Ghosts. Do they exist?
May 23 '03 (Updated Feb 12 '09)
The Bottom Line My encounter with the unknown. Whatever you do, don't stay there alone at night!
I know most of my readers here on Epinions know I am non-theistic. I have doubts there is a god sitting in the sky, who has more power than anyone else. However, I do sometimes wonder if there is life after death...or if it is my imagination. In this essay I will give encounters from my younger days of what I perceived to be ghost encounters.
Grandpa's House: When I was 9 my maternal grandmother died of cancer and this was in 1987. One time when I was at the house in 1995, at the age of 17, something weird happened. Myself and my cousins were alone in the house, while the adults were outside: my grandpa, my parents, my aunt, and uncle. My cousins, my little brother and I were upstairs sitting around. All of the sudden I heard what sounded like an old lady coughing and someone working on a typewriter. I said, "Shhhh. Guys, do you hear something?" As we walked downstairs to investigate, the sound started to fade away more and more the closer we got to the door. As I opened, the door I saw NOTHING in the room and the sound suddenly ceased. Heck, the typewriter even had the cover on it and there was no paper anywhere. Now let me tell you, this room is only 9 feet by 6 feet. There are no closets or easy to jump out of windows. Because when I got there, the window looked shut and locked. How could anyone, especially an old lady, quickly escape out of there with a window that is barely wide enough for a child to crawl through? As well, I didn't smell any cigarette smoke as it sounded like an old lady with a smoker's cough in there and I know my grandmother smoked during her lifetime. I asked my grandfather about the typewriter and he said, <i>"Oh, I have not touched that for over 10 years. Your grandma was the only one who really ever used that." Was that a ghost of my late grandmother...or just my imagination?
A couple years later, my older brother was killed in an accident. As we were sitting in the viewing room at the funeral home, my mother, naturally, cried and said, "We'll never talk to him again." My grandfather said, "Oh, yes you will. Your mother talks to me from time to time." Note, I never told my parents or adults about my grandmother's ghost until my grandpa said that to my mother. My grandfather said that the ghost of my grandmother came to him while he was watching television in his basement and asked him if he wanted to go to heaven with her. He thought he was dreaming, or that it was his mind playing tricks on him, as most people think they see the death of a loved one shortly after they are dead.
My second encounter of a ghost was when I stayed in a 1920's era hotel in the hot summer with my parents and younger brother in Seattle. Everything about this hotel looks as old as the day it was built. The doors, the wood, the bar, you name it. Well, one night I felt a real cold chill in the room. (The air conditioner was broke in our room). I looked at the corner of the room and saw a transparent figure of a woman with dark hair pulled back. She had a long skirt on, and looked very 1920's to 1930's era. I could literally see through this thing! Now, there was no light in my room, and noone could have broken in because we had the door bolted locked and were on the 10th floor. If they did, I sure as heck would have noticed something like that. All she was doing was standing there praying. My brother was out cold sleeping, and the loudest noise I could make was a whisper. I will never forget the stern look from the ghost when it made eyes with me. I literally froze up! If you think that's creepy, as I tried to go back to sleep, I heard this thing walk up to my bed, shake the end of the bed, and then walk up and started tapping on my shoulder. The more I ignored it, the harder the tapping on my shoulder got.
The next morning, I told my parents and my brother over breakfast. My parents kept thinking that I had a dream. Maybe, I thought, but the next night the television kept turning on and off by itself. The remote was on the television. This continued every night after I saw what looked to be a ghost. At one point, when I irritatingly got up to shut the tv off, I heard a female snickering within an ear shot. The last night I told it to leave me alone that I couldn't help if she was looking for something/someone. Coincidentally, there were no more problems.
I don't know if this was a ghost encounter or a coincidence, but it ties in with my older brother and his death. My older brother was killed in a motorcycle accident at 9 in the morning and was pronunced dead at 10 am. At that same time, me being 3 hours away from him getting out of a college class. I started working on an assignment right then and there which asked me "If you died today, how would you want to be remembered?" It also asked me to talk about life after death. Note, I didn't know my brother was in an accident, much less dead until after lunchtime when my parents were able to get a hold of me.
Okay, the second tie-in with my brother's death. It took me and my family a good 2-3 years after his death to move on. On 9/9/05, the 8th anniversary of his death, I got a random call that asked, "Is Mike there?" Mike was my older brother's name. I said, "uh...no." Generally a business call would say, "Oh, I'm sorry" and/or inquire more information, such as "Is this person still living there? Is the person coming back later?" and so on. The person quickly hung up. A couple minutes later, I heard the sound of a motorcycle outside my apartment roaring up. It was sounded just like the kind that my brother was killed on. I got up, walked to the door, and the sound was fading away in a distance. Maybe that's a little too quick to call that a ghost encounter, but lots of coincidences I must say.
Did I see ghosts? Was my mind playing tricks on me? Was I just an impressionate teenager? I don't know. I hear my friends tell me of supposed ghost encounters. Some friends I know own a photography studio in our town. Well, in the late 1800's, a rowdy and violent saloon was in that very same building. My friend told me that there have been nights when she is all alone and it sounds like there are people upstairs walking around.
Like I said, I don't know what to make of that. It even still stumps me at times when I think about it to this very day. No, I have never done illegal drugs, nor did I sip my first drink until I was 21. Besides that, I was and still am, rather skeptical.
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
matthewn
|
|
Location: For me to know and you to find out!
Reviews written: 266
Trusted by: 49 members
|
|
|
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.