# Post your ghost stories here, and I will debunk them **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 18, 2010, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674 "2010-06-18T14:53:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/21 "2010-06-18T16:08:05Z")
> [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](#): > > I’ll be in my bunk. _Don’t say it… don’t say it… don’t say it…_ ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/22 "2010-06-18T16:13:03Z")
> [@Rushgeekgirl](#): > > I think the idea that you think you know every explanation is as preposterous as the idea that there are gods. > > You have no idea why my child believed my mother came to visit her after she died. I have no idea and I know them both as well as I know myself. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I don’t understand what happened that night with my daughter. It was just not in her nature to make up such things. I’ve been baffled for 16 years. How can you easily explain it away? > > You can’t. You’ll give your opinion just like dozens of others have. You won’t debunk anything, especially if all you can come up with is that it was her imagination. I could sit here all day and tell people it’s just their imaginations, or funny wiring or old houses settling. It will only be opinion. No sense thinking so highly of your opinion. A picture falls off a wall. One person surmises that either the hook was broken or someone accidentally knocked it loose. Another person surmises that the ghost of the person in the picture is trying to communicate. Now, while both of these are only opinions, a person using common sense will see that both opinions are not equally valid. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/23 "2010-06-18T16:17:09Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Really? Paintings and sculptures just pop into existence out of the quantum field? > What are you talking about? Where are you suggesting they come from? Just as an example, there are people out there (on this very board no doubt) who can tell you exactly how to get from Hobbiton to Farmer Maggot’s field. Where do those places exist in the material world? If I sing you a song that I make up as I go, where did it come from? I know it, and now you know it, but where does it exist in the material world? > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > You are incorrcet about this. We have it completely pinned down. Consciousness is 100% an emergent bio-physical property of the physical brain and nothing else. Maybe. Probably. I’ll give you probably. I’m not sure if you’re not aware of how scientifically and philosophically problematic what you’re saying is, or you just don’t care. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/24 "2010-06-18T16:18:02Z")
> [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](#): > > I understand and respect scientific methodology, and I would like further explanation of **Dio’s** assertion that consciousness is proven to be solely a function of the brain. I’m not saying he’s wrong, I’d just like to see what he’s putting forward as proof. It still seems like a problem of negative proof. > > I’ll be in my bunk. What else do you think consciousness might be, just out of curiosity? It would take a long time to post everything, but we know what parts of the brain are responsible for what parts of consciouness. Two of the major components of consciousness are sensory peception and memory. Do you think it’s been sufficiently proven that people see with their eyes and hear with their ears? Do you think it’s possible that hearing and sight might actually be magic? If you accept that sensory perception is physiological, then you can’t separate it from the brain. “Ghosts” would not have any sensory perceptions at all. They also would not have any memory. We know where memories are stored in the brain. We know where reasoning functions reside in the brain. What part of consciousness do you think we CAN’T prove is physiological? Please give a hypothetical example of how any sort of consciousness can exist separately from the brain. What material existence does it have, how does it perceive and interact with the physical word (and all sensory perception is physical interaction – it’s all stuff hitting other stuff) how does it move and how does it communicate? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/25 "2010-06-18T16:19:41Z")
> [@Rushgeekgirl](#): > > I think the idea that you think you know every explanation is as preposterous as the idea that there are gods. I don’t have to know every explanation. I just have to debunk _impossible_ ones. > [@](#): > > You have no idea why my child believed my mother came to visit her after she died. I have no idea and I know them both as well as I know myself. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I don’t understand what happened that night with my daughter. It was just not in her nature to make up such things. I’ve been baffled for 16 years. How can you easily explain it away? > > You can’t. You’ll give your opinion just like dozens of others have. You won’t debunk anything, especially if all you can come up with is that it was her imagination. I could sit here all day and tell people it’s just their imaginations, or funny wiring or old houses settling. It will only be opinion. No sense thinking so highly of your opinion. I can explain it easily. She hallucinated it. It’s actually a very common phenomenon for people to hallucinate that they are seeing or being visted by loved ones shortly after they die. It’s an emotional coping mechanism and a well-known phenomenon. That’s what happened to your daughter. You’re welcome. ---
