Ghosts / death

Right ok, this is only my 2nd post on ATS – but I’ve been reading the site for a few years & it’s the first time I’ve ever started a thread.

I’m interested in the paranormal but I’ve never seen anything weird or that I couldn’t explain myself being rational, most of the stories I’ve read on here I just put them down to the people being crackpots or attention seekers, (not the best way to start to build up rapports with people on here I know!) don’t get me wrong, I find them entertaining to read but I don’t really give them a second thought after that.

Maybe it’s because I don’t know the people personally that I don’t take them seriously?? I really don’t know to be fair…

But there’s a story that my dad told me when I was a kid of 7-8 which has stuck with me for 20 odd years now, he still brings up now & again when we get into debates about ghosts, aliens, the paranormal etc.

So just wanted to know what you guys think….

Basically my dad used to run his own warehouse where he had about 20-25 staff, basically with small firms like these, everybody knows each others business as they usually socialise together, a few pints after work etc – y’know how it is..

Well, he employed 3 lads who were all brothers, I don’t want to name them, but my dad got quite friendly with one of them - il just call him Jon, his father who was about 10-15 years older than my dad & was diagnosed with cancer & to cut a long story short he was basically waiting to die.

My dad knew Jon’s old man from pubs / bars round town, by face but never really used to exchange pleasantries with him, or knocked around with him – my dad said he was a bit of a B@stard really, always in fights etc. They kinda guy you would avoid if you could…

Well, when he was dying he started to see things…

Bear in mind this guy wasn’t in a hospital or drugged up with morphine. My dad used to go round there house on Sundays after the pub with Jon & see his old fella & got to know him a little. My dad has always said he was completely rational (Jon’s dad) you could have a conversation with him as normal as me or you could – sport, politics whatever… he said his seemed completely sound in mind, he just had a terminal cancer

One day out of the blue when he was round there with his mate after a pub, he went to my dad & Jon:-

“its crawling out there at night y’know”

“what’s crawling… what you on about?” they replied

“with the dead” was his response

Well, as you can imagine that’s a bit of a conversation stopper!

He used to try to talk to his 3 sons about what he saw, but they either didn’t want to hear it or got fed up of hearing it – thought he was going a bit daft. Being tough/macho lads themselves they didn’t believe in all this c-rap he was saying.

But my dad when he used to go round there every Sunday with his mate Jon (bcoz the pubs used to chuck you out of the pubs in them days around 2pm) & he used to listen to him & what he said.

Basically week by week it went from them (the ghosts, spirits etc) wandering around the streets at night, to them looking through his windows at night, till eventually getting in his house!

Of course no one else could see them except for the fella with cancer….

Anyway, as the weeks passed he became bedridden… still completely sound in mind according to my dad – he didn’t mention these “ghosts” now unless you asked him about them.

My dad would go “are they here now then?” not in a taking the piss way either…

He’d go “yes.…. There stood at the end of the bed leaning on the wardrobe”

Well as you can imagine you have to be at least 7ft tall to lean on a wardrobe!

“What do they look like” my dad would ask

“Tall, dressed in black cloaks” he’d say “you can’t see their faces”

Well, I know this is starting to sound corny – the typical “death” stereotype, Black hood & cloak I may as well put a scythe in his damn hand!

But that’s what the man said & no… they didn’t have a scythe!

Anyway the old man used to swear & shout at these things telling them to f-off, throwing clocks at them, asking them why they were here? they never moved or spoke to him…. Just waited there watching him.

Near the end of his life, the brothers had to move his mattress downstairs & take turns sleeping next to him as he became petrified of them.

In his final weeks he started to see there faces, & told me dad they were skeletons
with cloaks on.

Anyway, with time the man died & as time passed, my dad just convinced himself that the old fella was indeed going crackers & thought no more of it.

Till the early to mid 1980s when he first saw the film “ghost” on video. Theres a scene in it where someone dies (don’t know the character as I’m not a big ghost fan!) but “ghosts” with black hoods on come up through the ground & carry the dead guys spirit away screaming – my dad said his blood ran cold as it was nearly identical to which the old guy was telling my dad 10 years previous!

Anyway….. what do you guys think?

Has anyone had any similar experiences or know anything similar – I’d be interested to know…

And if you think its all bull – fair enough, I’ve nothing to gain on a faceless forum, I’m just telling you what I was told.

This is the introductions forum, you will only get in trouble for trying to post a thread here with content other than Hi how are you, I am so and so.

