Experienced paranormal activity?

[Loonman]

I have. At my workplace. Cannot be explained through any other means, and I have investigated extensively enough to rule out mundane causes.

[commander bunnypants]

1. OBE's all the time

DDQM

[frogbison]

10. I think I was close once.

Got to what I have read called the"vibrational" state. I've been interested in OBEs for many years. Are there any websites or books, advice that you found helpful?

Edited for clarity.

[Az]

14. OBEs are more understandable once you know a few things about the mind

When we recall things from the past our mind often places an image of ourself in the image as a place holder. Thus if you recall a past memory you often can see yourself in it which of course was not true at the time. That is you did not see yourself in the event when it actually occurred.

There are times when the mind is not recording events through the proper channels. There is typically a lag between when something occurrs and our senses report them to our consciousness. This is due to processing which must occurr. The events are staged in various levels and then made available to our awareness. Effectively what we experience is a reconstruction of the reality created by our brain from the assembled whole of our senses.

Sometimes this process can be interupted. Meditation, drugs, injury, and a host of things can effect this process. When it is interupted the brain continues to function but sometimes stages can be skipped. What often occurrs in OBEs is that the mind bypasses the interprative stage and shunts the information directly into the short term memory. The brain attempts to make sense of the imagary and uses its normal processing techniques including insertion of an image of self in the memory. It is a reconstruction of distorted information but it is experienced as reality as the brain has misfired.

[Speck Tater]

43. The most fascinating thing about these OBE theories

is that everyone believes them. Everyone, that is, except those who have experienced an OBE. That's the problem with postulating an hypothesis to explain something that must be experienced first hand rather than obsesrved objectively.

It's all well and good to put forth an hypothesis that can be tested objectively by replication of some laboratory procedure, but when the replication requires personal experience of the phenomenon either that replication can not be accomplished, or the person doing the replication realizes that the hypothesis does not fit the data whereupon he is dismissed by his non-replicating peers as having "gone mystical on us," or otherwise become unreliable because he's "lost his objectivity."

By analogy, imagine that you had seen and touched and measured a large metal cylinder, apparently made of burnished aluminum. Imagine that when you return to the site of the observation with a friend, the cylinder is missing. Imagine that your friend now tells you, with utter (and somewhat smug) confidence, that the cylinder you thought you saw was actually swamp gas.

Perhaps all your fellow scientists back at the university buy into the swamp gas story and your credibility is called into question. Yet you, personally, have all the proof you need that the swamp gas hypothesis does not fit the observations that you, personally, made. How do you prove that you friend's swamp gass hypothesis is wrong? You don't, because you can't. Too bad, but that's the way it is.

In this realm, hypothesis construction should be left to those who "have lost their objectivity" by having actually experienced the phenomenon in question.

[liberalmuse]

2. I have only once...

my stereo turned off by itself one day. That's about it. What's going on at your work?

[RebelOne]

7. My TV kept turning itself on.

[Loonman]

3. Little things

They only happen when there is one, and only one, person in the building.


Doors slam all night long, blasts of cold air where none should come from. there is a cafeteria-like room with an attached kitchen, and if you work a late shift and are watching TV in the cafe, facing away from the kitchen you hear all sorts of odd noises that shouldn't be happening.

You hear drawers open and close, cupboards open and shut, microwave open and shut and turn on, metal utensils clinking(there aren't any in the kitchen). Elevator goes up and down all night long. If you take the freight elevator to a restricted level, the elevator won't be waiting for you when you come back to it, even though it is not on recall, and no one is there to call it.

Sometimes you here what sounds like a party, in the basement, but it sounds like an old time party(this was witnessed by two reliable people, actually, very strange).



Before anybody asks, yes, I investigated the site extensivley, spoke to current and former owners, landlords, looked up site history, looked at geological make-up to determine if an underground river or large metal/ore deposit is underneath. Nothing.

No rational, mundane explanation.

[TrogL]

13. You've got a poltergeist

Is there a live adolescent kid going through problems somehow associated with the buildling?

