My husband’s grandfather was on the slab in the morgue after being “sworded” in WWI. Sheet over his face and everything. He popped up gasping for air and scared the bejeezus out of the attendant.
He lived another 50 or so years…it happens sometimes.
Weirdest substantiated funeral story I can think of has to do with William the Conqueror, who famously exploded at his funeral.
And then there’s the sit-com like case of George Tobias, the character actor best known for playing Abner Kravitz on the sit-com Bewitched. He died of natural causes at his Hollywood bungalow, was loaded into a coroner’s station wagon which was then involved in a fender bender. While the driver was stopped to await the police and exchange insurance info the station wagon, with “AB-nurrr!” in the back, was stolen. Cite Car and passenger were abandoned a few blocks away, probably when the thieves realized they weren’t alone.
Are you sure that’s what your husband meant when he said his grandpa had some sordid experiences with a nurse under the sheets in WW1?
My dad grew up in a “haunted house” and they knew the previous tenant hanged himself in the attic.
I think they all kind of got sucked into the group-think thing, but at one point, the entire family believed something was going on.
And I’m certain something was going on…but it wasn’t ghosts. They were events that no one had a logical explanation for. But the fact that they didn’t have the logical explanation doesn’t mean one didn’t exist.
This is horrifying, bizarre and hilarious, all rolled into one!
Heh-heh…
To be fair, this wasn’t a “three days later and he returned from the dead” kind of thing…As I remember it, it was a battlefield morgue and his weak pulse experience probably didn’t last more than a few hours.
The oldest known chroniclers of Alexander the Great (none of the primary sources survive but works written using them do) mentioned how his body did not begin decaying for days after his death. This has led to some speculation he may have been in a coma for part of that time. If he was, the mummification probably took care of it.
Years ago I read in a magazine (American Heritage or something like it) that when Edgar Allan Poe was a boy he saw a swampy cemetery being drained and the bodies relocated, and that one of the coffins fell apart and there were scratch marks on the lid, and that this left a major impression. However, the article wasn’t documented and I’ve never read it anywhere else in a biography. It sounds wonderfully eerie but apocryphal. Has anybody else read this?
I also remember reading in something that seemed more reliable that Charles Dickens, who had a fear of live burial, requested his wrists be cut before he was buried to be sure he was dead. (Dickens died in 1870, about the time that embalming was becoming the norm.)
Personally, I do. I’ve had a couple experiences that may or not validate such a thing for other people, but I have my stories.
- Queen Kaa’humanu Shopping Center on Maui is said to be haunted. I’ve heard stories of videogames at the arcade here turning themselves on at night, sounds of footsteps and the like in the corridors below the mall, and a toilet in the back room of one store flushing by itself.
A number of years ago, there was a store on the lower level that sold antiques. Now, this store occupied a section that never stayed around for long: every store that occupied that area eventually closes down, and reports from those vendors and people who work there always says that they have uneasy feelings being there, sensations of being watched, and other just odd heebie-jeebie feelings.
Now, the antiques this store sold were of Asian origin: China, Japan, Taiwan, et cetera had roots in their goods. It wasn’t long before word got to me that the doors at the entrance would rattle at night. Thinking this was a fun opportunity, I stayed at the mall after closing up the store I worked at, and headed over with my cousin and some of his friends in tow.
Sure enough, when we got there, we could hear the doors rattling. I put my hand up between them to feel for air currents. Nothing. I set my hand against the doors and pushed. It stopped the rattling for a second or two, but then they began to rattle harder than before. I pushed harder, but then it seemed to push back with more force against me.
My cousin, meanwhile, was trying to take a picture with his cell phone. However, every time he tried, it would give him an error message. If he stepped away about 20 feet and tried again, it would again work, so being near the doors meant that something was causing his phone to malfunction. I was witnessing this phenomenon myself the whole time.
Getting an idea, I asked for his phone, and turned the program on again, only this time I used the camera as an electronic ‘eye’ without trying to take a picture. What I saw was pretty interesting:
Standing about three feet in front of me, past the doors, was a ghostly image of a figure in Chinese-styled ancient armor. I could see from around the upper-chest section and up. The helmet he wore had tassels, and I could see the slats in his armor on his chest. He stood maybe as tall if not a little taller than I. I could make out some facial features, like a mustache, but that’s about it, kind of ‘blurred’.
Of course I was more ‘Woah…’ than 'Get me out of here!" at the time, I guess ghosts fascinate more than frighten me, so I did the only thing that came to mind:
I waved at it. 
- Iao Valley is believed to be haunted by quite a number of people, especially the extremely superstitious. Burial sites are said to be hidden throughout the valley, and the Battle of Kepaniwai was extraordinarily bloody.
One day I went there with my brand-new digital camera, and a friend was along for the fun. I wanted to take some photos of the river, some greenery, some flowers; you know, a nice day out. Now, the parking lot is on one side, then you go up a path to the bridge that crosses Iao Stream to continue going in deeper.
So I started taking pictures along the way, mostly of myself and my friend, everything is going great…
…until we cross the bridge; or, in a better way of saying it, cross over the river.
Immediately my camera starts malfunctioning. Every picture I take after the bridge comes out blurry and out of focus, no picture comes out right, as if something was interfering with my shots and my camera. I had an idea it was the ghosts of the place, which made me upset that they would screw with my nice shots. 
After about half an hour, we leave. As soon as we cross back over the bridge, I try some shots, and my camera works fine again. They say ghosts can’t cross water. Interesting coincidences there.
So yeah, those are my stories. May not be proof for you, but they’re good fun for me.
I just remembered hearing something about sound waves outside the range of human hearing generating fearful emotions - ah, here it is. It seems that infrasound can generate chills, feelings of fear and unease, and even ghostly apparitions. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this explains a lot of “hauntings” that are tied to a particular location.