How do you explain ghost sightings to others?

Why do you think it was a ghost? Did you get up so quickly that a person could not have disappeared down the hall?

@marinelife I’m at the end of the hallway. There’s a large metal fire door at the end of the hall to the left that’s very noisy. It’s 30 feet away. No way anyone could get there in the time involved, with no noise.

As a bit of undigested beef or spot of mustard.

@cprevite : More of gravy than the grave??? ;-)

@cprevite This was a lot bigger, the size of a human head and shoulders, but I didn’t get a feel for facial structure.

@Adirondackwannabe : Dickens reference from both of us…

I’ve personally witnessed several instances of what people refer to as “paranormal” phenomena, so I don’t automatically discredit your experience. However, remember that whatever happens is, by definition, natural. There are many phenomena which were once considered to be the realm of the gods or the supernatural, such as fire, lightning, volcanoes, the Sun, etc. Having lived in a house with poltergeist activity, I know that something caused boxes in the attic to slide around back and forth on the floor. I keep an open mind on what that something could be. When I tell people about my own experiences similar to yours, I make sure not to use words like “ghost.” People are more willing to listen when you simply tell them what you experienced, admit that you can’t explain it, and invite them to reach their own conclusions.

@JilltheTooth Went right over my head. My lady is the big Dickens fan in my house.

There is no way to answer this for you but perhaps it was what one would term a ‘ghost’. Sceptics might say it was a hallucination or a fragment of your imagination playing out. Ironically I classify myself as a paranormal enthusiast and I’ve had much stranger events that I’ve experienced than the one you’ve described. Also other people that I know/knew have had these experiences as well.

The term ‘paranormal’ means phenomena which is considered outside of the realm of ‘normal’ scientific explaination. However even I myself doesn’t believe that anything can be outside of science. If ghosts, surviving physical death, telepathy, esp, etc are real events then these events would be a part of science which we know little about at this time. The term ‘paranormal’ should not be confused with the term ‘transcendental’.

All I know is that you shouldn’t be scared. It probably ran away because you scared the sh** out of “it”, whatever that thing is. I mean, the worst possible scenario (if this was a ghost) is it attempting to harm you. Trust me, if ghosts exist and if this thing wanted to harm you, it would’ve done so already, because I doubt ghosts have fun scaring the sh** out of people and seeing how they react :)

I think I have a more plausible explanation though. It happens to me often: You see someone you know approaching you from far away, and then you look around, and then you look back and find him/her closer than you expected. Our sense of time passing changes dramatically throughout the day [fun time passes super fast, boring time passes super slow]. Maybe (and most probably) what you saw was just a person who knew this was the wrong office and decided not to disturb you, and thus walked away. The adrenalin rush you had perhaps changed your perception of time and your other senses and made you think you were quick enough to see him/her before he/she left the hallway.

Remember that your brain shows you what you perceive, so your perception might not be reality itself. If your brain is too worried or scared, it might make you perceive things that are not there really, like when you think you heard someone called you although no one called you. It doesn’t mean you’re mad, but it’s just some neurons probably mis-firing, causing weird feelings or even weird sounds or visual images. For example, if you stimulated certain parts of the brain, the test subject will actually hear things [if it’s the auditory area that’s being stimulated]. You can even cause the test subject to smell things that aren’t really there, and it happens to normal people in their daily lives. Are they smelling ghosts? I don’t think so. As far as I know, the networks in brain are so complex that we don’t really know how exactly complex images/sounds are formed.

If you feel scared or worried, reading books/articles or watching videos on how brain works and how it perceives things will ease your worries ;)

Oh, and just out of curiosity, what did you mean by “This building is supposed to be haunted, but mainly on the floors above me.”? We might have plausible explanations for that as well ^__^

@JilltheTooth: Ooh I love that line. Scrooge’s attempt at humor.

@Additondackwannabe: Sorry, Dickens was on my mind as I just finished listening to a great reading of the first chapter of a Christmas Carol.

@cprevite : I know, right? I always thought it was very clever…

@halabihazem : And maybe it was a ghost. Just that simple.

@halabihazem Your distance thing is way off. I can look at my door, 10 feet away or the outside of the hallway, 15 feet away. I was perfectly calm at the time, enjoying some chat with another jelly. I only got the rush after I saw it and it left and there’s only one way out of the hallway and that door is noisy. Absolutely nothing was in the hallway.

@Adirondackwannabe , I’m not trying to disprove what you’re saying, but I just wanted to make sure you’re considering all the possibilities. Being a med student, I am fascinated by how the brain malfunctions at times. It seems this wasn’t the case in your incident.

But still, you do realize that what you’re saying has really big implications. Although a similar thing has happened to me before as a kid, I still think it was my brain, not what actually happened. I don’t think I’m mad, but science is now dealing with insane quantum mechanics and really advanced stuff. Don’t you think science would’ve proved the existence of ghosts if they really existed? If normal people think they’ve managed to prove it, don’t you think capable scientists with all the advanced technology and funding they have are more likely to have done so already?

With all due respect, what you’re trying to imply reminds me of this

@halabihazem I’m just relating what I saw. I’m not going to waste my time debating with you.

I’m not trying to debate. Reading my first post again will prove I’m trying to help here. I do realize it’s a hard experience to go through, and I hope things get resolved.

BTW, you mentioned that “This building is supposed to be haunted, but mainly on the floors above me.” Can you please clarify more about that? I think other jellies will be interested as well. If other sightings have occurred in your building, then you seriously need to talk to those who saw ghosts and send a letter to your manager to investigate the problem. It’s really not healthy to keep these things a secret if it’s affecting multiple people.

For years people have been saying that Rock n Roll is EVIL.
That ‘splains everything!

I’ve had stuff like that happen to me…it’s really crazy when it does. One example: My house is over 100 years old, and I used to hear someone walking around upstairs at about 4:00 every morning. They sounded like they had heavy boots on. Then I’d hear footsteps coming to almost the bottom of the stairs…and they they were gone. The first couple of times I checked on the kids. They were sound asleep.
I figured it was the old farmer who built the house originally coming down to milk the cows every morning. It didn’t bother me at all. Farmers are usually good old boy.

@halabihazem I think we can just let it slide! No need to be sending silly letters to the manager or whoever, unless people start getting hurt.

Oh, good grief, @halabihazem , do you really believe that science has solved everything? Wow.