Strange but true...

I was at my friend's place today. Babies had gone to sleep, windows and doors shut tight no one but she and I and the TV on low.

She'd complained that the other night (and a few times before in the past) she could swear she hears a door open and close - but when she gets up to look nothing is happening and everything is the way it should be.

Well tonight I heard it too. I combed that house looking for anything that might make that noise - the noise a door makes when the latch catches when you close it.

Nadda. After a few minutes I surmise it was nothing and sat back down, only to hear it again. I got up and walked to the center of the room listening...

Again I heard it - but from where I was I could see all but one door (the front door which is much heavier and has a cow bell on it so it's distinctive to say the least).

My friend is having a coronary. I'm listening...waiting for the sound again.

I hear it toward the laundry room (bi-fold door not a latched door)...I wwalked into the laundry room...again I hear this noise....

From the wall area behind the dryer. My friend is literally ready to bolt out of the house thinking a spook is gonna get her...

I pull out the dryer and listen again...nothing. Silence...

As I'm about to push the dryer back in the dryer hose comes unfastened from the wall...and out darts this MASSIVE RATTIE!!!! (I live rats but I was spooked and screamed like a total woosy).

Spent a good hour trying to catch the poor little thing and set it free out in the field behind her CoOp.

She was so relieved...

That was her ghost. It tormented her for months. A little rattie in her wall.

I wonder how many odd noises, scratchings, and things seen from the corner of your eye could be similar?

Shadows cast by vehicles outside, rumbling from trucks a distance away, mice, roaches, old buildings creaking and settling...

For the record, I do believe in left over energies or ghosts... but how much of it can be totally explained? Do most people assume, as my friend did, that it HAD to be a ghost because they couldn't immediately find the source of teh noise or disturbance?

Do most people really go out of their way to find an explanation other than a spook?

Just curious...the rat was a good lesson for my friend - she insists though that as she grew up in London in some really old buildings, that ghosts are more common than my skeptical mind can accept.

Opinions? Thoughts?

It could explain for some occurences. I firmly believe that hauntings/ghosts etc.. exist as my dads old house was really haunted. Saying that it could always have something to do with electromagnetics too.

Agreed, things like this could be a common reason for ghost-like symptoms. But there are debunking groups out there who make it their life to go out and actually find simple, mundane answers for something that's scaring the piss out of someone. And yet, while many cases are in fact debunked and attributed to less-exciting reasons, they still uncover unexplainable cases where hauntings can't be ruled out as caused by ordinary things.

So I think debunking efforts, attempting to find common and not-so-strange reasons for things, are healthy and essential to us in uncovering what exactly is going on. We may never get there. But as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once said, once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

It is sometimes a matter of the mind, and how your mind influences what you see.

I remember last wednesday, when I was about to go to bed at about 2:30 am (night time). I remembered that I had forgotten to do my basic yoga, but I thought about doing it in the dark. My room is pitch black at night, until your eyes get used to it, then you can fairly see what is around you (there is a window too, but with the curtains drawn). What I was afraid about, of doing yoga at night, was losing my balance because I have a problem doing yoga with closed eyes, and it is about the same with a dark room with open eyes.

Anyway, I decided to try it. So I sat down on the floor and began to stretch. I remember thinking at some point; There is nothing to be afraid of, the room is dark, so? I lost the thought and I became relaxed.

At some point, at a ½ seconds time, a huge flash comes from outside and fills the entire room with light. It wasn't like when a car drives by, because the room was filled instantly, and then gone. With cars or other things, they usually follow a frame, because the walls block the lighting.

Anyway, I get a little spooked. I decided to stop and lie down. At the time I lie down, I can hear this loud noise, like from an engine outside. I think I hear voices at some point, but can't make out anything. Then the sound goes very high, then low, then disappears after a time.

I lie on my bed with open eyes in a partially black room for a while. Then I start to hear something in the backyard (stones flown all across), like when a person steps on stones and 10 small stones get pressed together. Then, I hear something in the entry hall, like a crackle. There passes about 15 seconds, then there is a screetch from the door to the living room (same room where the stairs to my room is in). At this point my heart pumps like hell, and I remember thinking to myself: "They are here", and 'they' are refered to as aliens.

After that, I could next hear a crack in the stairs. Then a sort of drop of pressure on the carpet outside my room on the second floor. Next thing I see out of the corner of my eye is like a grey kind of thing moving around the room in a dancing motion without making noise. I remember looking, and I could still see it move in a smooth dance, at this point I say "f'ck this", turn on the lights and pull out my dagger which is on the night-stand next to my bed. There was nothing, and all the sounds were gone so I went back to bed... Of course I lied down for a bit to hear if there were any more sounds, but all was gone, so I fell asleep.

It just shows how much your mind can influence what you experience. It is not always ghosts. But I know that the light and the sounds were real enough.

I believe you are absolutely right. Alot of suspected hauntings are probably caused by mundane things.

But, there are those which are caused by spirits, energies, the mind, etc....