They seem to be the worst culprits.

[Nihil]

20. Failing that, a dead one?

Any voices associated with the banging? (e.g., "let me out"? :-))

Sorry, minor humour hiccough there ... some slightly more serious options:

- Temperature related movement: Expansion from heating and contraction
from cooling (e.g., heating pipes tend to move in a series of very
small jumps due to friction between the expanding pipe and the pipe
mountings, wooden joists and boards move slightly).

- Vibration-related movement: Gradual creep (washing-machine effect),
resonance (amplitude of received vibration in an object is exaggerated
by standing waves due to the size/shape of the object), infrasound.

- Other unnoticed physical activity (i.e., phenomena that can be
explained once detected and identified): electrical, magnetic,
animal, barometric, human, ...

- Supernatural: Phenomena that can't be explained by the current set
of rules.

Regarding the original question, yes, I have sometimes experienced
inexplicable phenomena (though rarely in my workplace).
(e.g., the wood-warping behaviour noted above explains many of the
varied creaks and clunks in my house but from time to time there are
distinct "footsteps" in rooms where no person is currently present.)

I still read up on the subject when I'm in the mood.

Nihil

[Loonman]

23. Already checked all that

LOL. Yeah, the footsteps thing. Everybody always says "house settling", "boards warping". Yeah, but, I think I can tell the difference between creaks and footsteps.



I've done a little amateur investigation in other areas where inexplicable activity has occured, and I have a detailed checklist of terrestial causes to investigate.

So far this is defying normal explanation.

No, I don't think it's a poltergeist.

I can't divulge the location of my workplace, but at one time in the late 1800s, it was a factory, with a rail spur leading to a closed and sealed off loading dock behind the building right off of a secondary rail line that runs all the way to Boston proper.

[Nihil]

25. Try to capture some evidence

Ever tried recording the sounds? (standard tape recorder, minidisc,
computer, whatever). How about a camcorder in the kitchen area?
Better still, a webcam with a microphone?

My kids still get surprised occasionally by the footsteps when they
know everyone is downstairs but accept it as "one of those odd things
that we can't yet explain". (Visible phenomena though, that's a bit
trickier ...)

Good luck - let us know how you get on,

Nihil

[Loonman]

27. Will do

n/t

[spinbaby]

30. So you can tell the difference...

...between creaks and footsteps. Reminds me of a story a friend told me. Shortly after he and his wife bought an old house, they were sitting downstairs one night and heard someone walking across the attic and then back again--back and forth across the attic. They both swore they heard distinct footsteps. After a half hour of this, he stationed his wife by the phone to call 911, got a flashlight and went up to investigate. It turned out to be a loose window frame caught by the wind. To this day he still swears it sounded "exactly like footsteps."

[Loonman]

31. Yes I do

I do know the difference.

That story is neither here nor there, since they investigated the sound and discovered it's source, due to the loose window.

[Az]

18. Sometimes you have to say "I don't know"

We do not know everything.

Consider this story borrowed from Sagan's Cosmos. When we first turned out telescopes on Venus we observed an opaque cover of clouds. Eventually we were able to do a spectrograph of these clouds and determined that there was H2O in them. Theorists figured with such heavy clouds and water in them they could figure out what was on the surface. They decided that that much water must mean it is covered by swamps. Then they figured that in swamps you get dinosaurs. So from the observation of nothing they concluded dinosaur infested swamps.

You have an observation of sporadic sounds. You're investigation has been inconclusive. Thus you have no conclusion. To jump instead to a theory which mandates turning all of known science and understanding on its head is perhaps a bit of a reach. But it is the way the human mind works.

Our minds associate ideas based on belief rather than logic. Logic may impact our beliefs but in the end our internally accepted conclusions are forms of belief. You have been influenced by cultural notions of ghosts and spirits and the observation of unexplainable events has lead you to associate these with each other. You have no refuting evidence to assuage this notion thus your mind is bereft of anything tangible with which to repudiate its own internal association of these notions.

