# Ghosts: If there aren't any, how do we explain all the sightings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 25, 2003, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-if-there-arent-any-how-do-we-explain-all-the-sightings/177440 "2003-05-25T19:34:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-if-there-arent-any-how-do-we-explain-all-the-sightings/177440/21 "2003-05-27T09:47:41Z")
People see what they want to see. For instance does anyone remember the face on Mars? I remember people went ape-shit over this. Turns out it was just an optical illusion. Huh imagine that. Also I can’t remeber who said this but its stuck with me for quite some time now; it went something like this: _Humans are arogant in the fact that we try to explain things we have no explanation for. Remeber, just becuase you can’t explain something logicaly doesn’t mean its supernatural phenomina._ ---
**Author:** ![Dijon\_Warlock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a9a28c/32.png) [@Dijon\_Warlock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dijon_Warlock)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-if-there-arent-any-how-do-we-explain-all-the-sightings/177440/22 "2003-05-27T10:07:39Z")
Just found [this article](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3044607.stm), in which an attempt at a scientific look at the phenomenon was undertaken. > [@](#): > > \*\*The results were striking: participants did record a high number of unusual experiences in the most classically haunted places of Hampton Court, areas such as the Georgian rooms and the Haunted Gallery. > > \ > > The researchers interpret this as evidence that hauntings are a real phenomenon because they are concentrated in specific places over time. > > \ > > But are the ghosts real? Dr Wiseman and his colleagues are not so sure. > > They claim, somewhat paradoxically, that the hauntings exist but the ghosts do not. > > “People do have consistent experiences in consistent places, but I think that this is driven by visual factors mainly, and perhaps some other environmental cues,” he said.\*\* Dunno what this answers (if anything), but there you go. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-if-there-arent-any-how-do-we-explain-all-the-sightings/177440/23 "2003-05-27T12:50:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dijon Warlock \* > **Just found [this article](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3044607.stm), in which an attempt at a scientific look at the phenomenon was undertaken.** Rest assured that no one will bother to bother to read the link, just as no one bothers to read the thread. -See the third reply here for the _same_ article, as well a companion piece. ---
**Author:** ![jonpluc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/fbc32d/32.png) [@jonpluc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jonpluc)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-if-there-arent-any-how-do-we-explain-all-the-sightings/177440/24 "2003-05-27T12:55:54Z")
The best explanation i heard was that “ghosts” were just simply a glitch in the Matrix. ---
**Author:** ![davesink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cc9497/32.png) [@davesink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davesink)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-if-there-arent-any-how-do-we-explain-all-the-sightings/177440/25 "2003-05-27T14:20:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ianzin \* > \*\* > The ghostly appearance of clothing and artefacts is also rather difficult to fit into the afterlife-survival theory, unless clothing and knives and suchlike also have souls. > \*\* A _nekkid_ Henry the 8th?? SCCCAAAAARRRYYY!:eek: ---
**Author:** ![frithrah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ad7895/32.png) [@frithrah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/frithrah)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-if-there-arent-any-how-do-we-explain-all-the-sightings/177440/26 "2003-05-27T14:48:13Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by ianzin \* \*\* Conversely, the hypothesis that the ghost exists in the mind, and is a mental construct rather than a visual perception, is much more well supported by evidence and entirely consistent with all of the above findings. \*\* I couldn’t agree more. But I take issue with your distinction. We are never able to apprehend the world directly. By the time we become cognizant of a visual perception it is equally nothing more than a mental construct. \*\*I think it makes sense to say that ‘ghosts’ are in the mind. They are an expression or symptom of an emotional response to a place or an event, or a projection of an emotional or mental state. It’s a perfectly real _experience_, and can be important to the person perceiving the ghost. But not a perception of an external thing, like seeing a wall. \*\* And how can you be so sure that the wall is external? What if: “There is no spoon?” ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-if-there-arent-any-how-do-we-explain-all-the-sightings/177440/27 "2003-05-27T17:27:53Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by frithrah \* \*\* > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ianzin \* > \*\* > And how can you be so sure that the wall is external? What if: > “There is no spoon?” \*\* You took the red **and** blue pills, didn’t you? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Miskatonic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mr.miskatonic/32/310_2.png) [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-if-there-arent-any-how-do-we-explain-all-the-sightings/177440/28 "2003-05-27T17:30:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ianzin \* > \*\*This last point may seem a little opaque, so let me elaborate on it briefly. Good research points to several cases where ghostly visions correspond to what the observer thinks a ghost would or should look like, rather than anything that would correlate with the afterlife-survival theory. For example, a person stays in a haunted house and is told the 17th century Baron who used to own it was cruelly stabbed to death and still haunts the place. The witness duly reports seeing the ghost - but with a very wayward notion of how people dressed in that era. Or without realising that the Baron was actually only 18 years old when he died. Or when the truth is that the house is only 50 years old. > \*\* This is always my favorite. Like when the historicly-impaired person says they see the ghost of a Civil War soldier on the Revolutionary War battlefield. