back across towards Culver Cliff - and he started to tell a story about the HMS Eurydice, a ship that had been wrecked just off the point of Culver Cliff in 1878. He told us that there had been several reports of people standing on the headland above Whitecliff Bay and seeing the boat, only for it to disappear moments later.

😱

Now... had we heard this story before seeing the boat, I'd have thought that I'd been influenced by it, that I'd seen the boat through the power of suggestion of the ghost story.

But we saw the ship before hearing the story. I don't know if what we saw that day was the ghost ship HMS Eurydice, but it's stuck with me and was definitely a spooky experience and the Isle of Wight is said to be one of the most haunted places in the UK, so it's possible. Added to that the fact that both my sister and I saw the ship...

The Ghost of Eurydice

The legend of the haunting of Eurydice began on the very day she sank. On the afternoon of 22 March, 1878, in Windsor, the Bishop of Ripon and Sir John MacNiell were dining with Sir John Cowell when MacNiell suddenly exclaimed, 'Good Heavens! Why don't they close the portholes and reef the sails?' When asked by Cowell what he meant, he replied that he didn't know, but had had a vision of a ship coming up the English Channel under full sail with her gun ports open while a great black squall attacked her.

Since the sinking, several people have reported sightings of a phantom three-masted ship which vanished if approached. Many of these 'sightings' have been blamed on 'freak reflections of light on mist'. Yet in the 1930s Commander Lipscomb was in command of a submarine which was forced to take evasive action to avoid striking a full-rigged ship which promptly vanished...

 

[Cast No Shadow]

I'm not sure if I believe or not, but a couple of things have happened which make me think that there's something paranormal in the world.

A couple of years back I was on the Isle of Wight (the small, diamond-shaped island at the bottom of the UK) and I was on the beach with my sister. We were at the easternmost point of the island, on a wide beach surrounded by cliffs called Whitecliff Bay. I looked out to the sea and saw a boat - not the kind you'd expect to see in this day and age but a tall ship, what we'd think of as a 'pirate ship'.

I pointed it out to my sister and she said how strange it was to see a boat like that out and about - all you usually see there are continental ferries far off in the distance, modern yachts and motorboats. This tall ship was about midpoint across the bay, and seemed to be moving towards the cliffs. Then - one moment it was there, the next it was gone. We thought maybe it had gone around the cliff, or had been further out than we'd thought and had gone past our viewpoint over the horizon.

We thought nothing of it, really, until the following evening when we were doing a 'ghost walk' in the nearby village of Shanklin.

The host of the ghost walk took us out until we were looking back across towards Culver Cliff - and he started to tell a story about the HMS Eurydice, a ship that had been wrecked just off the point of Culver Cliff in 1878. He told us that there had been several reports of people standing on the headland above Whitecliff Bay and seeing the boat, only for it to disappear moments later.

😱

Now... had we heard this story before seeing the boat, I'd have thought that I'd been influenced by it, that I'd seen the boat through the power of suggestion of the ghost story.

But we saw the ship before hearing the story. I don't know if what we saw that day was the ghost ship HMS Eurydice, but it's stuck with me and was definitely a spooky experience and the Isle of Wight is said to be one of the most haunted places in the UK, so it's possible. Added to that the fact that both my sister and I saw the ship...

Wow, that's a cool story 🙂

 

[PrincessBuffy16]

Yeah, I believe. I believe there are souls with unfinished work, so they stay on Earth and try to finish it. On the other hand, I don't believe in ghosts who kill. Also, I would love me one Casper.

 

[OhWow]

When my dad was a kid he saw a ghosty thing like very night. He would be awake in his bed trying to get to sleep. His bedroom was positioned so that he was looking down a long hallway while in his bed. That hallway led to his parents' room and if you walked down the hallway the kitchen will be to the left of you. He saw a long misty hand that came out of the kitchen and curved towards his parents' room to "get" them. Right when it was about to open the door it disappeared. Creepy.