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/26 "2010-06-18T16:22:40Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I don’t have a problem with people seeking rational explanations. I have a probem with people blithely assigning _asinine_ explanations and refusing to even _listen_ to rational explanations. I’m afraid you’ll probably be unable to convince the demographic you’re targeting. As someone who has had “unexplainable” things happen to them, I fully accept that they were probably a result of natural causes (air conditioner, electricity malfunction, warped wood, etc.); however, I had to come to that conclusion on my own after many years. When they happened and even for many years after, I was 100% convinced that they were caused by supernatural happenings. It was only after I sat down and forced myself to think about it - really think about it - that I realized that the likelihood of those being caused by anything other than natural causes was nil. So, you can provide the information, but most people aren’t going to post and actually invite you to “correct” them. Plus, as **Sampiro** and **Thudlow** noted, it does come off as snide and condescending when the sole purpose of a thread is to tell people why they’re wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/27 "2010-06-18T16:25:24Z")
I think I can create a flowchart. REVIEW EXPERIENCE | | DOCUMENTARY (non-experiential) EVIDENCE EXISTS? —\> No --\> “It was a hallucination.” | | —\> Yes --\> “Flaw in documentary recording procedure exists.” ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/28 "2010-06-18T16:28:52Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > Where are you suggesting they come from? They don’t “come from” anywhere, they are built from peexisting materials. > [@](#): > > Just as an example, there are people out there (on this very board no doubt) who can tell you exactly how to get from Hobbiton to Farmer Maggot’s field. Where do those places exist in the material world? They don’t exist in _any_ world. They are imaginary, just like ghosts. If your only point is that gjhosts have exactly the same kind of purely imaginary “existence” as hobbits, then I agree with you. > [@](#): > > If I sing you a song that I make up as I go, where did it come from? I know it, and now you know it, but where does it exist in the material world It didn’t “come from” anywhere. You made it up, just like people make up ghosts. I think you need a cleare definition of a “song,” though. Are you defining it as a recording, a performance or just the written (or unwritten) composition of the song? Those are all different kinds of material existence. Even if it’s just stored in a brain, then it’s still physical information stored in a physical brain. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/29 "2010-06-18T16:31:40Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I think I can create a flowchart. > > REVIEW EXPERIENCE > > | > | > DOCUMENTARY (non-experiential) EVIDENCE EXISTS? —\> No –\> “It was a hallucination.” > | > | > —\> Yes –\> “Flaw in documentary recording procedure exists.” When the data itself is a that a person hallucinated something that wasn’t there, then the explanation is that they hallucinated it. X=X. There’s nothing to explain, only an observation to record. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/30 "2010-06-18T16:32:14Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > They don’t “come from” anywhere, they are built from peexisting materials. That’s circular reasoning. > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > They don’t exist in _any_ world. They are imaginary, just like ghosts. If your only point is that gjhosts have exactly the same kind of purely imaginary “existence” as hobbits, then I agree with you. How can Qadgop the Mercotan and I have a conversation about Rivendell if it doesn’t exist? > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Even if it’s just stored in a brain, then it’s still physical information stored in a physical brain. Where? Show me. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/31 "2010-06-18T16:40:00Z")
Apologies if I sounded a bit confrontational before, but I’ll admit I have a problem with some debunkings. When it comes to debunking Sylvia Browne or John Edward or some other charlatan be they multimillionaires or red-palm signs in a trailer park, then I’m Les Grossman: > [@](#): > > Do your thing, skin the fucking bastard. Go to town, man. Go to town! These people do demonstrable harm: they prey on the emotionally vulnerable for money. Ditto to Peter Popoff and other faith healers, or to pundits or to people who use their religion or ideology to further their prejudices in such a way as to negatively interfere with the lives of others be it Prop 8 or NAGPRA or videotaping scared girls seeking abortion- they are interfering the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for others for completely subjective and selfish reasons even if they don’t see it that way. For that matter if (and this is an actual example) somebody you know is convinced that she’s being haunted by a malicious entity in her bedroom at night when she’s not asleep, explaining hypnogogic/hypnopompic hallucinations (which occur when you’re not asleep and not quite awake either) can be a very good thing. Somebody freaked out by backwards masking or a demon on their oak tree might benefit from learning about pareidolia. But, what if their experience brings relief and hurts nobody? If this lady thinks her dead son has come to see her before and put his hand on her shoulder and it brings her pleasure and comfort to believe that, so what if it is a hallucination or delusion? So long as her son isn’t asking her to walk naked into a bank and take a hostage, or she’s not paying somebody to rub duck oil on her and conjure the son, or she doesn’t believe her son is saying “I hated you in life and just wait until you die, it’s on biatch!” but reassurance that ‘we’ll be together again’, then how is it harmful? I can however see that it is good. Then there’s also the matter of "who am I to say she’s wrong? I don’t know everything- timespace and other dimensions and what not are some weirdass crazy things after all, and again- so long as she functions in her day to day life and doesn’t require people to believe her, then I would find debunking- which