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-if-there-arent-any-how-do-we-explain-all-the-sightings/177440/29 "2003-05-27T19:40:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MonkeyNo1 \* > They’re kinda like Weapons of Mass Destruction. > If there aren’t any, how do we explain all the intelligence? The intelligence said that Iraq didn’t have any WMDs either. It’s not the CIA’s fault if George W. Bush ignored them and lied to the world. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-if-there-arent-any-how-do-we-explain-all-the-sightings/177440/30 "2003-05-27T21:58:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ianzin \* > \*\*people have what we can call _a ghostly experience_. \*\* I had a _Ghostley_ experience once, I saw one in New York in 1977. it looked like [this](http://www.tvtome.com/tvtome/servlet/PersonDetail/personid-4673) . It was during a performance of “Annie”. 😃 (Miss Hannigan) ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-if-there-arent-any-how-do-we-explain-all-the-sightings/177440/31 "2003-05-27T22:04:00Z")
But seriously though, Here’s a nice entry in [The Sceptic’s Dictionary](http://skepdic.com/haunted.html) . > [@](#): > > Hearing strange noises in the night and letting the imagination run wild are quite natural human traits and not very indicative of diabolical or paranormal activity. > > …There are “ghostbuster” types who go to allegedly haunted houses for television programs such as Sightings. They walk around with some electronic device that picks up electromagnetic fields, and if the needle jumps around they claim they have evidence of poltergeist activity. Why electromagnetism should be identified with ghosts or devils, I have no idea. Just about everything gives off some level of electromagnetic radiation ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-if-there-arent-any-how-do-we-explain-all-the-sightings/177440/32 "2003-05-28T00:32:01Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sublight \* > \*\*I’ve heard numerous reports that around 10% of American students, when asked to locate the United States on a map, choose the wrong location. Of these, the majority Australia. > > \ > > To believe that a hundred or more individual instances of the same mistake (which is often the case in many of these tests) by unrelated persons is a mere coincidence requires far more suspension of disbelief than I’m capable of. \*\* Within 500 responses on a standarized test I scored last week, 9% of 11th graders asked to compare two **civil war** pictures, clearly labeled as such, asserted that bombs, tanks and missles were used to cause the destuction of buildings as seen in the second picture. Ignorance of history and geography, though “provable” have little to do with this topic, or am I wrong? If they do have tenious bearing on the question at hand, then we’d have to compare them to the fact that despite years and years of scientific research, scientists can no offer a valid explaination for what causes me to be left-handed _or_ explain why I have red hair. Sadly, science can’t answer a lot of things. yet. If ghosts are in people’s minds, what causes that to happen? Hallucinations usually have a cause, do they not? ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-if-there-arent-any-how-do-we-explain-all-the-sightings/177440/33 "2003-05-28T01:46:09Z")
There is, of course, no need to assign one explanation to all sightings. Nor to assign only one explanation to any single sighting. ---
**Author:** ![Dijon\_Warlock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a9a28c/32.png) [@Dijon\_Warlock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dijon_Warlock)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-if-there-arent-any-how-do-we-explain-all-the-sightings/177440/34 "2003-05-28T05:33:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Squink \* > \*\*Rest assured that no one will bother to bother to read the link, just as no one bothers to read the thread. -See the third reply here for the _same_ article, as well a companion piece. \*\* D’oh! Ummm, a ghost did it. Yeah, that’s it… ---
**Author:** ![Algernon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a183cd/32.png) [@Algernon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algernon)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-if-there-arent-any-how-do-we-explain-all-the-sightings/177440/35 "2003-05-28T14:05:03Z")
Ghosts: Have to be believed in to be seen. Not the reverse. I had a _ghastly_ experience once. Does that count? ---
**Author:** ![Searching\_For\_Truth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4da419/32.png) [@Searching\_For\_Truth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Searching_For_Truth)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2003, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-if-there-arent-any-how-do-we-explain-all-the-sightings/177440/36 "2003-05-28T14:36:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Squink \* > \*\*Rest assured that no one will bother to bother to read the link, just as no one bothers to read the thread. -See the third reply here for the _same_ article, as well a companion piece. \*\* No, no, **Squink!** Don’t give up hope just yet. I want you to know that I read _both_ articles when you linked them. I did, I did. Do I get a cookie now? Do I? Do I? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ghosts-if-there-arent-any-how-do-we-explain-all-the-sightings/177440.md?page=1)