i thought it might be fun to lighten things up a bit.

We all love ghost-stories. The supernatural, the unexplainable.

I thought it would be interesting if each of us could relate an event
that they've experienced that can't be easily explained. Or better still, if you've had an encounter with a ghost, share it with us on this thread.

I'll go first.

The house that we lived in prior to our current home had a "presence."
I first became aware of this "presence" one evening while my husband and the boys were out. I was watching TV and out of the corner of my eye I saw this "shadow" at the end of the hallway. When I turned and looked I saw what appeared to be a figure standing at the end of the corridor. As I stared at it, my husband and children came home and the
figure disappeared.

I thought no more about it until the following week-end when after an evening out, my husband and I returned home to find not the babysitter, but her father with our children. He said that his daughter had rung him to come over as there was "something" in the house and she was frightened. He came over and stayed in her place as a babysitter, having sent her home.

We lived in that house for ten years and during that time there were many sightings of this figure. But none of the sightings were confrontational. The figure did not really approach any of us. Yet we all had seen it. It simply would appear from time to time. Finally, we sold the house and moved.

Nothing like it has ever happened to us since.

Your experiences please?

Foxy good thread
A few years ago we had one close too it.
It had some interesting story's some from me.
I could tell of a few but one is close to yours.
My current house lived before.
It was moved from inner Sydney and rebuilt in a country town.
I bought it as first owner in its new spot.
Every overnight guest says it is haunted.
It may well be, I have no explanation for the opening doors or voices in this big home.
And none for the one that woke me mid winter as the air in a locked room ran out after the gas fire had been alight for a very long time.
Some seem to be more able to hear and see things than others but some of my visitors will not sleep in that room.

Dear Belly,

Thanks for sharing your experience.

The other one that I remember
so well, took place at a school fund-raising
evening, that was held in the very imposing
Raheen Estate in Kew, Victoria.
Now owned by the Pratt family.

We were given a tour of the old
building, and when my husband and I
wondered into one of the room upstairs,
we felt a sudden "atmosphere."
The room had a very strong smell of
lavender, and was so cold, it felt like
antarctica.

We were only to happy to leave the room.
I felt very uncomfortable in it.
Later, we were told that Archbishop Mannix
had died in that room, and apparently his
"presence" still lingers. We learned that
the Raheen Estate used to belong to the
Catholic Archdiocese and had been the home
of Mannix for many, many years. They sold it
after his death.

It was odd that the figure in our old house
didn't frighten me. Whereas this room in the
Raheen Estate did. I couldn't get out of
there fast enough.

This makes a nice change Foxy.

I don't have a ghost story as such but a very odd experience. When I was about 15 we were travelling through Tassie when I had the strongest feeling of having been in a particular part of Hobart before despite this being our first ever trip to the Apple Isle.

We had come over a rise in the road to look down towards an older part of the inner city and it hit me quite strongly - the familiarity of the surrounds and the feeling of being very comfortable and almost 'at home'. I said something to my family and we kind of laughed it off.

Years later my grandfather researched our family tree and one of our illustrious relatives was a convict who came out for stealing something suitably insignificant. This gentleman subsequently left the prison and commenced a life in Tassie. We have no relatives living in Tassie now and I think even this ancestor moved eventually to the mainland.

Once learning of this Hobart connection I immediately remembered that feeling of dejavu - it was unbelievably strong and quite eerie.

Perhaps we do carry some kind of 'genetic memory' or spirt of our ancestors.

Fascinating thread Foxy. Of course you're aware that there's a huge literature about this subject.

As a former anthropologist, I have lived and worked with people who regard ghosts as commonplace members of the social landscape. Many people in that tribal world more or less assume that some places are inhabited by ghosts of ancestors, who are often (but not always) thought to be malevolent. Additionally, I once had a Christian missionary describe to me in the PNG highlands an encounter with apparitions that he could only explain as ghosts.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I never encountered a ghost during my various sojourns in PNG and elsewhere. However, my understanding of human perception and cognition is such that I think that people tend to see what they expect to see, which is of course the level at which culture shapes perception.

Nonetheless, I remain willing to be convinced on the subject of ghosts :)

Very clever foxy! (I don't know why creationist don't use this as a model for their debate). Anyway, I don't have a story on ghosts as such, but i have witnessed something far more frighting and very, very real.
Now! before I tell this story, I am a person that does not believe it unless i see it and so reality in most respects rules my domain.

At the beginning, I just turned 18 years and a good friend to the family thought it was time for me to see a bit of the world and suggested a few months on the road to gain some mileage and experience. (I got mileage and experience alright) leaving from the city central railway, we randomly picked a train which eventually took us across the country side till we found ourselves at Albury train station. We had walked no further than thirty feet from the train station when a stranger offered us a lift to a suitable camping ground, when he suggested an old spot he used to go fishing at. Of course i was very apprehensive at first and my friend of much experience could see the suspicion growing on my face and he and the stranger had a little chuckle between themselves and Chris explained that it was my first time on the road, then the car stopped at a rusty old gate, and to my relief, the ride was over.
We waved the stranger goodbye and marched across a cow paddock to where the horizon of the land fell away and the glorious Murray River greeted us with it's shimmering beauty.

Continued.