[Guaranteed]

50. Yes...yes...YES.

I wish more "scientists" thought like you. So much of theoretical science today is just made up crap.

[Guaranteed]

49. The ghost's using the frickin' microwave?

What the hell is he eating? Popcorn? Quesadillas?
That's what I use my microwave for.

[Az]

4. You are aware that just because you cannot explain

does not mean it does not have an explanation. Also don't expect the skeptics to be able to tear your event apart. Without having been there and having testing conditions the best we can offer is wild guesses.

May I suggest a movie. The Messenger. Is about Joan of Arc. After experiencing a series of experiences that she believes have no other explanation than being singled out by god she is confronted by a mysterious dark monk (Dustan Hoffman). He presents a series of explanations for the events she sites that show an entire world of possible explanations.

See the problem that paranormal events have to overcome is our own brain. The way we believe things is difficult to override. We can be told the truth and continue to believe despite the readily apparent contradictions. Once a belief has set itself in place it is difficult to remove. Even in the face of overwhelming facts. And unfortunately so called paranormal events are rarely blessed with an abundance of facts to check against.

[Loonman]

5. I'm familiar with the Joan of Arc story

Religion is full of supernatural events. They just call it "miracles".

[Teaser]

6. It also doesn't mean it does have an explanation.

The faith that the universe is ultimately rational is itself without foundation. I say this as a scientist, and I'm more than willing to admit that it is a conceit of science to believe that everything has an explanation.

[Az]

11. Science is an open process

That is we can never close a door. We can certainly grow to understand if it is unlikely that nothing will ever come through that door but we cannot lock them. Science provides us with an ever increasing level of certainty but the downside is we can never attain absolute certainty. This is the area in which paranormal claims play. They make use of the fact that science cannot tell you absolutely that something is true. But keep in mind science cannot say that you absolutely cannot pass through a wall but I would not recommend taking a run at one even if you and the wall are made up of mostly empty space.

Further note that even if a paranormal event were found to be true science would pave the way to understanding it. To reference another movie (they are handy for creating a common sense between people) in Jonny Depp's Sleepy Hollow we see an example of what science would do when confronted with a paranormal event. Science is a process to understand things. If an event occurred there is a process behind it. Science examines that process.

[Blue_Chill]

32. Yes but science demands control

and many paranormal events can not be replicated nor controled in any way. They happen and then cease. Their very nature makes them impossible to fit into the scientific method. Thus they remain unexplained.

[Az]

35. Exactly

Which is why I do not offer to explain away individuals events. They did not happen under controlled enviroments and I cannot possibly determine what happened from the information they convey. The process of how the brain encodes such things so horribly contaminates the information that it is pointless to knock down the persons experience namely because my explanation will in no way be able to override their belief of what happened. Thus it simply becomes a case of the skeptic blaming the observer. Relatively pointless IMHO. Instead I seek occurrences which observers claim are repeatable and then investigate them. Investigating memories is a task better suited to examining the individual rather than the event.

[soothsayer]

8. ghosts ARE an explanation

i guess science would be happier with "interdimensional activity" or something

the prob with science is that it probably will say, "let's see, there has to be a rational explanation, but no way is it ghosts" instead of looking at that as a possibility, too.

[Az]

12. If something happened then there is an explanation

That is what science explores. If there are ghosts then science will explore them.

[Blue_Chill]

33. How?

How does science explore something it can't control, replicate, or predict?

Perhaps one day they will get lucky and a ghost will walk into a lab and beg them to study it?

[Loonman]

34. No they won't

Reputable scientists laugh at people like me.

[Az]

38. Why laugh

There is something going on. Whether it is how brains process events or there are really paranormal phenomena going on this is the kind of thing science loves to investigate.

I have heard similar stories to the "I burn out street lamps" before. In fact someone I know from a skeptics site came into skepticism because of such an ability. It seems he would burn out a street lamp at a particular intersection every thursday. It drove him nuts until he realised that what was really going on was his own schedule. The lite wasn't burning out it was that his thursday schedule took him past the light as the same time each week and its timer was set to switch at that time.

