The Weird Events Thread: supernatural stuff

[Guest Raidne]

Yeah I really have no desire to see this shit. Ever

[Nukelavee]

Listen, I'm not comfortable with other cultures treating the souls of our people as a cheap thrill.

[Sci-2]

Listen, I'm not comfortable with other cultures treating the souls of our people as a cheap thrill.

Dance for me, white man's ghost, dance! ;-P

[S John]

The hotel room I am staying in tonight is 100% haunted. Felt it when I walked in and the hotel is photo documented as such on the web. Having said all that, I don't believe in that stuff. How is that not contradictory? I have no idea.

Tell me your haunting stories and tell me why people who clearly believe in it say they don't.

Awesome. I definitely know what you mean out believing yet not believing.

[Nukelavee]

You bastard. You know we can't dance for shit dead, either.

Just wait till October, Mister....

Ghosts don't worry me. It's the things that aren't ghosts that bother me.

Ever read any of those stories about people who walk around a corner, and vanish? I had that happen to a good friend a few years ago: she walked out of a Denny's, in Austin one night...the end. No trace.

Worse, tho - there are stories of people vanishing from sight, but still being audible. Some rancher stepped off his porch and walked into someplace else, vanished. But his family could hear him talking and shouting for days. Some girl in England, same thing. Went to the pump for water...whoosh. Village could hear her for days, asking for help out.

Both stories said teh voices faded, but that something was there with them.

That kinda shit terrifies me.

Actually, my cousins grandmother was this terrifying German woman. I was scared to look at her. Timmy told her I liked the old school fairy tales she had told him, to me, so she told us about something from when she was a girl in Bavaria. She swore she woke one night, just before dawn, and there was some imp or goblin beside her bed, watching her. It spoke to her, by name, and said some thing like, "I'm watching you, girl. Always watching". And then it patted her hand and ran out.

Tantie and Tim gave me screaming night terrors for fucking years with that kinda shit. And I loved them for it.

[Guest Raidne]

I think there is some merit to this infrasonics business. Left hotel room - just kept having a progressively faster heartbeat and nausea. No thanks.

[Nukelavee]

I read about it somewhere, likely a web search spawned by a Cracked.com column. Researchers noted a strong aversion to ultra low frequencies, and then kinda used the reactions to look for sources in locations deemed haunted.

It was pretty cool what some of the sources turned out to be, like standing waves from a draft over a stand pipe, or pipes in sympathy with traffic miles away.

Some factory in Europe had fans that pretty muched turned a town into Cure fans.

Still, goblins, Raidne. Lego is never a bad bet.

[Gillio]

My kids had monsters under the bed. A good spray of medic (http://www.pharmacydirect.com.au/product_details.aspx?invpid=001126)

would kill all monsters, even after the can was empty!!!

[Baitac]

I think there is some merit to this infrasonics business. Left hotel room - just kept having a progressively faster heartbeat and nausea. No thanks.

Did you find out the haunting specifics? You are an atty. Could it have been crime related as in (help me lawyer or I hate you lawyer). Was there a victim who looked like you? I hope you found out what had happened there. Officially haunted places usually know.

[Guest Raidne]

The hotel was a private hospital for most of its history. But it's infrasonics from the air conditioner, I'd bet you anything. It stuttered for a minute and ripped K instantly out of sleep mumbling something about whether he just got a text.

Still left the hotel before midnight with a towel hanging over the mirror facing the bed, so probably gave the staff some further ideas about hauntings.

[Nukelavee]

Still left the hotel before midnight with a towel hanging over the mirror facing the bed, so probably gave the staff some further ideas about hauntings.

Or your sex life......

[Eyron]

I read somewhere or heard from someone (don't remember) a long time ago that if you are staying in a house that makes you scared of ghosts or other, visualise a shell, like an armour/force field, around your body. I concentrate and visualise something like a egg shell around myself when I get these fears while trying to go to sleep or waking up at night. I also have a kind of mantra, about not wanting them here, and how I want to be left alone, like a command. Combined that works well.

I don't know if it helps against potential spirits/ghosts/poltergeists or whatever but it does work in calming myself down.

[IheartTesla]

Well, if it is 'infrasonics' then you'd be better off with earmuffs. Although your body can still transmit sound to a little extent, not sure how well it works at lower frequencies.

Although I'd be skeptical of this low frequency jazz. A more likely explanation is simply the power of suggestion....but more experiments are required. An oscilloscope with a microphone should suffice.

[Sci-2]

Interview with Ian Stevenson on reincarnation.

