Out there.. somewhere

[Lianne]

Have any of you guys ever had a strange experience that couldn't be explained?

Like for instance, the other night my friend Ryan and i were leaving my house to go to Walmart to buy some painting supplies last minute. As we were walking out of the house we could see this glowing red light in the sky and it got brighter and then faded out completely. At first i thought the light was one of those ones on top of a tall tower but it was much bigger when i realized where those lights actually were. So this object in the sky just disappeared! ahah this might be silly, but you never know right?

My friend told me that one time he woke up after a night of sleep and that his mouth and his eyes were crusted over with some weird substance. Apparently this happened to him and his sister. It was unexplainable because neither of them were sick so it wasn't just mucous or something like that... Abduction?

I understand that we can't take everything seriously, but it is still a fun thought, right?

[En]

All part of the day here. Besides the off-normal stuff that happens in my bookstore every day, I did once see a ghost. I didn't know that was what was happening at the time - I thought it was just a drunk guy - but later I found out that I'm one of three people who have ever seen him - none of whom are the person who wants desperately to see him for herself. It's a complicated story.

[Lianne]

I love the idea of ghosts, is he a friendly ghost?

How about Claire? Is she a bookstore ghost? That is what i have gathered but i am interested!

[En]

Er... Claire is kind of like a really complicated, invisible roommate She sometimes does weird things to get people's attention, then even weirder things to help or confuse them.

The male ghost I saw? He was friendly, I guess. The problem is that he might be one of two people, and there's a woman who REALLY wants to know which of the two he is, but there's no way for me to tell, since both of the men he might be have been dead since before 1920.

[moira]

Awww, does Claire like to mess with people? Or annoy, could be the right terminology?

I'm really fascinated with life after death. I like reading books on people who have had experiences, or are (credible) mediums with interesting and open-minded opinions on things. I believe that life goes on, and went on, before Earth. I just think Death is as individual as our lives on Earth are. No one's going to experience it the same way.

Well, here's something that is "out there" I guess. It is common knowledge to most of my IRL friends, but I have a sister who was born before me, and died. She was stillborn, and had been dead inside the womb for like a week or something like that. Long enough for some of the toxins to affect blindness in one eye for my mom that went on for about a month after the birth, and then thankfully, her vision restored.

So would have been two years my senior. I don't remember being told about her, but my parents did let me know when I was very young about having had a sister.

My memory? Well, I remembered her. There were several times as a child where I would be playing in my room, and I had the instinct to involve my sister in my playtime. If I recalled an actual image of her, my adult memory took it away from me. But it was her essence I remember feeling, and knowing. I had a simple child's knowledge that she was my best friend.

What I couldn't understand, however, was why my best friend wasn't here to play with me. I would get very upset about it, and I would cry to my mom, and tell her that I missed my sister.

As parents, both my mom and dad didn't know how to console me. Until my mom thought about buying a doll who could represent her. That way I'd have something physical to hold each time I missed her and wanted her around. I remember the moment we found her. To be honest, I wasn't really paying attention. I was shopping with my mom, and I remember hearing her gasp, and showing me the doll we just happened to come across, and when I looked, I just knew. That doll was to represent my sister.

So I've had her ever since, and she has meant a lot to me. Throughout different times in my life, I've felt my sister's presence. She's touched my knee. She's given me a hug. Especially when I hug the doll, I can always feel her arms around me. She's hugged my dad and two brothers. My oldest brother went on a fishing job in Alaska quite a few years back, and something happened to the netting he was trying to bring up. It snagged or something, I don't quite recall the specifics. But whatever he was holding onto jerked enough that he would have fallen overboard, had it not been for an invisible hand that grabbed his shoulder and held onto him.

She's the family's guardian angel. Oh, and the first night I told my husband about her? We were on my bed cuddling, and he told me that someone was hugging his back as I was talking about her. Hugging is her trademark, and I had not told him that. It's how I know it's her, and not some other entity. She likes to hug

[Sarah]

wow moira, that post just sent chills up and down my spine and all over my body.

personally, I have problems believing in the afterlife. I would love to believe in my heart of hearts that ghosts exist, just as I would love to believe vampires (of the Lestat/Louis variety), magic, pokemon, and miniature pet elephants exist....but I always end up talking myself out of belief logically. I'm not religious in any sense of the term; therefore, I do not believe in an afterlife. I'm always asked what I have to say about supernatural experiences, things that cannot be explained, etc, and I believe it to be merely figments of the imagination, tricks of the brain. There have been many times when I have thought to have heard something or seen something, only to turn my gaze and understand my imagination is acting up.
This all sounds so pessimistic, I know. But I don't know. I used to be fascinated by the idea, fully believing I had had personal supernatural experiences, incessantly reading up on ghost and vampire folklore, but I lost interest (and belief, I suppose) when I denounced religion.

