Most Convincing Paranormal Event

[Rye]

There's 2 precog things that stick out in my memory, one was a dream I had, where I was at my mate Chris' house, and he was talking on the pohone, on the stairs to my mum. Then he said "Ok, your mum's on her way," or something to that effect. I had this dream a few times, and even started to get deja vu in the dreams because it seemed so familiar.

Then, when it did finally happen, I got deja vu, and then deja vu from that deja vu. And so on. That was a very peculiar feeling, but not really evidence of precog, since it seems like quite a mundane thing to notice, even if I'd never seen him talk to my mum on the stairs before.

The most weird precog experience I ever had was when I was in year 9, I think. I was walknig towards some steps that went down from the building where I took registration to the rest of the school. I had never fallen down these steps previously, though they weren't the safest around.

Now, I seemed to walk over to those steps, then I slipped on, like the second or third one down, and broke my ankle in the subsequent fall. Then I'm a step or so away from the top steps again, exactly as before, and I'm thinking, "what the fuck?" but I don't stop walking, and again, I slip on the second or third step down. This time, however, I knew exactly how I was going to fall, and I corrected it, and I skated down the corners of the steps like I was on a snowboard or something. My balance is fairly crap normally, and I would not have been able to do such a feat if I'd tried to. Nor did it feel like I "wanted" to fall and just made myself do it.

That was by far one of the weirdest things I have ever experienced.

[Lagmonster]

iirc, it was on National Geographic and they showed a well equipped lab

All I'm trying to convey to you is that a) just claiming scientists say something and showing you a pile of lab instruments doesn't mean squat if you can't test their conclusions and methods (particularly if the only place you hear about it is a photography magazine), and b) there's no such thing as 'unexplainable' events. Everything has a natural explanation, but there's not always a guarantee we'll be able to come to realize what it may have been.

[Bob the Gunslinger]

I've got two experiences:
(snip)
2) I saw an animal in lake Champlain. From what I've been able to accertain, it was a River Otter. Now, what the hell a River Otter was doing in Lake Champlain is a bit beyond me, but it was pretty nifty.

Champ! Did you get a photo?

Seriously, why would there not be river otters in Lake Champlain? I'm asking because I don't know jack about river otters, except that their damn cute.

[Majin Gojira]

Sorry, no photo (it was only for a moment, and I was on a sail boat).

I also know jack about river otters, so I can't answer that question.

[wolveraptor]

What, is Champlaign a brackish lake? River otters will inhabit most any fresh water in North America.

[PainRack]

Some of the pseudo-paranormal shit that comes out of the "primal/tribal" regions of Asia, South America and Africa. I've heard some FUCKED UP stories of stuff that happens around there, mainly from people who "were there". Things like "possession" of sorts - a small city girl on a school camp to the jungle in Malaysia suddenly starts speaking the local tribal dialect flawlessly, and is tossing around her far larger male classmates like rag dolls while the local priest sorted shit out. A lot of these stories are also linked to fuck with your mind drugs/events.

Also, one of my friends from Malaysia has some really awesome tales of his father's school (his dad is a principal), which was built on the site of a former Japanese prison camp. Things like having a guy in full WW2 japanese uniform, with weapon walking around on the sports field like he was patrolling, then just vanishing.

Ghosts area strange topic for me. I don't really believe in them, but just sometimes I get an AMAZINGLY bad vibe from places. But thats just the good old human mind, right?

Well, I guess its time for me to talk about my irrational belief now.

The "possession" thing happened to one of my friend in a camp. We were student leaders and there had been a rash of ghostly encounters all through 3 camps and they were hoping that they could survive the last two nights of the camp without anything else funny happening, especially since it was proving more and more difficult to squelch rumours amongst the ranks. What happened was in the middle of the night, we routinely patrol the beds to check on the status of our cadets and a Malay girl was apparently suffering from a high fever. We brought her into the office for observation and she suddenly turned massively violent, overcoming a few of the guys and even several adults in the room. This was all natural, until she started cursing and swearing at us in Teochew, then bellowing entire sentences.......... This apparently lasted for 1-2 hours, before we could calm her down and some brightspark thought about even calling a doctor. When i arrived at the camp to help out, they already sent her back home, after the doctor examined her and advised bedrest.

The thing that really got to us however was the traditional time/distance things. early in the camp, they had been playing soccer out by the carpark and when they were returning back to the office, they just simply, simply, couldn't return back, even though they kept walking and walking and walking. Now, this may sound like a hallucination, but the carpark is less than 100 meters away from the office.......... and the intervening ground is well lit.

The weirdest thing was, even I, a traditionally "lucky" person saw something that night. Some black shadow was moving around in the bushes and out onto the grounds. Normally, we would had ventured out to check, to see whether it was any of the students playing in the bushes or so on, for security reasons. We gave it a miss that night.

