A ghost! Well...almost...

Here's something I'd suspect fellow ATS'ers will understand. I hope the thread will be both informative and no doubt a bit of fun.

Mysterious running water: I woke up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, washed my hands and went to bed. A few minutes later I hear the sound of running water, like you would from a slow running tap. Did something turn the faucet back on? Was there some anomaly echoing my using the bathroom? It started to drive me batty after a while since I couldn't sleep with it going on, so I got up to investigate, following the sound. Locating the source, it seems to have been then mini-fridge in the corner of the room. I'd just never heard the noise before because I was asleep I guess. A coincidence of timing.

Banshee: When I was around ten years old, I was woken up in the middle of the night, freaked out with what sounded like a young girl screaming outside my bedroom window. I lived on the second floor so I couldn't just go to my window and see what was going on in the dark. The screams were repetitive like someone getting hit or stabbed several times. Totally shaken, I ran and woke up my mother to help check it out. She did (but didn't have to), then had to explain that in the spring the neighborhood cats were "doing it like they do on the Discovery channel".

The point being, sometimes when we jump to conclusions, our mind tries to fill in the blanks. Being on ATS, reading about all kinds of topics that can work yourself up about, I'm sure it's not difficult for the brain to work some overtime. I'd be interested in hearing about how the paranormal turned normal, as it may help others who've had unanswered questions in this forum. Also, it may help us to distinguish between an actual paranormal experience from one that isn't. Debunkers, let us debunk...ourselves.


[edit on 17-3-2007 by saint4God]

Bloody cats! Theres an allotment at the back of my house and theres a few ferrile cat's that live around there and EVERY night they start fighting as loud as they can ¬_¬ grrr! One of thems actually come in my house a few times >.< but thats a story for another forum

I got freaked out once because the radio downstairs kept turning on at 3am, then found out that my mother in one of her less than sober moments had decided that would be a good time to switch the alarm timer for... '-_- Didn't help that it was BBC radio 3 with creepy classical music

Originally posted by FudgeStix
Bloody cats! Theres an allotment at the back of my house and theres a few ferrile cat's that live around there and EVERY night they start fighting as loud as they can ¬_¬ grrr! One of thems actually come in my house a few times >.< but thats a story for another forum

They're weird animals, no doubt...but I'd have one if I weren't allergic to them.

Originally posted by FudgeStix
I got freaked out once because the radio downstairs kept turning on at 3am, then found out that my mother in one of her less than sober moments had decided that would be a good time to switch the alarm timer for... '-_- Didn't help that it was BBC radio 3 with creepy classical music

Hehe, that'd be shocking no doubt...but would fit lovely with the Duckula avatar. Loved that show.

This happened recently,

I had moved into a new house recently, and gotten a new computer desk with a hutch. I had just finished watching The Exorcism of Emily Rose, and I went to bed. I woke up around 3AM, looked at my hutch, and and reeled with fright as I saw what appeared to be a skeleton-ish girl hanging from a cross in the corner of my bedroom where the desk was. After allowing my vision (Which is flawed - I wear contacts.) to adjust, I noticed the cross was simply the beams on my hutch, and the skeleton girl was just things I had lying on the hutch. Mix that with my flawed vision, and there was my ghost!

But for a good 5 seconds, I was pretty scared.

I've done that too. I was sleeping and there was just enough light to cast shadown and I noticed a black figure move kind of fast. And it scared me because it looked like the top of somebodies head so I saw it do it again and I sat there trying to go to sleep but didn't want to move. Not sure exactly how it happened but I figured out it was just my foot/blanket making the shadow. I was so relieved when I found that out. It was mostly because every once in awhile I get this feeling of something not wanting me to be in my room it comes on every few months not sure what it is but it's a bad feeling and it scares me. It's weird because when it happens I can't sleep and I have to go out in the living room to sleep. The next day though I don't feel it and it's find for a few months/years whatever.

I woke up in the night to see what i thought was a three-foot ghost floating a few inches off the ground...but after a moment it looked a bit "Scooby-Doo". Getting up, I realized that I should never hang a white shirt on the back of my chair when I'm too tired to remember doing it. Spook time = 3 seconds.

It is interesting how the mind is easily convinced of paranormal activity, then how quickly and hard it works to debunk these things.

BTW sandman, Edward rules!

[edit on 18-3-2007 by saint4God]

that's weird, does anybody else ever have weird hallucinations when they first wake up?

For example, I might think a shirt hanging in my closet is a man standing there.

This only happens when first waking up though.


[edit on 18-3-2007 by thehumbleone]

Originally posted by saint4God
BTW sandman, Edward rules!

Thanks yeah I like the avatar it's definately unique. I kind of took it as a logo kind of.

Originally posted by thehumbleone
that's weird, does anybody else ever have weird hallucinations when they first wake up?

Yeah I've had it a few times usually when I am really tired and somebody wakes me up. The time I remember is a few years ago my mom woke my up telling me she was leaving and I woke up and she looked like a zombie it was weird. A couple of times I've had waking nightmares and it's always of a spider that gets in my bed and starts running around.

[edit on 18-3-2007 by sandman441]

The mini fridge that sounded like water running was most likely it going through it's defrost cycle. The smaller fridges go through that every so often and sometimes in larger fridges you can hear it much more loudly because they collect the water into a box that gets very hot. It speeds the evaporation cycle and gets rid of the water.

Gotta do it to keep moisture from collecting into huge ice balls around the evaporator coils.

Just thought I'd throw that in for the running water sound...

Originally posted by HaTaX
The mini fridge that sounded like water running was most likely it going through it's defrost cycle. The smaller fridges go through that every so often and sometimes in larger fridges you can hear it much more loudly because they collect the water into a box that gets very hot. It speeds the evaporation cycle and gets rid of the water.

Gotta do it to keep moisture from collecting into huge ice balls around the evaporator coils.

Just thought I'd throw that in for the running water sound...

Wow, talk about denying ignorance , learn something new every day.

When I was a kid I heard a bit of a disturbance that reminds me of "The People Under the Stairs" ( www.rottentomatoes.com... ). There was this clawing and crunching sound that was coming from the walls and ceiling of my room like something was trying to get in or poke through. After listening carefully for a while I chalked it up to mice or rats. I'd told my parents, then they discoved some birds had peeled back the aluminum on eaves to get in and set up shop - nest and all. I'm guessng Wes Craven got this inspiration from living in an apartment or older house.
Now if I heard "Nevermore!" then I'd truly be freaked!

"What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore
Meant in croaking 'Nevermore.'"

My "not a ghost" incident #4

[edit on 20-3-2007 by saint4God]