The brain is a pattern recognition device. It finds patterns and assigns value to them. This is the survival trait it was developed for. Sometimes it finds false patterns or assigns false meaning to them. Consider the evolutionary advantage to readily believing vs skepticism. Two cave men are wandering through the jungle when off in the distance they notice something. The believer promptly jumps to the conclusion that its something horrible and turns and runs. The skeptic stops and considers the "something" and decides to investigate. The running believer survives as the skeptic ponders just where that saver toothed tiger came from in the first place.

[soothsayer]

9. ghosts ARE an explanation

i guess science would be happier with "interdimensional activity" or something

the prob with science is that it probably will say, "let's see, there has to be a rational explanation, but no way is it ghosts" instead of looking at that as a possibility, too.

[dofus]

15. Did you watch the NOVA episode

last night about string theory? It suggests that there are other dimensions, probably about eleven. Seems to me like a mulitiplicity of dimensions could be a possible explanation for such things as ghosts and other paranormal events.

It works for me.

[Az]

16. Dimensions

Dimensions are not universes. A dimension is a direction or time. Up, down, forward, back, these are dimensions.

Of course the current path of string theory does also include suggests of multiple universes as well. This still does not provide a path for the existance of ghosts and spirits. The various universes are utterly seperate from each other. The energy required to break from one universe to the other would be the equivalent of all the energy in the known universe.

The idea behind string theory is that when this universe came into existance it was formed from a basic structure involving 11 dimensions. Due to the factors involved 7 of these dimensions curled up on themselves and dropped below the level of observability. The remaining 4 dimension (3 spacial and 1 temporal) remained dominant in this particular multiverse and comprise the reality we experience.

If you wish to look for explanations of what ghosts are look to the mind. There are more than enough answers for what is going on therein to fully explain the phenomena.

[MadHound]

19. One of my more interesting experiences happened when I was a child

My family and I went to Lake of the Ozarks for a vacation(back when the lake was clean). I was looking out the front door and watched four pairs of kid gloves(the kind the Mickey Mouse wears) go bouncing by. The glove sizes ranged from small child to adolescent to woman's to large men's. They were all going in a straight line, not touching the ground, about three feet above it. I watched them for about a hundred feet before they disappeared into the woods, at one point I was only five feet away from them. One of my more interesting experiences.

I've lived with ghosts before, the beneign/mischevious kind. Wake up and find the book you were reading gone from nightstand and is now balanced on top of the door, shit like that. Nothing sinister. However I've recently bought some acreage and house out in the country. It also came with a trailor whose last occupant decided to eat the business end of a shotgun. Initially I didn't know this, and was getting that weird vibe when I took the trailor tour. Didn't suprise me when I found out about the suicide later. I am going to be selling that trailor soon, but for now I avoid it after dark. So do the neighborhood animals. I don't think that who or what is in there is going to venture out, and it only seems to wake up at night, so I'm fine with it as is. I don't believe in stirring that kind of shit up if I don't have to.

Oh, and I can turn street lights/flourescent lights on and off just by coming close to them. It isn't a thing I do conciously, it just happens. In the ten years that I lived at my previous address they had to replace the street light across the street at least twice a year, I kept cycling it on and off. That's one reason why I stick with incandescent lights in my house.

[Az]

21. Um wanna make some money?

There is about $1.2 million dollars just waiting to be picked up by anyone that can do what you claim. Being able to turn lights on and off would certainly qualify for James Randi's challenge. Thats $1.2 million dollars just sitting there waiting for you to pick it up. Of course I get a 20% finders fee.

[MadHound]

22. ?!

Never heard of James Randi, who is he? It isn't something I don't do conciously, I can't walk up to a streetlight and "tell" it to switch off. But four out of five times I walk by, it switches off. Compared with the 0 out of infinity times it happens when other people walk by.

Sure, I'm open to 1.2 mill, but what has to be done, what's the catch? And hell yes, you can have a twenty percent finders fee.