As for the whole Japanese and WW2 thing, heard too many of those stories, seen my friends affected by them too many times. The closest I ever got was when I woke up in the middle of the night and found my buddy missing, all the dogs howling and my buddy in the morn claiming he never went anywhere. And of course, it was just on that day that my WO has to tell us about the "normal" ghostly activities that happened on during the Hungry Ghost Festival, on the very second day of the Festival happening, meaning that the night we booked in was the first day of the door to hell being opened. Thanks sir, but I don't think I want to hear about how the ammo tunnel dug by the Brits is now a tunnel to Hell, especially since you placed me and my section to be on guard duty that weekend sir.

But the stories are amusing though. There was this story a officer once told us, about how two guards were on perimeter patrol and they encountered two guys in black suits wearing black suitcases. When the patrol went forth to stop them, they walked towards the field and promptly disappeared into thin air. The "old" soldier is also a traditional story, about how someone walking the corridor will meet an unknown officer, salute and give complements and walk off, before realising there wasn't such an officer or something and trying to go challenge the person. Can't find the person, and lo and behold, the Guard Com will then tell him about the officer who has died and will return back to the camp on etc etc etc. Didn't know Infantry officers were that dedicated...........
Then there's the traditional amah story floating in Tekong, where strange pitter patter sounds as well as the sound of a bouncing ball will be heard in barracks. Then there will be the ineveitable long, female hair lying on the bunk. Thankfully, no one in my platoon got the full treatment, where some joker will wake up in the middle of the night to see the door open and a little girl saying in Malay, "Look amah, this one still haven't sleep yet."

Strangely, soldiers patrolling around Changi and the traditional sites usually only see the British ghosts and Pontiniak,well, movie version Pontiniak as opposed to Japanese soldiers.

[Zero]

I've always had a belief in Ghosts, as I've seen my aunt that's been dead for longer then I've been alive. Me, and several of my cousins, although we were quite young. I do admit that there is probably some other explanation, but in all honesty, when you see something, you believe it. All the rational explanations in the world wouldn't break me of my belief. What I'm more interested in is what kind of form the human soul can take outside of the body, and what role it may or may not have in your personality, memory, cognitive ability... interesting things, but there's no way to know if there is such thing as a soul, and all of the things mentioned are currently attributed to the brain. needless to say, I believe in the human soul, and ghosts.

[squidman001]

i wouldnt say this is paranormal... but i have evidence that "Bigfoot" exists! i wear a size 16 mens friken shoe... did my parents once mention finding me in the forest....

[Avalon616]

I didn't see anyone mention it, but I might have missed it: what about the city of Savannah, Georgia? I couldn't believe how haunted that city was, I guess it won an "award" for most haunted city in the US in like 2002. I went to visit friends last year who go to school there, and we did a piece of a ghost tour. My friend works in the Juliette Low house (Girl Scout Founder's house), which is a stop on the way. She never believed in ghosts, till she worked there...

There's also a house right near there, that was a doctor's house a looong time ago. It's constantly changing ownership, because no one will stay in it: too haunted I guess.

I generally don't like talking about experiences I've had with "paranormal" activities: people usually think I'm either crazy or stupid. *shrug* I never really have felt the need to prove myself either- if I feel I've seen ghosts or paranormal activity, so what? It's not like I can prove it, or make you see what I saw- it doesn't follow the scientific method, so it's not really worth going into, to me.

It was nice going to Georgia though. I'm so used to "seeing things" other people don't, I didn't think anything of seeing a ghost in a doorway, making faces and being threatening to two of my friends. Then I turned around and saw my bf of the time backing away with a look of sheer terror on his face. It was nice to see the most skeptical person I've ever met see something "not real". Later I asked him about it, without first giving him the description of my visions, and described exactly what I saw. It was nice to be validated, versus being called insane, for once.

Oh course, I don't expect anyone to believe my story. Hell, I barely believe what I've seen sometimes, how could I expect anyone else to?

[Zero]

This is probably a good way to go about things. You typically can't make somebody believe in your experiences, even when such experiences may be the only way to validate a belief in something. I don't typically expect folks to believe any of the things I would profess to believe, but I don't mind. My experiences don't require their belief, and they weren't there, so they have no right to call me insane. I'll try to use your method of shut-the-hell-up-edness though. Talking on such things does bother some people...

[Avalon616]

This is probably a good way to go about things. You typically can't make somebody believe in your experiences, even when such experiences may be the only way to validate a belief in something. I don't typically expect folks to believe any of the things I would profess to believe, but I don't mind. My experiences don't require their belief, and they weren't there, so they have no right to call me insane. I'll try to use your method of shut-the-hell-up-edness though. Talking on such things does bother some people...

