Every once in a while, I encounter something that makes me understand why some people sincerely believe in ghosts and the like.
One end of my basement studio/office is a workshop, mostly separated by a hard wall but with a dust curtain across the opening. The curtain stays open pretty much all of the time.
Every once in a while, I find the curtain neatly and fully pulled shut. Okay, with four other people in the house, all of whom occasionally get something from that room (we’ll leave aside the issues of appropriateness and permission… sigh) there’s nothing too unusual about that.
This morning, I grabbed two large, awkward things from the shop - a big styro board and a camera on a studio tripod - and carried them up the stairs right next to the curtain-door. I was upstairs a few minutes, and then went back down.
The curtain was neatly, fully pulled shut.
There is no one else in the house.
Even the dogs didn’t stir off the couch during my trip upstairs, and they are neither trained nor inclined to pull curtains any direction.
I am a rationalist, and spent ten years working with anti-paranormal groups, and know full well how “mysterious” things can happen. But you’ll forgive me if the hair literally stood up on the back of my neck as I ssssloowwly opened the curtain to see who might be there. (Nobody.)
I live alone in a fairly remote bungalow. Sometimes when I am in the shower with the curtain pulled closed I hear noises that sound like snippets of speech or a light cough. For a second I am frozen still.
Some of the interior doors have glass panels instead of the usual wood, sometimes when I am reading I see reflected movement out of the corner of my eye when there is seemingly no movement in the room.
I also spend a lot of time out of the house visiting my girlfriend. So I figure if the house is haunted, the poor thing must be very lonely in there on its own all the time!
Time to set up a remote camera on that thing to see if you can capture the curtain closing!
I don’t believe in ghosts, but I’ve never seen one; most of the stuff I read/hear about sounds like a bunch of woo. Now, last year I moved into a house where the prior renter hung himself 6 months before we moved in. The landlord mentioned it to us when we first started looking at the place, and asked if it would affect our desires, the wife (who loved the place) said “No”, and that was that. We’ve yet to feel anything weird or hear anything weird (we passed the one year anniversary of his suicide with no scary noises or sightings), so I dunno.
Well, this house is fairly new (2002) and was not much more than a pied-a-terre for the two prior owners. We moved in when it was eight years old, and it was new/original top to bottom, hardly a mark on any wall. There was still construction dust in the basement corners. So it’s unlikely to have any native ghosts and if one’s moved in, it “broke into the wrong damn rec room!”
The other day, I was on the toilet doing my business when I heard a noise to my left.
Ain’t nobody in the bathroom but me and there are no windows, only an exhaust fan. The shower curtain, which was left closed so it could dry out from a recent shower, had made a noise and behaved exactly as if an adult standing inside the tub punched it with a fist.
I’ve mentioned it here before that I’ve photographed a ghost. It shows up in a photo I took of my great-uncle’s gravestone. It’s not a reflection, it’s not a trick of the light, it’s not my brain seeing human faces in random things. It’s a perfectly detailed man’s face. Receding hairline, ear, eyes, pointed nose, looking down at the words on the gravestone. The photo I took a few seconds after shows nothing in that spot.
I’m not a believer, nor am I a disbeliever. I don’t buy the idiocy on “reality” TV, but I do wonder if life as we know it is the extent of existence. Kinda sad to think we spend decades on earth amassing knowledge and skills only to end up as worm food. But if that’s the case, it won’t matter in the end, will it?
Dang, overcast days really affect my mood in a bad way.
Edith Wharton’s view on ghosts neatly agrees with mine: “No, I don’t believe in ghosts, but I’m afraid of them.”
I’ve absolutely no belief in the afterlife, but I do love the feeling of being unnerved momentarily when something inexplicable (at least at the moment) happens.