you can’t prove anyway- as a bad thing. There are many reassuring and comforting things about atheism and this is true even when it comes to grieving. Why did that child die of cancer? Because the child had booby trapped genes. It’s that simple- it’s not part of a divine clan, no god needed her to suffer, it wasn’t punishment for anybody’s sins, there’s no master plan you must believe in of which the child’s suffering and her parent’s grief was a vital part- it happened, it’s bad, there’s no good side, but it’s nobody’s fault. That is actually comforting. But atheism- and I speak as an atheist and as somebody who doesn’t believe that wishing something were true makes it so- it can also a bit sterile and empty at times. I would love to think that there is a paradise where the people I have loved who are now dead I will see again and hug again and they will be happy and healthy and we’ll spend all days drinking ice cream sodas and not gaining weight- but I don’t believe that, I think they are dead and that to the extent any consciousness of theirs still exists it is as memories of those who loved them. But I would never take comfort from somebody who does believe that and whose life is made better by the notion even if I personally may believe it’s not so. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/32 "2010-06-18T16:47:30Z")
> [@Cisco](#): > > That’s circular reasoning How so? I really don’t understand what the hell point you’re trying to make. A painting is NOT built from preexisting materials? What is it built from? > [@](#): > > How can Qadgop the Mercotan and I have a conversation about Rivendell if it doesn’t exist? You think Rivendell actually exists? I still don’t get your point. You can discuss things that are imaginary. So what? That doesn’t mean they exist. > [@](#): > > Where? Show me. [Right here in the hippocampus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocampus), just inside the medial temporal lobe. That’s where long term memories are stored. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/33 "2010-06-18T16:51:52Z")
I’ve got one that’s not a ghost story, but is a tale of the supernatural. I’m genuinely curious as to what may have happened here. Some young women got the idea in their heads to go visit a psychic. They were all pretty excited about it, except one, Thelma. Thelma was a true skeptic and only went because she had nothing better to do. Most of the women had such burning questions like will they find true love or whatever. But Thelma was given a very specific instruction: At some time in the future, her parents’ health would be in grave danger, and their doctors will want to give up on them, thinking their cases to be hopeless. Thelma was told not to give in, no matter what the doctors told her. She was to insist that they keep trying. She went away from the reading with a “yeah, right” attitude. Surely that would never come to pass. Well, some 20 years later, the parents got into a really bad car accident, and… I’m sure you can guess the rest of the story. This was told to me by Thelma’s daughter, who I believe was around at the time of the accident. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/34 "2010-06-18T17:00:13Z")
What’s the supernatural part? Somebody predicted that somebody else’s parents, at some unspecified point in the future, would have health problems. That’s amazing and unexplainable to you? Really? How many parents in the world will not eventually have health problems? I bet the “psychic” said exactly the same thing to everybody. The first part (your parents will one day have health problems) is 100% guaranteed to come true for every human being, and the second part (they will pull through) is going to have a very large hit percentage as well. I should become a psychic. People are unbelievably easy. ---
**Author:** ![Tethered\_Kite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/35 "2010-06-18T17:01:20Z")
When I was about fifteen I fell asleep and awoke to my closet door slowly opening. Deep in the shadows I saw a tall, spectral figure wedged between my box-pleated skirt and my Ben Casey Dr. blouse. He was green and I hoped he wasn’t soiling anything in there. “Who are you?” I asked. He solemnly, in a low register, uttered, “I am Rigger.” “Rigger? Rigger who?” “Rigger Mortuss.” came back the mournful reply. True story. My _hippo_ puns! ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/36 "2010-06-18T17:05:41Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > I’ve got one that’s not a ghost story, but is a tale of the supernatural. I’m genuinely curious as to what may have happened here. > > Some young women got the idea in their heads to go visit a psychic. They were all pretty excited about it, except one, Thelma. Thelma was a true skeptic and only went because she had nothing better to do. > > Most of the women had such burning questions like will they find true love or whatever. But Thelma was given a very specific instruction: At some time in the future, her parents’ health would be in grave danger, and their doctors will want to give up on them, thinking their cases to be hopeless. Thelma was told not to give in, no matter what the doctors told her. She was to insist that they keep trying. > > She went away from the reading with a “yeah, right” attitude. Surely that would never come to pass. Well, some 20 years later, the parents got into a really bad car accident, and… I’m sure you can guess the rest of the story. > > This was told to me by Thelma’s daughter, who I believe was around at the time of the accident. You were told a story about a fortune telling that happened decades earlier to someone else. At some point in the future, all of our parents health will be in grave danger. Some details on what the parents condition was and how the doctors were giving up on them and what Thelma insisted they keep doing would be helpful. However, people recovering unexpectedly is fairly common. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/37 "2010-06-18T17:07:05Z")