I don't think I described my position correctly. The "shut-the-hell-up-edness" is derived from the fact that I believe firmly in science, and I believe anything I have seen that is "paranormal" can be explained by science. Unfortunately, I am neither smart enough, nor have the sufficient lab facilities to test all my sightings. I recently watched an newsclip on the paranormal in my Religion class from 60 minutes, or Dateline, or something like that. One of the people interview was a scientist, who had successfully discovered the source for a variety of sitings: a certain frequency of radio waves at certain inaudible levels produces visions. I'll ask my professor what the name of the tape is today, if I remember.

Basically, I think everything I've seen can be explained with science. Either there's some sort of radio emission that messes with people, or spirits are real, and a manifestation of the kinetic energy which animates the human body (or something like that). Seeing as I can't prove either of those, the most valid explanation is that I'm cracked. It's the one I find the most valid: plenty of people "see" things, and have visions, and I highly doubt all of them are valid. People are rather gullible, and I know I can't make exceptions for myself.

So the real reason I don't talk about my experiences seeing ghosts, telekinesis, and other paranormal events is because people's reactions are either A) they completely believe me, which to me shows they are gullible and not too bright, and that just makes my head hurt; or B) they think I'm crazy, or gullible and stupid, which I believe is valid, but it's not something I like to advertise.

[Lagmonster]

I do admit that there is probably some other explanation, but in all honesty, when you see something, you believe it. All the rational explanations in the world wouldn't break me of my belief.

See, I have an opportunity to teach you something: It is not considered a demonstration of wisdom to admit that you are consciously in denial of reality.

But I've explained that to many people before; people who believe in ghosts despite the fact that they are capable of being shown the more mundane causes of 'ghosts' AND comprehending the natural phenomena at work.

[Lagmonster]

I didn't see anyone mention it, but I might have missed it: what about the city of Savannah, Georgia? I couldn't believe how haunted that city was, I guess it won an "award" for most haunted city in the US in like 2002.

Voice of experience: The 'hauntedness' of a city is proprtional to the education level of the average citizen.

I generally don't like talking about experiences I've had with "paranormal" activities: people usually think I'm either crazy or stupid. *shrug* I never really have felt the need to prove myself either- if I feel I've seen ghosts or paranormal activity, so what? It's not like I can prove it, or make you see what I saw- it doesn't follow the scientific method, so it's not really worth going into, to me.

A good choice. You're too new to know, but ghostly folklore is a hobby of mine. I've spent enough time galavanting around as the 'skeptic' in a pool of ghost hunters, new agers, and believers of all types.

What you describe isn't news; in the manner of belief, many self-professed 'ghost sensitive' people are capable of admitting they're probably wrong, but don't want to accept that they couldn't trust their own senses. In brief, they trust the experience they had was genuine, but they don't trust their 'explanation', which results in a form of simultaneous acceptance/denial, similar to the way our minds work when we are having a nightmare - part of you knows it's a dream, but you'll still run from the monsters anyway.

This stands in odd contrast to, say, a religious fundamentalist, who trusts both the experience AND their 'explanation' - and they do not, as a rule, experience doubt because they are trained to resist even paying attention to any information which contradicts the explanation they have accepted.

[Executor32]

Voice of experience: The 'hauntedness' of a city is proprtional to the education level of the average citizen.

I think you mean inversely proportional.

[Avalon616]

A good choice. You're too new to know, but ghostly folklore is a hobby of mine. I've spent enough time galavanting around as the 'skeptic' in a pool of ghost hunters, new agers, and believers of all types.

What you describe isn't news; in the manner of belief, many self-professed 'ghost sensitive' people are capable of admitting they're probably wrong, but don't want to accept that they couldn't trust their own senses. In brief, they trust the experience they had was genuine, but they don't trust their 'explanation', which results in a form of simultaneous acceptance/denial, similar to the way our minds work when we are having a nightmare - part of you knows it's a dream, but you'll still run from the monsters anyway.

This stands in odd contrast to, say, a religious fundamentalist, who trusts both the experience AND their 'explanation' - and they do not, as a rule, experience doubt because they are trained to resist even paying attention to any information which contradicts the explanation they have accepted.

Ding ding ding! Exactly. I'm generally a skeptic anyways, and a rather non-religious person, but I don't want to think that I could be duped. Sure other people are gullible and misinterpret things, but not me! Hehe.

I've always been fascinated by the paranormal, but I haven't done any extensive research. Mythology and religion is more my topics of choice. Your observation about the education level being (inversely) proportional to the hauntedness of course makes sense, I just for some reason wasn't thinking about it in the context of ghosts, usually I associate it with people who are more religious. Good insight.

