# 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:** 4
**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, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/61 "2010-06-18T18:28:17Z")
Indeed, the brother messing with you seems much more likely to me. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/62 "2010-06-18T18:28:18Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > 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’ve had similar experiences and you’d be surprised what “knocking” comes from. I had knocking at my front door about once a week with no one there. Drove me nuts. The door was in plain view about 10 feet away. Turns out it was a wooden “welcome” sign my wife hung on the wall just to the left of the front door. When a breeze would catch it just right it lifted a few inches then fell back against the wall, KNOCK-Knock-knock. Also had a knock-knock on the wall behind my head one night when sitting on the couch. The adjacent room was my son’s bedroom but he was out in the living room with me. After some investigative work I found a small framed picture that had fallen off his wall and behind his dresser. I also have a glass double-hung patio door that lets out a loud “bang” once a day without moving. At first I thought it was birds flying into it but I never saw any. I suspect it is the air between the panes expanding and releasing pressure daily but have no way to verify it. ---
**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, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/63 "2010-06-18T18:29:16Z")
> [@Darth\_Hamsandwich](#): > > I’ll bite. Here’s another supernatural story (which left me pleasantly baffled). My family brought our beagle ‘Jake’ up to the vacation house in Lake George, NY. The night before we were to be returning home, Jake disappears. Just split the whole scene into the wilderness. > We were beside ourselves with grief and we spent the next day aggressively searching for him. Our search area spread out for miles, dozens of people were questioned, the tiniest leads eventually exhausted. Sadly, we resigned ourselves to the fact that we had to leave. > Back in Jersey we still kept up the search via telephone to our NY neighbors from time to time. This went on for about three weeks. Nobody had seen him so everyone eventually figured Jake had perished, EXCEPT for my brother. He decides to call a psychic who lived in our area who he found in the phone book. Once the connection was made he put her on speaker phone so we both could hear. > > “Is it a little dog?” (So far unimpressed… ) > > “Yes” > > “Does he have spots of brown, with a few dashes of white?” (AGAIN, unimpressed) > > “Yes” > > “Where did you last see him?” > > “Lake George, NY. We have a summer house there.” > > “Ok. I know where he is. Not the actual address, mind you, but I see Jake.” (This is where me and my brother’s faces took on an eerie resemblance to the Trololo cat) > > “You see him? Where is he?” > > “Drive down the road to your summer house. I see a large white building with a spire on the right and a corn field on the left.” (This freaked us right the fuck out as it was accurate to an extent except for the fact that the old white Presbyterian church was on the left and the field was on the right.) > > “Yeah? How far do we drive?” > > “Past the church, at least. On your left there’s a road that cuts through the corn field. It’s a dirt road. Take this road to the end. At the end is a small house with an elderly man living alone. He’s blind but took Jake in. Go to this house and that’s where you’ll find Jake.” > > Against our parents wishes me and my brother left the very minute we got off the phone and headed back to upstate NY. We drove past the church and made a turn onto the FIRST road into the cornfield (it was paved). We followed it and found it looped back onto the main thoroughfare. > So we went farther and made a turn into the field onto an old road covered with loose rock. At the end we parked in a dusty driveway and saw Jake on a long leash, attached to the house, lying in the sun. He had his collar on with our tags intact. > My brother knocked on the door several times but no one answered. We waited for a good two hours, but whoever owned the house wasn’t home. So we left a note on the front door and went home. With Jake. Sounds like the “psychic” might have been familiar with the Lake George area. Another explanation that comes to mind is that your brother set this up, and used the 'psychic" as a plant. You never saw the alleged old, blind guy, so, at best, all you really have is that the psychic made a reasonable guess that someone local took the dog in, and that this local person likely lived on a dirt road. White churches, dirt roads and cornfields are not exactly rare features of rural areas. ---
**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, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/64 "2010-06-18T18:29:45Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > I’ve had similar experiences and you’d be surprised what “knocking” comes from. > I had knocking at my front door about once a week with no one there. Drove me nuts. The door was in plain view about 10 feet away. Turns out it was a wooden “welcome” sign my wife hung on the wall just to the left of the front door. When a breeze would catch it just right it lifted a few inches then fell back against the wall, KNOCK-Knock-knock. > Also had a knock-knock on the wall behind my head one night when sitting on the couch. The adjacent room was my son’s bedroom but he was out in the living room with me. After some investigative work I found a small framed picture that had fallen off his wall and behind his dresser. > I also have a glass double-hung patio door that lets out a loud “bang” once a day without moving. At first I thought it was birds flying into it but I never saw any. I suspect it is the air between the panes expanding and releasing pressure daily but have no way to verify it. Let’s not forget auditory hallucinations that come sometimes when you are tired. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/65 "2010-06-18T18:31:37Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Science is a _method_ Of course youa re right. But when people talk about science proving one thing or another, they are talking about scientific explanations. They are dismissing God when they don’t have a better answer because God was not arrived at through the scientific method because I cannot explain his existence, he must not exist. ---
**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, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/66 "2010-06-18T18:32:38Z")
> [@Darth\_Hamsandwich](#): > > My brother called the psychic who lived in our area from the phone book. He picked her completely at random as we seemed to have exhausted all other avenues. It really was an act of sheer desperation. I asked him to put her on speaker so we both could speak to her at the same time. Me and my brother pull pranks on each other regularly, but he was deadly serious about this particular phone call. Or he appeared to be at the time. Did he pick the psychic from the book, or did you? Did you actually watch him dial the numbers and see if they matched with the book? I was going to suggest that your brother was messing with you too, but wanted to offer alternatives first. Really, my initial intuition was that your brother set you up, though. ---