 

[zobothehobo]

I just want to say I love this topic and thread and I'll post a big long post later when I'm not cooking for my mommy

 

[Washburne]

Strange things happen too often but mostly very small things. I sure believe there's things we don't comprehend, no matter what it is. Doesn't mean it's ghosts. My mother have experienced enough to believe though. I'm not really sure if I believe in spirits walking among us. Or why not angles watching us from above. Hey, there's grand dad, nice to know that he's still with me. 😉

It's more fun to believe, as in inteligent aliens, but at the same time... Invisable stalkers that (might) watch everything you do? Now there's a thought that give me the creeps.

 

[Doppelgang]

I believe in things such as the prescence of either negative or positive energy in certain places and locations. We all leave an imprint on our surrounding environment to some extent based on our emotions, and so in cases of extreme emotions of pain or happiness a big imprint is probably left behind that other people then experience when in that place. I've never experienced the extreme cases myself or seen specific ghostly figures, but I have experienced more mild cases of the energy imprint in an envrionment.

 

[Willow-Tree]

Nothing really paranormal has every happened to me personally, but I do believe in the supernatural/paranormal.

 

[zobothehobo]

Ok, so I believe in ghosts like for real. I've had several encounters with ghosts. I've talked to one of them. She's in my friend's bedroom. Her daughter and her had a bad relationship and that used to be her daughter's room. We tried to get the daughter to come talk to her mom, but after we tracked her down and stuff she said we were crazy.

My first ghost was in a house we were "renting" out for a vacation. I woke up because I heard something... and I saw a guy at the mirror. He was dressed nice... in a tux, getting ready for something. I was scared and didn't want him to see me, so when he left for a moment (I was assuming to use the bathroom, I fixed the bed to look like I was sleeping and ran into the closet where I could watch him at the mirror and stay out of sight. Then he came in the closet! He pulled a coat off of a hanger and went back to the mirror. He fixed his bowtie and put the coat on, then he pulled out a box... a ring box. Then he left. I didn't hear the door close so I went to look for him and I couldn't find him. So I went back upstairs... I went in the closet to see if that coat was gone and it was... I couldn't understand so I went looking for him again. By the time I got back up there, the coat was back, the ring wasn't in the pocket of it, and the comb he used for his hair was gone. And by gone I mean it wasn't anywhere to be found. The next night, I waited up for him and saw him again at the same time (11:40 ish). Then I asked the owners of the house when they got back as we were leaving and they said their son died leaving the house to go propose to his girlfriend. He was hit by a truck pulling out of the driveway.

 

[Ianigsy]

Not something that happened to me personally, but when my university application was in the balance for a couple of weeks, my mum was trying to get to sleep one night when she specifically heard my grandad's voice saying that everything was going to be OK. My grandad died about 15 years earlier, when I was 2 or 3, so I never really knew him, but as it happened things did work out and I was able to go where I wanted to.

 

[Scarlett Blade]

I most definately belive in ghosts and such like. But I've never had any experience with any supernatural stuff, sadly. But most of my friends and relatives have had some kind of supernatural occurance.

 

[BuffyElevated]

I definitely believe in ghosts... I've had too many experiences in my lifetime not to. My husband believes that I'm a little bit sensitive, and that ghosts are drawn to me, because we have had weird things happen to us in every single place we've ever lived.

The house I grew up in, and my dad still currently lives in, is haunted. I could tell tons of stories about things that have went on there... Cabinet doors that are reopened after you know you've closed them, hangers jingling in the closet when there's no one in there, etc. We've even seen full-body apparitions of a woman in a long, Victorian style dress, a man in a white shirt, black pants, and suspenders whose legs fade so you can't see his shoes, and a baby of about 2 years old. When I was around 9 or 10, I had to do some research about my house and it's origin for a homework assignment and we found out that there had been a house close to where mine currently stands that burned in the early days of my hometown, and the family inside it died in the fire. We believe these are the people in my dad's house.