[Lagmonster]

Ding ding ding! Exactly. I'm generally a skeptic anyways, and a rather non-religious person, but I don't want to think that I could be duped. Sure other people are gullible and misinterpret things, but not me! Hehe.

Experience teaches that no matter how much we wish it, the stories people tell and the way we believe and react doesn't change much from generation to generation. There are a surprisingly limited number of different 'kinds' of believers out there.

I've always been fascinated by the paranormal, but I haven't done any extensive research. Mythology and religion is more my topics of choice.

They're the same beast. Whatever you believe goes bump in the night, whether its angels, demons, ghosts, or anything else, well...there are still people who believe in zombies, faeries, dragons, and any number of other bits of folklore, myth, and otherwise.

Your observation about the education level being (inversely) proportional to the hauntedness of course makes sense, I just for some reason wasn't thinking about it in the context of ghosts, usually I associate it with people who are more religious. Good insight.

It's actually the same with UFO spotters - notice how the majority of people who see them are uneducated country bumpkins or small-town folk out in desert towns, farm country or highly forested cottage country.

I could write a whole series of papers on 'small town folk'. They're highly admired and held up as worthy of emulation, and even on the surface they give a highly convincing image of security, wisdom, politeness, and even acceptable financial comfort - but that is a mask over what is often incredibly xenophobic, ignorant, gullible, and even internally violent and abusive communities.

[wolveraptor]

In that line, I read a creepy story about a town had the gruesome tradition of randomly singling out a single person every year and stoning him or her to death. They had done this since the beginning of the towns history, and would continue to. Not our average pleasant little small town.

Hell, the children collected the stones, and actively participated. ...creepy.

[Avalon616]

In that line, I read a creepy story about a town had the gruesome tradition of randomly singling out a single person every year and stoning him or her to death. They had done this since the beginning of the towns history, and would continue to. Not our average pleasant little small town.

Hell, the children collected the stones, and actively participated. ...creepy.

Uhh, that was fiction. The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson. It wasn't meant as a true story, but rather on the lines of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, it was a social commentary, to show how people conform to the religious and cultural traditions, regardless of logic.

[squidman001]

what about St. Augustine Florida? i hear that its like in the top 5 haunted cities in america, or something to that effect. cool thing is, i get to take a ghost tour there in about 2 weeks time.

[Lagmonster]

what about St. Augustine Florida? i hear that its like in the top 5 haunted cities in america, or something to that effect. cool thing is, i get to take a ghost tour there in about 2 weeks time.

Since ghostly folklore - with a few exceptions - isn't a major part of a state's recognition factor, there were (at last count), at least 500 cities, towns, and villages claiming to be the 'most haunted place in America'. Britain is just as bad, with hundreds of places claiming to be the 'most haunted'. It gets pretty silly - in order to win tourist dollars, about twenty years ago Ghettysburg started marketing itself in certain circles as the 'most haunted battlefield on earth', claiming to be home to hundreds of thousands of ghosts (depending on who you ask).

Fun travel tip: When visiting Ghettysburg, walk in bold strides through the tourist areas with a broad grin and proclaiming, "I'm kicking hundreds of dead people in the groin!".

[wolveraptor]

In that line, I read a creepy story about a town had the gruesome tradition of randomly singling out a single person every year and stoning him or her to death. They had done this since the beginning of the towns history, and would continue to. Not our average pleasant little small town.

Hell, the children collected the stones, and actively participated. ...creepy.

Uhh, that was fiction. The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson. It wasn't meant as a true story, but rather on the lines of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, it was a social commentary, to show how people conform to the religious and cultural traditions, regardless of logic.

Yeah. That's why I said "story". Not article.

[wolveraptor]

what about St. Augustine Florida? i hear that its like in the top 5 haunted cities in america, or something to that effect. cool thing is, i get to take a ghost tour there in about 2 weeks time.

Since ghostly folklore - with a few exceptions - isn't a major part of a state's recognition factor, there were (at last count), at least 500 cities, towns, and villages claiming to be the 'most haunted place in America'. Britain is just as bad, with hundreds of places claiming to be the 'most haunted'. It gets pretty silly - in order to win tourist dollars, about twenty years ago Ghettysburg started marketing itself in certain circles as the 'most haunted battlefield on earth', claiming to be home to hundreds of thousands of ghosts (depending on who you ask).

Fun travel tip: When visiting Ghettysburg, walk in bold strides through the tourist areas with a broad grin and proclaiming, "I'm kicking hundreds of dead people in the groin!".

Eh, don't count on it. The goods mighta been shot off in the war. Imagine, over a 100 years as a neutered spirit.

[Avalon616]

Yeah. That's why I said "story". Not article.

Oops, sorry, thought you meant it along the lines of an urban legend. My mistake!