[Az]

24. James Randi

Is a magician. But he is probably better known for championing skepticism and toppling Uri Geller in the 70's. He has had a long standing offer for any example of paranormal ability. If you have some ability and can demonstrate it under his or others observation $1.2 million dollars will be yours to do with as you choose.

In your case it would be demonstrating that when you walk by a street lamp more often than not it goes out. Simple to reproduce.

Check out his site http://www.randi.org/ or specifically the challenge http://www.randi.org/research/index.html . Here is the wording of the challenge from his site:

At JREF, we offer a one-million-dollar prize to anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event. The prize is in the form of negotiable bonds held in a special investment account. The JREF does not involve itself in the testing procedure, other than helping to design the protocol and approving the conditions under which a test will take place. All tests are designed with the participation and approval of the applicant. In most cases, the applicant will be asked to perform a relatively simple preliminary test of the claim, which if successful, will be followed by the formal test. Preliminary tests are usually conducted by associates of the JREF at the site where the applicant lives. Upon success in the preliminary testing process, the "applicant" becomes a "claimant."

[Speck Tater]

44. I've read numerous stories about people who tried to apply

but were refused for one reason or another without every having the opportunity to demonstraate their particular claim. The Randi test is rigged. When asked about what he would do if someone came along who really could pass the test Randi said it would never happen becase "I always have an out."

Another parapsychologist offered Randi a million dollars to prove that his results were NOT valid, and Randi has not stepped forward to claim that prize.

We all take it for granted that aspirin helps prevent heart attacks, yet statistically the evidence for telepathy is hundreds of times more significant than the statisical evidence for aspirin. Non believers fall into only one of two categories. Those who, like Bush and Co., throw out the facts that don't fit their dogma, and those truly open minded individuals who have not yet personally examined the evidence. And by examined the evidence I do NOT mean having read slanted, and in many cases outright falsified reviews in garbage rags like Skeptical Inquirer or anything published by Prometheus Press. They are lock-step ideological venues that do not tolerate any breach of the party line. If you want to find a group that is more rigidly dogmatic and spreads more lies and distortions that the ultra Neo-Cons in the White House look no further than the ultra Neo-Skeptics at CSICOP.

[ArkDem]

17. Sam the Sham's thoughts on the subject

I just moved in my new house today
Moving was hard but I got squared away
When bells starting rings and chains rattled loud
I knew I'd moved in a haunted house
Still I made up my mind to stay
Nothing was a-gonna drive me away
When I seen something that give me the creeps
Had one big eye and two big feet
I stood right there and I did the freeze
It did the stroll right up to me
Made a noise with its feet that sounded like a drum
Said "You gonna be here when the morning comes?"
"Say yes, I'll be here when the morning comes
I'll be right here, I ain't gonna run
I bought this house, now I am boss
Ain't no haint's gonna run me off"

In my kitchen my stove was a blazing hot
Coffee was a-boiling in the pot
Grease had melted in my hand (pan?)
I had a hunk of meat in my hand
From out of space there sat a man
On the hot stove with the pots and pans
"Say that's hot" I began to shout
He drank the hot coffee right from the spout
He ate the raw meat right from my hand
Drank the hot grease from the frying pan
And said to me "You better run and don't be here
When the morning comes"
Say yes I'll be here when the morning comes
I'll be right here now, I ain't gonna run
I bought this house now I am boss
Ain't no haint's gonna run me off.

[Xithras]

26. Just had a really wierd one a few weeks ago

I woke up thirsty in the middle of the night (about 3AM) and had this strange tingling sensation over my whole body. My hair was standing on end, and I immediately had the sensation that something wierd was going on. When I sat up and looked across the room I realized that my carpet was GLOWING...GREEN, with wavelike ripples running across it! It looked like the aurora borealis on my floor! I reached up to flip on my lamp and when I touched it I was nailed by a bolt of static electricity so powerful that it lit up the room like a flashbulb and numbed my arm to the shoulder for over five minutes (it even left a small black mark on my fingertip). That bolt jumped to my wife (my leg was touching hers), which woke her up and caused her to jump out of bed onto the floor. When I looked again (light still off) the floor was no longer glowing. When she grabbed the metal bedpost to pull herself up, she was nailed by a major bolt of static electricity too.

