I started to talk about ghosts in another topic and thought that this would be a better place to start such a discussion.

Have you seen a ghost or had a paranormal experience? I have had several which I dont mind talking about. My brother is a medium who has amazed people with his accuracy (and he doesn't cold read.)

So lets hear your stories.

__________________
There are several of us who do believe in UFOs and who have had occasion to see a UFO on the ground, or from an airplane. There was only one occasion from space which may have been a UFO."

Gordon Cooper, Astronaut (Mercury-Atlas 9, May 15, 1963; Gemini 5, August 21, 1965), Col. USAF (Ret); letter to Granada's Ambassador Griffith at the United Nations, November 9, 1978

http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk - Europe's biggest UFO database.

Anything that fails when tested under controlled circumstances isn't really worth anything, except maybe some entertainment value.

__________________
"I'm as accurate as any psychic. And I'm a cartoon!" -- Squidward

"Arrrgh, the laws of physics be a harsh mistress!" -- Bender

The thing that makes mediumship difficult and hard to measure is because it is spontanious. Its like trying to scientifically prove when somebody is going to have a heart attack.

__________________
There are several of us who do believe in UFOs and who have had occasion to see a UFO on the ground, or from an airplane. There was only one occasion from space which may have been a UFO."

Gordon Cooper, Astronaut (Mercury-Atlas 9, May 15, 1963; Gemini 5, August 21, 1965), Col. USAF (Ret); letter to Granada's Ambassador Griffith at the United Nations, November 9, 1978

http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk - Europe's biggest UFO database.

Is "cold reading" something that people admit to? I thought it was something people did, but denied they did. In fact, I think a person could do "cold reading" unconsciously.

__________________
As above, so below

If your 'on the ball' you can easily see who is cold reading. They will wait for you to give them details so that they can feed of them. My brother however refuses any answers other than Yes or No. It irritates him if people are too quick to come forward and give details. He would rather give the reading and then see how accurate he was.

__________________
There are several of us who do believe in UFOs and who have had occasion to see a UFO on the ground, or from an airplane. There was only one occasion from space which may have been a UFO."

Gordon Cooper, Astronaut (Mercury-Atlas 9, May 15, 1963; Gemini 5, August 21, 1965), Col. USAF (Ret); letter to Granada's Ambassador Griffith at the United Nations, November 9, 1978

http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk - Europe's biggest UFO database.

Whenever he's ready, your brother may go collect his million from James Randi.

Cold reading, if I understand it at all, may be a unique skill which can be refined through training and experience and permits one to recognize very subtle cues from the "readee" (or whatever the one being "read" is called). Your brother may actually believe he has some special "power" granted him from a spiritual source, but it may be an inherent capability that many have lost due to our dependence on spoken language.

As for ghosts, never seen one, never had an experience with one, and like alien visitors, I think belief in them requires a particular bias which I seem to be lacking.

I do not believe in the existance of supernatural things, in fact, I know that such things can not exist at all.

This does not mean I deny the possibility of ghosts, spirits, and such folks, though, only that I deny the applicability of any label classifying something that exist as not natural or above, beside, below, beyond nature.

I can't say I can remember ever having met any ghosts at the moment, so I am skeptic to their existance...

Of course, they are one of those things that is very hard to disprove the existance of, but it seems resonable to go about ones life as though there are no such things as far as possible, unless one has actualy met any...

__________________
Game over, you lose, we hope you enjoyed playing the exciting game of Thermodynamics...

You'll have to tell all the medical professionals that they are not using science.

I bet they'll be surprised to hear that.

But you'll be doing them all a huge favor. Sure, they might not appreciate it at first, but they'll thank you later.

Go for it!

__________________
"I'm as accurate as any psychic. And I'm a cartoon!" -- Squidward

"Arrrgh, the laws of physics be a harsh mistress!" -- Bender

I've never seen a ghost or had a paranormal experience. I think it's all bunk and I am wary of any claims about either.

It's great fun to talk about around the campfire though.

Define ghost. I strongly suspect I am in the camp of no. Would need some concrete evidence rather than what is available now.

In all my years of being interested in the subject, I have never heard of anyone who used cold reading to get a persons surname. As I said earlier, cold reading is the art of craftily asking questions indirectly to get your answers. I know for a fact that my brother does not do this.

Let me give you a few examples.

A couple of years ago myself and my brother went on a ghost hunt with one of my friends and his wife, and another guy who writes for my website. My friends father-in-law owns quite a bit of land and there is an ancient burial ground dating back to the civil war on it. The weather that night was very windy and overcast. We walked down the country lanes to the place where the burial ground was. It felt very eerie as we walked through the trees as the wind was howling.