When I was in 2nd grade - aged 8 I suppose - I was always the first to get home from school. Mom and dad both worked full-time, and my older sister was in elementary school, which didn't get out until an hour after I got home. I walked through my front door one day, dead-bolted the lock, and then went to the bathroom, taking my only dog with me. I had left the hallway light on, and while I was in the bathroom, I thought I saw shadows pacing back and forth under the door. Of course I was spooked, and when I realized my dog was with me, I got even more scared. I locked the bathroom door and listened intently.
About two weeks prior to this incident, my family had bought a 1911 Wellington upright piano and placed it in our living room. As I stood there, hardly breathing, I heard three notes played on the piano - all Cs, one low, one high, and one right in the middle. I started crying. Screaming, wailing, I was scared to death. I holed myself up in that bathroom, and when my sister came home a little while later, I wouldn't even open the door for her. I was petrified.
My neighbor/godmother convinced me it was her television and it was up too loud, but I knew it would have been impossible to hear her tv, considering our houses were 10 feet apart. I became convinced that there was a ghost in the house.
Fast-forward a few years. I'm 11 years old, just beginning to learn about make-up and the wonder that is eyeliner. My sister and I were in her room going through all of her make-up and playing with it. My parents were in the living room watching tv. My sis wanted to put eyeliner on me, but I was too scared to let her get that close to my eyes with something sharp (ha), so I refused. Being the older sister, she managed to wrestle me to the ground and pin me down, coming straight at me with the eyeliner. I began screaming, yelling for help, but my parents were used to this and told us to pipe down. I remember looking up at the air vent in the ceiling just above us while screaming, and right before my sister tried to apply the eyeliner, that air vent fell straight down, barely missing my sister's back, landing right next to us.
Air vents are kept in the ceiling with two screws on each end. This particular vent was not loose, otherwise it would have been hanging from one side or there would have been an obvious gap between the vent and ceiling. Naturally, we both stood up and ran screaming to my parents. My dad came to check things out and explained it by saying there must have been a squirrel or something messing about in the vents. I didn't believe him. I thought that ghost had come back and saved me from the perilous torture of eyeliner. That, or I had acquired psychic abilities like Matilda. (sidenote: I tried to "manipulate" other objects for weeks afterwards, but to no avail...so I settled on my ghost theory)
Fast-forward even a few more years, aged 15. My mom, sister and I had just moved to Texas, in this old little house in the middle of a cornfield. My dad was finishing up his service with the Marines back on the east coast, so it was just us girls. It was a hot summer day, and our AC wasn't working, so all of the windows in the house were open, and all the blinds and curtains pulled up and back for optimum airflow. The three of us were stretched out on my mom's bed reading, talking, and generally just messing about when we heard a strange noise. It was like a loud thump, as if someone had slammed their fist into a wall. My mom went straight for her gun (we have a .22 in the house at all times just in case...besides, we're Texans ) and called our landlord. The three of us went into the living room slowly, looking about for anything or anyone, and were shocked to find that all of our blinds had been let down, and all of our curtains drawn. Our landlord came over with a shotgun (gotta love them country boys) and checked every square inch of the house, but with no findings. He couldn't explain the blinds or curtains, except to say it could have been some kids messing about. Thing is, we lived literally in the middle of nowhere; our landlord's house was the only one around us in a 5 miles radius, and there were no signs of anyone being around.
After a few months of living there, our landlord finally told us that the original owners of the house - the family that built it - had a 12 year old daughter who was shot and killed in the bathroom when the family was robbed more than a century ago. He said he didn't want to tell us at the time because we were already pretty terrified. Shortly thereafter, we moved out.

So, those have been my experiences. They can all be explained away, for the most part - the first was my imagination, the second was loose screws, and the third...well, perhaps a strong wind. I don't know. But the idea of there being ghosts just doesn't sit well with me. There is no solid evidence, bar others' stories, and most can be explained away by science/logic.

Now extraterrestrial intelligent life, on the other hand......THAT is something I can believe in.


Sorry if this seems incredibly cynical or pessimistic - I'm not trying to call any of y'all out as crazies or anything...I just find it hard to believe I suppose.

[Lianne]

Wow those are both incredible stories! Well, Sarah i suppose yours is liek three stories haha. I once read this book (well, Steve read it to me when we were camping for work, we had one book and one flashlight) and it is called "We Are Not Unique - A discussion on Spirituality" and i think it sort of changed how i look at things. It was about reincarnation and past lives, and accounts for his actual encounters while regressing his patients. I recommend reading this book to anyone!

I am not religious either, and i don't necessarily believe in a heaven/hell scenario. But i do feel like there is something after. It is, in a way, a common feeling between human beings in any religion that there is an afterlife, the place you "go" just has a different name. There might be some higher level of consciousness within us all and perhaps that lives on. Who knows?

I have never really had any ghost encounters, one time driving home i "saw" a large dog jump in front of me and i slammed on the brakes only to realize it had disappeared. I don't know if it was a real physical being, a trick of the eyes, or a "ghost" of some sort. But it was real at the time, and as i watched it with my breaks screaming, it seemed to vanish. I guess i will never know!