Well, the statement "no such thing as ghosts" is a statement of a belief, not of facts. That is, we know there is no proven instances of ghosts, so it is resonable to go about things as though they do not exist, but it doesn't disprove their existance.

It is often hard to disprove the existance of something without absolute knowledge...

Well, that is not exactly the case, yes, one hypotesis to explain the phenomena is that it is the spirits of dead people that for some reason has not "moved on", that view requires the acceptance of some sort of continued existance.

Another hypotesis is that violent emotions can impress itself on the fabric of a location, such emotions are usualy assosiated with death, though long time strong emotions might do it too. In this hypotesis it is not the essence of a person that is the ghost, it is more a sort of psycic power, a sort of psycic holography perhaps?. An impression like this can then be viewed by other people under suitable situations.

A third view is that all actions will subtly change the fabric of a place, and that under certain condisions the "fabric" is less rigid than at other times, and then impressions may be larger than at other times, and so allow for the "recording" of a ghost. in this case it would just be a natural property of the universe.

Then it may just be all in the head of the observer, a sort of suggestion or hallusination, but these things do exist, and does not requre you to believe in an afterlife, just that people would be prone to see what they expect to see(if they knew that a place is said to be haunted.

Of course there are anecdotes of people staying in haunted places without having known of the ghosts, and still seen them, but I guess one could suggest that certain places have an atmosphere that can affect people, a sort of cold reading of a place...


I had a thought now... It is kind of fancyful perhaps but... We know that people give of chemicals, and that the composition of this "sent" may be affected by the state of the individual. We also know that chemicals like these can linger for some times under suitable conditions.

Now, my idea was that perhaps places where killing have been done might be flooded with sents like these to such an extent that it might absorb some of it and slowly release it over a long time and perhaps absorbed bodyfluids might give off small amounts, and so on. Perhaps sometime long back in the evolution animals developed a sensitivity to such, either to help them avoid dangerous places or at least be on their gard.

If humans still retained an unconsious sensitivity like this, it may be that the brain would communicate this as a sense of unrest and apprehensiveness, and sensitivity to the smallest noise or movement, or if really strong(or in sensitive persons) maybe even present actual images and sounds in an attempt to scare the person to leave the place(as a survival instinct). The effects would probably fade with time, I am not so sure it would last for many centuries, but the storries might...

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