I find these sorts of things very interesting and fun to discuss. But I think when you lay out the possibilities rationally, the supernatural explanation looks a bit less likely. Let’s take the OP’s story with the dust curtain mysteriously having been moved (and we’ll assume he’s telling the story honestly to the best of his ability). Here are the possible ‘solutions’:
The OP was honestly mistaken. He either shut the curtain himself without realizing it, or it was already shut and he didn’t notice (or remembered it falsely).
Some other natural person/animal/force shut the curtain (there was someone in the house; one of his dogs did it despite his doubts; a mouse or other vermin did it; the breeze or AC did it; there was a minor shift in the foundation that moved the curtain; etc).
Some supernatural force did it.
It seems to me that, looking at the situation objectively, options 1 and 2 are far, far more likely than option 3. This doesn’t eliminate the possibility of supernatural forces in the world, but I think if you apply this sort of reasoning to any given claim of supernatural occurrence, we can rationally conclude that the supernatural option is very unlikely.
I’ll note that I’ve had the same sorts of experiences and “hair-raising” feelings too. I’m much more able to look at it this way after the fact.
I once lived in a lovely little apartment in a building built in the early 1900s.
One day, I came home from work to find all of the cabinets open, and all of the pots and pans on the ktichen floor. :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
I put them all back and closed the cabinet doors. And then I poured a large glass of wine.
A few hours later, I heard some noise in the kitchen. Thoroughly freaked out, I bravely went in…where I saw my cat on her hind legs, opening the cabinets, and the ferret going in and dragging out the pots and pans with his teeth.
99% of any weirdness that’s ever happened in my home can be attributed to the cats. Things knocked over? Cat. Things moved? Cat. Weird noises? Cat.
And then there’s that 1% that I can’t explain. But when those things happen, my brain thinks, “Well, *that’s *interesting. Wonder what caused it?” rather than “ZOMG! GHOSTS!!! DEMONS!!!”
I’d LIKE to believe in ghosts. I really like the idea of windswept castles on stormy nights with babes in windblown diaphonous gowns stalking the ramparts, only to be revealed as bein’ translucent with each lighntning crash…
I ain’t had much of that in my life. I have had all of one paranormal experience that utterly terrified me. I found out months later what had happened, and it was nauseatingly rational and scientific.
As it is, all the odd noises and moving objects at my place can be explained simply in two words: “Damn cat.”
Strangely enough, though, there are spots where cats won’t go or walk… and occasionally, I see one furiously batting at a thing that isn’t there. And I consider the paranormal. Then again, these are the same creatures that were once spooked as all get out by the dark, shapeless, nameless horror… that WAS… one of my socks.
In Anne Rivers Siddons’ novel “The House Next Door,” a brand new, modern house gets built on the lot next door to her protagonist and ruins the lives of the first three consecutive owners, lickety-split. Siddons (deliberately) doesn’t say whether the ground was haunted, the house got haunted immediately, or the architect/builder somehow transferred a spirit into the dwelling. A fun read.
I’m pretty sure I told this story here, but there’s likely at least one person who is still unaware…
I was working in Bldg 2 aboard NAS Jacksonville, FL on a swing shift, since engineering was required to provide engineering support until midnight on a high-priority project and it was my turn to sit alone in a WWII era building. In fact, when the base was built, Bldg 2 was the original chow hall.
So it was a little unnerving when in that dim loneliness, I smell cinnamon rolls! :eek: I got up and checked - no one was in the building, nothing was in the break room or the microwave. But as I sat at my desk, I most definitely smelled cinnamon rolls. Well, almost. My top desk drawer was slightly open and there was a back of Trident cinnamon gum almost directly under my nose. I will admit, for a bit there, I was a little freaked out!
Those old buildings at NAS JAX are a little creepy. I know exactly where you mean (my dad worked at the health support office for a decade). You might’ve worked with my uncle!
It’s been a long time since I read this book, but I recall some suggestion that the architect had the same effect on people as the house did – ie, disastrous – and had somehow transferred his extreme bad luck to the house plans.