I'm sure there's a perfectly rational explanation for it, and I know all about electric charges, St. Elmo's Fire, luminescent gasses, and other natural sources for "mystery lights", but I've NEVER seen anything like that before or since. Personally, I don't want to either...my wife wouldn't sleep in our bedroom for three days after this happened.

[commander bunnypants]

41. That gives me the heebie jeebies

thanks


DDQM

[Loonman]

42. That is weird

If I find any similar cases in my reading, I'll let you know.

[proud patriot]

28. I was in a (say ahnce sp?) once

ended up being the medium ..Yikes !
That was the only time I did that
:scared:

[Loonman]

29. Seance

Also, never, ever, ever, EVER mess around with a Ouija board.

Especially if you'v been drinking or drugging.

[proud patriot]

37. Yep learned that lesson the VERY HARD way a long time ago

A friend, well , let's just say he ended up
in a Church to recieve the help he needed to
recover from the ouija experience .

:scared: Won't touch those things either .

I believe and have found my way to a wonderful Faith.
I'm still magical , but hone my strengths in the
Native American Tradition , I have found my place.
Sage and sweetgrass above my doors to the outside .
Blue Corn , and stones . I believe in the teachings
of the Mother as much as I do the teachings of Jesus.

All in all , what I've been through in this realm
has taught me a lot about Faith and it has been a long
hard road traveled .

[ComerPerro]

36. Once I was trapped in a parallell dimension

in which a complete idiot was appointed the President of the US, but no one really protested. Then, he ruined the country and tried to install a fascist government, but still no one cared. They kept marching in step like zombies.

Does that count?

[smirkymonkey]

46. I am sure there is a

scientific explaination for it....

But, still, it must have really freaked you out! Oh, wait...oh, never mind.

[Art_from_Ark]

53. I've had that experience, too

Well, actually, I'm still having it.
And there is definitely no scientific explanation for it
:scared:

[donotpassgo]

39. Saw a UFO in the Bronx 15 years ago...

seriously...It was even featured on Unsolved Mysteries. A triangular formation of solid disk like lights hovered over my apartment building moving ever so slowly and noislessly and it sped off. My grandfather saw it a few miles away on the tri-boro bridge.

I knew it wasn't a plane because our apartment was in a landing corridor for La Guardia and we had planes flying over twenty times a day. There were no blinking lights and it went in a direction away from the airport.

[Loonman]

40. Kick for afternoon crowd

:kick:

[areschild]

45. Yes.

I've had 2 OBEs, saw ghost, and have seen what I call "shadow people".

[Loonman]

47. Shadow people, huh?

I've read more than a few accounts of them.

Supposedly inter-dimensional beings.

[areschild]

48. Actually, I had never heard of them.

I just called them that because that's how they appeared...like shadows.

[Guaranteed]

52. Yeah heard about em on Art Bell. nt

[Guaranteed]

51. Well...there was one time....

It was pretty late at night, and I was starting to get tired, but I wasn't quite ready to head to bed yet. I was reclined in my easy chair, watching Leno, and I noticed this very faint humming sound. At first I kind of thought it was coming from between my ears, it was so low. But, then, as it got louder, it started to seem like it was coming from outside. So I looked over at the window, and suddenly was scared shitless, because the curtains were glowing as if there was a very, very bright object outside. And for the next few seconds the humming got louder and louder, too. I was scared to pull back the curtains, but I did, and there was a huge, translucent sphere of light suspended in midair in the yard.
Obviously I got really excited and ran upstairs to wake my girlfriend up, who'd recently gone to bed. She told me to "stop freaking out" and that I was probably just seeing things. I replied that I know what I saw.
Anyway, when I went back downstairs and looked again the thing was gone. I was still so scared, though, that I had to drink another fifth of Jack Daniels.