Well, I had something similiar to it but I had tried to commit suicide and had swallowed quite abit of pills in the process. Well, long story short I woke up on a metal table looking completely different than I did in my regular body. For the first time I had smooth skin, I was freaken gorgeous (What I wouldn't trade for that body) but anyway as I was saying, I looked towards the end of the bed and there was this freaken handsome man I mean I thought I had died and gone to heaven. He had long silver hair, abs, red eyes, an old eighteenth cetury tuxedo with the long coat tails but none of the ruffles that you see via the white part of the tuxedo. Anyway, I ask him who he is and where am I and I just look at him with kind beautiful eyes (I can only imagine they were that way by the way he was looking at me) and he just smirked evilly and then sighed and shook his head saying it wasn't my time. Well I was confused as hell and felt myself being forced back into my body on Earth. I convused heavily and up above me I saw a black cloaked figure with black wings, and the other looked to be a white cloaked figure with white wings swinging and converging on eachother symutaniously. Well I was staring all around me still convulsing before I was finally fine. No pain, no nothing. Later I would come to find out it was Pain, one of Deaths personal helpers who saved me... not the nicest guy in the book either but I consider him a dear friend now. Anyway, thats my experience. If you wanna know more U2 me.

reply to post by I know it all...


First of all, I just want to add that I didn't believe in ghosts either, until I saw one that scared the holy living hell out of me and ever since then, I've been fascinated with the subject and I've had a gazillion other things happen! I say that nicely, btw, lol. I'm not knocking you for NOT believing. I know it's hard to believe in such things when you've never encountered them yourself. But anyway, on with my story...

I've heard of people seeing such things, but not when they were dying. The first time I heard of someone seeing one, it was a group of girls at a church camp. Apparently 30+ girls saw the thing. Nobody died after that, but it was odd anyway. The next person I heard of to see one was my aunt who is HIGHLY religious and certainly wouldn't have lied about it. She said that she pulled up in front of a building one night, to use a pay phone (this was back before the average person had cell phones) and there was a robed figure sitting there. It didn't move... it didn't do anything, but she freaked out and left. She's still alive, so what I've heard may not be exactly the same thing as you're speaking of here, but being that what you've described has been made to represent death for centuries or longer, there has to be SOMETHING to it.

I do believe that people get to where they are able to see stuff when they are closer to death. I'm not sure if it's the conscience beginning to break away from the body or whatever, but before my step-grandfather passed away, he started telling everyone that there were two little blond girls that were in his house. He lived alone and he was a very no nonsense kind of man and if someone else had told him they had seen the same thing, he probably wouldn't have believed it. Not before he started seeing things himself, anyway. But he saw them at home first, but then he had a heart attack and was put in the hospital. He recovered from the heart attack fairly well, but the whole time, he kept asking EVERYONE who those little blond girls were in his hospital room. He couldn't figure out why in the world those two little blond kids were following him around all over the place.

When he was released from the hospital, my mother went to see him and he kept telling her that he knew for a fact that he wasn't crazy, but those "other people" that were living in the house were about to make him that way, because he could hear them all the time and it was annoying. He said they lived there because he could hear them upstairs. One day, he said those two little blond girls were in his bedroom door and a man and a woman that he assumed was their mom and dad walked over to them and talked to them and just completely ignored him. It was a few months after he saw the "whole family" that he passed away. He had another heart attack and was found laying right in the spot where he said he saw the family. It was very odd.

I know this isn't exactly like what you were speaking of, but I do believe that they dying are able to see things that others can't. I just don't know why.

What I will find odd is that if his house sells (it's currently up for sale) is if a family of a man, woman and two little blond girls move in. That would be weird.

Originally posted by gemineye
I know this isn't exactly like what you were speaking of, but I do believe that they dying are able to see things that others can't. I just don't know why.

What I will find odd is that if his house sells (it's currently up for sale) is if a family of a man, woman and two little blond girls move in. That would be weird.

I was watching the program "Celebrity Ghost stories" on the Biography channel the other night, and it's a fascinating programme because you get well known stars recounting their ghost stories, and it gives the story it bit more credibility than from complete stranger unknown to you, they even had David Carradine speaking about his experiences just a few months before his own death.

Anyway your story gemineye reminded me of Rebecca De Mornay's ghost story, she recounts the time when she was a young child and had become seriously ill and hospitalised.
One night she heard the sound of children playing, so she looked out of her hospital window to see 2 young girls (8 or 9 years old) playing.
This sight of the 2 girls seem to cheer Rebecca up to the extent that she quickly recovered from her illness.
Some years later when Rebecca was a young woman she saw the same 2 girls sitting on the same table that she was sitting at whilst having coffee with her friend, Rebecca also saw them around her house on occasions.

A few years later Rebecca had 2 girls of her own, but it was only when they had reached about 8 or 9 when Rebecca realised that her daughters were in fact the same girls that she had seen when she was a young child herself from her hospital window!

When my Grandfather was close to death (like a few months out or so) he started having hallucinations. Nothing like people, like in these stories, but rather of things. Like, for example, I went to see him once, and he was staring at a table that had a remote control on it. He then asked me, "Where did you get that club sandwich?"

I asked if he meant the remote, and he said, "Yeah, that club sandwich."

So, in my mind, it is just the mind playing tricks on itself. I wonder though, if it is actually preparing them for the next step...whatever that step may be.