Usually Usual salt taking caveats, though I did like this paragraph for [sorta] being in line with Attanasio's The Dragon and the Unicorn :laugh: [throw in some Grant Morrison Invisibles]:

Omni: Do you see in reincarnation a glimpse of a larger purpose?

Stevenson: Well, yes, I do. My idea of God is that He is evolving. I don't believe in the watchmaker God, the original creator who built the watch and then lets it tick. I believe in a "Self-maker God" who is evolving and experimenting; so are we as parts of Him. Bodies wear out; souls may need periods for rest and reflection. Afterward one may start again with a new body.

=-=-=

Ever read any of those stories about people who walk around a corner, and vanish? I had that happen to a good friend a few years ago: she walked out of a Denny's, in Austin one night...the end. No trace.

Kidnapped? Or literally just gone?

Sorry this happened either way. :-(

[Nukelavee]

Nobody knows, actually. That's the horrible part, if she had just decided to walk off and start again (which seems odd for her), that's ok with me.

But, her wallet and phone were left in her car in the parking lot.

http://www.myspace.com/540231393

Ya, myspace, but whatever, it's a good summary of the info, so, on the off chance, folks...please, just take a look.

[Biter]

Actually, my cousins grandmother was this terrifying German woman. I was scared to look at her. Timmy told her I liked the old school fairy tales she had told him, to me, so she told us about something from when she was a girl in Bavaria. She swore she woke one night, just before dawn, and there was some imp or goblin beside her bed, watching her. It spoke to her, by name, and said some thing like, "I'm watching you, girl. Always watching". And then it patted her hand and ran out.

When I think of goblins I think of somewhat evil creatures while imps typically signify pranksters or at least less mischievous beings. If this had happened to me I'd like to find out which of the two creatures it actually was. A prankster surprising me and saying "I'm always watching you" isn't that bad (although I'd be scared as hell when it happened), but hearing that from a goblin would be really terrifying...

[Guest Raidne]

Well, if it is 'infrasonics' then you'd be better off with earmuffs. Although your body can still transmit sound to a little extent, not sure how well it works at lower frequencies.

Although I'd be skeptical of this low frequency jazz. A more likely explanation is simply the power of suggestion....but more experiments are required. An oscilloscope with a microphone should suffice.

Yeah, there are some studies published on NIH's website and elsewhere. Earmuffs apparently don't really make any difference - seems to be the vibrations that annoy people. Getting really annoyed is apparently the main effect, but also nausea, visual disturbances, etc. And probably a good idea to be skeptical of anything, but if I have to work on a really hard case for a full day the next day and I'm getting sicker and feeling more weighted down by the minute (and I read the effects can last much longer than the exposure), I'm going to go with better safe than sorry. I was fine about two hours after leaving the room. And I definitely didn't want to leave after I paid $150+ for the room, I can assure you.

And I find that explanation to be a lot more plausible (if less interesting) than, you know, ghosts. It was really uncanny - I felt completely oppressed and unwelcome, like I HAD to get out of the room within minutes of walking into it. I had to force myself to spend any time in it, and I didn't have any preconceived notions to that effect - I picked out the hotel a few hours before.

Too bad it was 100F+ or I would have just turned off the freaking air conditioner.

[Jem]

Reading some of these comments have reminded me of some things that I have forgotten about.

The OP's reminded me that when I was younger (maybe 6 or so) I used to stand on my the front steps of my grandparents' house and think that I could control the wind by lifting up my arms and saying 'RISE'. Well it worked a couple of times and that was enough to convince me and my younger sister of my obviously awesome powers!

Also, and this is a bit creepy for me to think about. When I was younger, I would guess between the ages of about 3 and 8, I used to hear a voice calling my name in a loud sort of whisper. It was always when I was alone, sometimes really early in the morning after my dad had gone to work and when my mum was in the shower and I would be playing by myself in the toy room, and sometimes when I woke up in the middle of the night. It used to startle me but not really scare me.

My mother, who is the most practical woman in the world, without an ounce of creativity or imagination in her, claims to have seen two ghosts. Well she doesn't really call them ghosts (I am not sure that such word is even in her vocabulary), but still she has had two strange 'experiences'. The first was about a year after her father died. She came walking into the house and 'saw' him sitting on the lounge and as she walked passed she called out 'Hi dad!', but then she did 'what the...' and suddenly remembered that he was dead. She turned back towards the lounge to 'see' her dad fade out.