**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, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/67 "2010-06-18T18:33:18Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Of course youa re right. But when people talk about science proving one thing or another, they are talking about scientific explanations. They are dismissing God when they don’t have a better answer because God was not arrived at through the scientific method because I cannot explain his existence, he must not exist. “God” isn’t an answer at all, let alone a better answer. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Hamsandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4bbf92/32.png) [@Darth\_Hamsandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Hamsandwich)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/68 "2010-06-18T18:34:31Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Indeed, the brother messing with you seems much more likely to me. My brother has a twisted sense of humor but not to the point where he would willingly make my mother so upset she was crying everyday for two weeks. My father, usually an affable man, hardly said two words the time Jake was missing. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Hamsandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4bbf92/32.png) [@Darth\_Hamsandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Hamsandwich)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/69 "2010-06-18T18:36:34Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Did he pick the psychic from the book, or did you? Did you actually watch him dial the numbers and see if they matched with the book? > > I was going to suggest that your brother was messing with you too, but wanted to offer alternatives first. Really, my initial intuition was that your brother set you up, though. **Dio** , my brother chose and I watched him dial but never saw if the number matched the one in the phone book. ---
**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, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/70 "2010-06-18T18:37:30Z")
> [@Darth\_Hamsandwich](#): > > My brother has a twisted sense of humor but not to the point where he would willingly make my mother so upset she was crying everyday for two weeks. My father, usually an affable man, hardly said two words the time Jake was missing. And sometimes a joke goes wrong, which is much more likely than what you seem to believe to be true. ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/71 "2010-06-18T18:38:37Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > 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. Right and if my experience was a picture falling off a wall maybe that would matter. My experience was nothing like this, which is why it sticks in my head as baffling for the past 16 years. I don’t believe unseen spiritual forces exist at all, much less have the power to move things. All DtC can do is read an experience and say “whatever it was, it wasn’t what I don’t believe in.” He can attribute it to overactive imagination, but this isn’t really debunking anything, like I said. Some things are easy to explain away. The picture falling is not ever the whole story when it comes to these experiences. It’s someone dying, or someone bringing up a dead person/animal, or something, anything related then suddenly the picture falls. My belief is that many of these accounts are TALES. They didn’t really happen, but who doesn’t love peppering their experiences with the mysterious, whether it’s spiritual in nature or just fun embellishment. It’s like a fish story. Amazing thing to me is if someone tells the same story for years they even start to believe it. That’s what I believe, anyway. But that doesn’t mean I’ve debunked every ghost tale out there by issuing my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/72 "2010-06-18T18:41:38Z")
> [@Darth\_Hamsandwich](#): > > “Drive down the road to your summer house. I see a large white building with a spire on the right and a corn field on the left.” What other kinds of buildings have spires except churches? What is the most common color of churches out in the country? What else would you expect to be near a church out in the middle of the country except a corn field? Aren’t most destinations in the country arrived to by turning off a main road? If a dog doesn’t die in the wilderness it will probably make it’s way to the closest human, who will probably be at a home (and if not at a home will take the dog to a home), who’s home will probably be attached to a main road with another road, where a common sight nearby would be one of many small white churches that dot the countryside. ---
**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, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/73 "2010-06-18T18:42:06Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Of course youa re right. But when people talk about science proving one thing or another, they are talking about scientific explanations. They are dismissing God when they don’t have a better answer A better answer for what? > [@](#): > > because God was not arrived at through the scientific method because I cannot explain his existence, he must not exist. “Because I cannot explain his existence he must not exist?” What does that _mean_? The default assumption is that sky gods don’t exist until you can show some kind of reason to believe they do. If you want to posit "God"as an explanation for something, it is incumbent on you to show _why_ it’s a better answer and to do so with scientific methodology. Just saying “a wizard did it” is not anything that it is rational to consider without evidence. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/74 "2010-06-18T18:43:30Z")
> [@Darth\_Hamsandwich](#): > > **Dio** , my brother chose and I watched him dial but never saw if the number matched the one in the phone book. Presuming your brother not to be a dick, perhaps somebody else set _him_ up. After all, even the desperate don’t generally (as best I can tell) think, “Hey, I think the supernatural is suddenly going to start existing for my benefit! And break the mold and actually be usefully specific for once!” So perhaps somebody prepped the psychic and then suggested the psychic to your brother by name, so he looked them up in the phone up, and things played out from there. And of course, there’s also no reason to think anyone (your brother or otherwise) was deliberately hiding the dog the whole time just to set this up. But if the dog was really lost, and then found, a person might say, “Better get them this back to them quick - but as long as I’m giving the dog back, I might as well have a little fun with them while doing so.” ---