One of the coolest stories I can tell about my experiences with ghosts, is when I was sick with the flu when I was young. I think I was either 10 or 11, and I was staying home from school at my Gran's house. I was sleeping, and I felt someone patting my legs on top of the covers. I opened my eyes and saw this woman sitting at the foot of the bed. I'd never seen her before, but she acted like she knew me well. But my Gran used to have her church friends over at our house all the time, so I didn't think much about it. She asked me how I was feeling, and told me to make sure I got my rest so I could get well soon. She said "Your Gran will be in here in a minute with your soup, so you make sure you eat, ok? I'll see you later." I was so sleepy and out of it, I nodded and went back to sleep. A few minutes later, my Gran did come in, with some soup and I asked her who the lady was. She looked at me like I was crazy and said "What lady?" I described her, and Gran's face went white when I told her what she looked like and that she "sounded funny"... Gran went in the other room and came back with a picture of the woman and asked if it was her. I said "Yeah, that's her, why?" She explained that she was my grandpa's mother, a Cherokee Indian who had died 10 years before I was born.

 

[Willow My Love]

I used to live in a haunted house. But the ghost liked me. One friend of my roommate's that I didn't like would always wake up with blood on his hands. The ghost would move the volume knob on the stereo down when I was trying to sleep (I'd seen it move). And one time, my twin was coming to check on me because I was sick, and he calls my phone as asked me who was in the kitchen. No one was home but me, but he saw a man looking out my kitchen window. I saw him in the window once.

Another time, at my mom's house, the cabinets flew open and all of our tupperware shot across the kitchen. They didn't cascade down, as if there were too much crammed into the cabinet, they flew from the cabinet out.

And my best friend's parent's house is haunted too. There's a little girl, who's like 8 or 9 and wears an older style white dress. I saw her on the stairs, then she giggled and disappeared. I was watching their house when they were in France, so I was by myself. Then, I saw her in the bathroom mirror, brushing her hair. Four of us saw the ghost, told Keegan (my best friend) descriptions of her, without knowing the others had seen her, and they were all the same. I don't know why she's there, but she doesn't bother anyone.

And Keegan's uncle died when he was 35. That same year I first saw the little girl, I didn't see him, but I felt him behind me. Y'know that feeling you get when people walk behind you without saying anything? Yeah. Then I got this picture in my head of a guy taller than me, with red hair and a beard, kinda stocky, about 35. I called Keegan and that's when she told me about her uncle. She'd never said anything about him before. I was walking the hallway from the bathroom to her room. I told him I was ok, and he went away.

And there's a graveyard that we go to sometimes that always gives me headaches, and I can hear people talking, but they're not there... It's just everyday jargon, but it's there. They're talking about their lives. And no, I don't hear voices everywhere. Just in that one cemetery. It's from the Civil War. There's a little girl there that cries a lot.

And if you sit in my grandfather's favorite chair at my Gramma's house, you can feel him put his hands on your shoulders. It's something he always did when you took his chair. He did it jokingly, and he'd kinda shake your shoulders.

He also moves his navy uniform, which I found back in '06. I was living with my gramma to help her. I put my clothes in the closet, moved his uniform to the back, and closed the door. Every, single morning, the doors were open and the uniform was in front of my clothes. He died when I was 12, in 2000.

 

[sisterofmercy]

As much as I'd like to believe in the paranormal, I don't. I'm far too sceptical about the metaphysical, though I do like a good ghost story. I used to watch Most Haunted before it became so obviously faked, it's entertaining but I'd never actually believe in any of it or take it seriously.

My friend claimed that she grew up being friends with a ghost at her old house and that her family just treated him like one of the group.

 

[Harley]

I believe in angels and demons and that they can take on any appearance they choose but I dont believe the souls of deceased people hang around, especially where we can see them.
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