The second was when she was staying at her partner's farm house. His farm has been in his family for about four generations and there is a little tumble-down house on the property that he and my mother would sometimes use as a 'holiday home'. One night my mother woke to see an elderly woman standing close to her side of the bed. She felt startled but not really frightened. The woman then reached out her hand as if to touch my mother - it was then that she felt - not afraid exactly, but just really certain she didn't want this woman to touch her. Just before the woman touched her, their very elderly dog sprung up from the foot of the bed and let out a blood curdling howl. The woman then disappeared and my mother's partner then woke up. I should note that the dog was mostly deaf and blind and was a very quiet, obedient animal and he had never made such a noise before. My mother's partner said that both his mother and grandmother had died in that very room, and from my mother's description of the woman, it sounded like his grandmother.

We used to have a ghost cat that lived in our house. And I say that half joking and half seriously. My husband and I (and our two real cats) bought our house about 5 years ago. From the first couple of weeks on, I kept thinking that I could see one of my cats out of the corner of my eye or that I could 'sense' one of them walking into the room but whenever I turned around there would be nothing there.

I didn't think much of it until a few weeks later my husband said 'I thought one of our cats just walked into the room, but they didn't'. Then I told him I had been having the same thing happen to me. I suddenly blurted out without thinking 'Gypsy you naughty cat, stop tricking us!'. My husband said 'huh?', I said 'I don't know either, but I think we have a ghost cat called Gypsy'. It kind of became a half-joke between us as we had more and more Gypsy experiences. Once I 'felt' her jump over me on the lounge to jump out the window.

We didn't tell anyone, of course, because it was kind of silly. But one day when my mother was staying over, she said to me, 'I thought one of your cats was in the room with me, I was even talking to it. But when I turned around there was nothing there', so I told her about Gypsy and she also joined in with our little half-joke, saying that we had three cats instead of two, but at least one of them doesn't seem to eat much.

The creepiest thing was, though, when one day my husband was pulling out the built-in cupboards in our spare bedroom. We had never noticed before that on the back of the sliding doors were dozens of scratch marks of the type that cats make. Frantic, desperate looking scratches. So our theory was that maybe Gypsy accidentally got locked in the cupboard and died there.

Sadly, one day a couple of years ago, our little girl cat died. We don't know how she died, there wasn't a mark on her, she was only about seven years old and she looked peacefully asleep. After that we never saw Gypsy again, so maybe she was looking for a little friend in the afterlife and took our little cat to keep her company.

With regards to believing in the supernatural, I am pretty much sitting on the fence. I believe in everything as much as I believe in nothing. Although I don't get it when people say 'I want to believe', if anything I don't want to believe. If ghosts or aliens or bigfoot or whatever were actually proven to exist, I think it would break my mind and I would end up in the loony bin.

[Nichole]

Tell me your haunting stories and tell me why people who clearly believe in it say they don't.

For me it is that I know there is likely an explanation that is not ghosts, but sometimes it is a lot more fun to believe it was ghosts.

My husband Jason grew up on the gulf coast of Mississippi and the town that neighbors his was named Gautier, and was named after the Gautier family that settled the area. There was a large old plantation home on the river that was built by Henry Gautier that unfortunately was destroyed by hurricane Katrina. When he was 15 my husband dated the girl whose family owned the plantation at the time.

One day he was at her house with a few other kids while her parents were out. They were not supposed to there and were messing around on her family's jet skis on the river. They were also sneaking a few beers. At one point Jason looked back at the house and saw a man in the back doorway leaning against the door frame. He was startled and thought they were all about to get into trouble for being there and drinking. He quickly told the girl he was dating that her dad was home. She told him there was no way, their cars were not there and they had not seen anyone drive up. He insisted he had just seen a man standing in the doorway to the house and she replied "oh, that is just Henry." He was confused at first wondering who the hell Henry was and then it struck him. She meant Henry Gautier.

[Dacie]

I used to work as an RN in a small ER. We had cameras all around that transmitted to a set of TV screens around the front desk. One of these cameras watched the ambulance bay. The doors from the EMS bay into the main ER were sliding glass, and only opened from inside or by punching a code from the outside.

Anyway, one slow night around 2-3am we were sitting around, when a co-worker noticed a shape flying around in from of the EMS bay camera. It was black and slightly transparent, and at first we passed it off as a bug or a piece of dirt or something. However we continued to watch it for a few minutes. It seemed to be purposely hovering around the entrance to the door, flying in close, then backing away, over and over. Still, we thought it was a bug. Then, we watched it move toward the door, slink down the glass in a shadowy shape, slide under the door, and disappear. The floors and walls inside were white and still visible from the camera, so if it was a bug we would have seen it continue to crawl or fly. We ran back to check it out, and found noting. All of us felt extremely uneasy the rest of the shift.