When I was first engaged to my wife, she went to a tarot card reader and asked her about me (I wasn’t there, and never met this psychic). The tarot reader told her that the cards said I had a lot of wisdom and common sense and that I would be a good counsellor to her over the years. If that doesn’t prove that psychics are full of shit, I don’t know what does. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/38 "2010-06-18T17:09:22Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > There is nothing pinned down about consciousness. What you are talking about is a theory. I am sure the concept of a theory has been explained to you before, because you’ve got it wrong here. I have explanations for two of these stories but they’re not going to satisfy anybody because it’s not really possible to say anything other than “nothing out of the ordinary happened here.” That’s unsatisfying to people who are talking about emotional experiences and to some people (not all of whom admit it) it’s too boring- they want to live in a world where spooky, inexplicable stuff happens. > [@](#): > > My father-in-law was seriously ill in the hospital. Let’s review this scenario briefly: your wife’s father was very sick. You spent all day at the hospital and were by your own admission exhausted, and before you went to sleep, you were already thinking about going back to the hospital. Is it surprising you had a dream about your father-in-law and the hospital? Objectively I think you have to admit that’s to be expected. It sounds more dramatic if you say “I dreamed I heard his voice” instead of “he called my name loudly,” but the bottom line is that you dreamed he was talking to you. Which is not surprising. Not to nitpick the dead, but his message also communicated nothing and was not helpful to you in any way. If his spirit was communicating with you he should have told you to go back to the hospital in time to get there when he died. The fact that the dream happened right before the phone call is a coincidence. In early 2007 I had a relative who was in the hospital for two months. I thought about him many times a day and visited four or five days a week. Would it have been a surprise for me to get a phone call with news a few minutes after I’d been thinking about him? No. It would have been more surprising if that never happened. > [@](#): > > When I arrived at the hospital to pick up my family, my daughter said she had seen a ghost image of her grandfather’s favorite cat walking across his bed just before he died. Later when I went to tell my mother-in-law about her husband’s demise she told me that the cat had died, and I needed to dispose of its body. That’s a coincidence too. Your daughter had probably seen her grandfather with the cat a lot of times (and the cat was apparently old) and she was thinking about death. > [@Rushgeekgirl](#): > > You have no idea why my child believed my mother came to visit her after she died. I have no idea and I know them both as well as I know myself. I don’t believe in ghosts, but I don’t understand what happened that night with my daughter. It was just not in her nature to make up such things. She could have believed it and still made it up. Children do things like that, and it’s a lot more plausible than the alternative. Neither of these things is proof. It’s not possible to prove something happened in a story. It’s possible to come up with another explanation for an observed phenomenon but I can’t tell you for a fact why your daughter said something happened. But we can talk rationally about likelihoods and about what’s plausible and what isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/39 "2010-06-18T17:14:39Z")
We had a family dog from the time I was about 9 or 10 until I was about 20. When the dog died, I was really bummed out. When it’s a pet you’ve loved from childhood, it’s like losing a member of the family. One afternoon, a couple of days after he died, I was sitting in a chair in my parents house when the dog suddenly came running into the room and jumped on my lap. He barked at me, and I petted him and then he just vanished right out of my lap. I wasn’t asleep. It seemed like it was really happening. I had just wanted to see him so bad, that my brain made me see him. It did make me feel better and broke my depression. It’s a common phenomenon during the grieving process. It could well be what started the Christian religion. ETA I had also done a lot of acid in my life. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/40 "2010-06-18T17:21:33Z")
Heh, why not. I’m not calling this a ghost story, since I don’t believe in ghosts… but I have no fucking clue how this happened and I’d love a reasonable explanation. Anyways, while I was doing my student teaching in Vermont, I was staying with my grandmother who has a very large house. The basement was a finished apartment, so I was staying there. I had my computer desk set up right next to the door that went through the garage, so that where I sat was about 3-4 feet from the door. One day while writing up lesson plans in MS Word (internet closed, nothing could have been making sound) I very, very, very distinctly heard the sound of three distinct knocks on the door from the basement apartment to the garage. No doubt about it, no possibility that it came from somewhere else. Three clear knocks, about 4 feet from my head. I got up and opened the door, and nobody was there. I went into the garage, and nobody was there. I went out of the garage, and nobody was on the entire front lawn. I went inside and upstairs to speak to my grandmother, and nobody had visited the house and nobody was banging on anything (they were eating lunch). And, as I said, I was absolutely certain that the knocking had come from just a few feet away from my head and there was absolutely no way that anybody could have knocked on the door and then gotten through the garage and then off the front lawn before I was outside. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674.md?page=3)