**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, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/75 "2010-06-18T18:44:35Z")
Assuming the psychic _was_ on the level, let’s do a comparison. Points the psychic got right: Jake is a small dog. Jake is brown and white. Jake was at a house at the end of a road that cut into the field. Points the psychic got wrong: The location of the church and the field. There was no dirt road. The house was not on the road he mentioned. By turning back onto the main road and again onto the rock road, you made at least two turns the psychic did not tell you to make. You were on a different road. The bit about the old blind man can’t be evaluated. So the psychic gave you a generic description of a dog, a reasonable guess that if the dog was alive someone had found him, and a very generic description of a scene from small town America: a church and a corn field. He was wrong on several particulars, and if you’d follow his directions exactly you would not have found Jake. Assuming there was a dirt road, you wouldn’t have found him because the house wasn’t there. The psychic didn’t suggest you try another road, a paved road, or a road covered with loose rock. If you hadn’t ignored him on those points, you wouldn’t have found the dog either. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/76 "2010-06-18T18:45:10Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > What other explanation is needed? That’s not debunking that dismissing. > [@](#): > > You’re impuning people’s motives here How do you figure? I am saying that even if what you say is true, is there no value in faith? > [@](#): > > Aside from your sarcasm and distorted claims that it’s right around the corner, that’s pretty much how science works as a process. You investigate things and try to understand them. If they are explainable by what we already know, then we have at least one possible explanation. If it’s not explainable based on what we know or contradicts what we think, then we research it and try to discover what the contradiction is and resolve it by revising our understanding. Some things are not explainable now, but there’s reason to think they will be in the future. And what if God is the best explanation? > [@](#): > > You’re treating this like a self-reinforcing set of beliefs, but it isn’t. It’s a methodology that is intended to promote discovery. And it’s worked pretty well for us so far. It’s given us electricity, cures for malaria, the internet, and space exploration for a start. Yeah yeah yeah, science is great, its done great things, noone is arguing the opposite. But do you believe that there is anything that the scientific method will never be able to explain? > [@](#): > > This is a false statement based on blithe generalitities. Topics like quantum physics are certainly complicated but they don’t cause a breakdown in reasoning or the scientific method and they don’t provide support for gods any more than the everyday miracles (thunder, fire, sunsets, little baby ducks, _Sweatin’ to the Oldies vol. 1, 2, and 4_) that people used to used more often to the same effect. In other words it’s a god of the gaps explanation. Well, yes Gods have been used to explain stuff that we had no other explanation for and now we see that lightning is not caused why an angry storm god striking the earth with his mighty hammer. Does that mean that there is no God? ---
**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, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/77 "2010-06-18T18:46:33Z")
> [@Darth\_Hamsandwich](#): > > My brother has a twisted sense of humor but not to the point where he would willingly make my mother so upset she was crying everyday for two weeks. My father, usually an affable man, hardly said two words the time Jake was missing. It doesn’t have to be the case that your brother was involved in the the dog going missing to being with, but it may be that he somehow figured out where it was, and then decided to devise this kooky “psychic” thing as a way to divulge it. It may even be (and I’m not saying this is likely, only that it’s more likely than the supernatural) that he gave the dog away or sold it or something, then felt guilty and came up with this “psychic” thing as a way to steal the dog back without letting on that he’d been guilty of anything. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2010, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/78 "2010-06-18T18:49:13Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > “God” isn’t an answer at all, let alone a better answer. That’s an opinion. ---
**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, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/79 "2010-06-18T18:49:42Z")
> [@Rushgeekgirl](#): > > Right and if my experience was a picture falling off a wall maybe that would matter. > My experience was nothing like this, which is why it sticks in my head as baffling for the past 16 years. I don’t believe unseen spiritual forces exist at all, much less have the power to move things. > > All DtC can do is read an experience and say “whatever it was, it wasn’t what I don’t believe in.” No. I can say that impossible explanations are impossible. Ghosts cannot possibly exist. That is not an opinion or a belief, it is a hard statement about demonstrable physics. ---
**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, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674/80 "2010-06-18T18:51:10Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > That’s an opinion. No, that’s a logically inescapable axiom of scientific methodology. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-your-ghost-stories-here-and-i-will-debunk-them/543674.md?page=5)