Anyhow, after about an hour of walking around and taking pictures, which many featured orbs, we made our way back to his father-in-laws house. As we neared to top of the drive, my brother all of a sudden said that he was picking up on something. He stopped at a spot and then all of a sudden said to my friends wife that an old man with a flat cap had just materialised behind her. He went on to say that he thought the man had died from a heart attack.

At this point my friend was standing there with open mouth. After 5 minutes of my brother giving a description, my friend said ' Your not going to believe this, and I haven't told you this before, but this is the exact spot where my dad died of a heart attack and how you described him is correct.'

His dad had died about 8 years ago. He was at the other father-in-laws house cutting wood when he suffered a heart attack.

Another good example is when the other guy from our website returned from holiday and said that his family had had a paranormal experience in the hotel they had stayed at. They invited my brother around to his house, and, being a sceptic himself, had put 3 objects on the table and simply said 'right, see if you can get which object this phenomenon happened to'.

Not only did my brother pick out the plastic bottle top that was correct, he also went on to accurately describe the hotel and hotel room they stayed in - right down to the 'towers' and the hotel looking like a 'castle.' My brother had no prior knowledge of where they were going or of the object that was involved in the incident. What basically happened was they were woken up in the middle of the night by a strange sound. The next day they found that a bottle top from a water bottle had been removed and throw across the room. It had been crushed too. Neither my friend or his wife had done it and the only other people in the room were their very young children who wouldn't have had the strength to crush the top.

Another interesting instance happened during a spiritual circle where anyone from the general public is invited to attend. It wasn't long in the evening until my brother noticed that there was the ghost of a motorcyclist standing in the room. When it was his time to tell the room what he was getting, he went on to describe how this motorcyclist had lost his life in an accident and even the exact area where it happened. His father was one of those in the room - the first time he had ever visited the church. He approached my brother at the end of the meeting to say how incredibly accurate the reading was.

So, I dont think any of that can be attributed to cold reading, can you?

__________________
There are several of us who do believe in UFOs and who have had occasion to see a UFO on the ground, or from an airplane. There was only one occasion from space which may have been a UFO."

Gordon Cooper, Astronaut (Mercury-Atlas 9, May 15, 1963; Gemini 5, August 21, 1965), Col. USAF (Ret); letter to Granada's Ambassador Griffith at the United Nations, November 9, 1978

http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk - Europe's biggest UFO database.

My biggest problms with thr consept of ghosts is that a) where the heckles cakes is the energy for the mentation and matter manipulation common to reports of hauntings coming from? and b) where and how is the mind being stored? Maybe we juat don't understrand the laws of the universe well enough yet to understand how ghosts opperate, a possibility I admit. I have a few amature theories of my own. However, I consider most ghost stories to be either outrght hoaxes or misconceptions.

__________________

I think in most cases, seeing ghosts has a lot to do with perception. Either you have it or you don't. I have perception of a different kind. The only thing that I've seen that I would call a ghost was a couple of years ago in a graveyard as I spotted a humanoid whispy figure dart behind a tree. I have seen what is termed as 'shadow people' on many occasions and have seen countless episodes of poltergeist activity, objects moving, disappearing for months on end and then reappearing, strange noises, disembodied voices, doors opening of their own accord and things like that.

__________________
There are several of us who do believe in UFOs and who have had occasion to see a UFO on the ground, or from an airplane. There was only one occasion from space which may have been a UFO."

Gordon Cooper, Astronaut (Mercury-Atlas 9, May 15, 1963; Gemini 5, August 21, 1965), Col. USAF (Ret); letter to Granada's Ambassador Griffith at the United Nations, November 9, 1978

http://www.ufos-aliens.co.uk - Europe's biggest UFO database.

I have heard a great many ghost tales and stories that appear to be psychic predictions. The trouble is:

If you go walking outside barefoot, how many stones will your feet pass over? Or will you only notice the sharp ones that get your attention?

In many cases in my own life where I have heard that "So and So" has this 'ability' I would pay attention to how often they were wrong. Which was VERY often. But when they get something Right- or even CLOSE to right, folks pounce on it and lift it up and put it on a pedestal.
Statistics demands they will get predictions right at some point.

If I asked how often your brother incorrectly predicts or describes something- could you even answer? Probably not. you WANT to believe and you won't pay attention to when he's wrong.

Secondly, even when he's right- how right is he? How right is "right enough"? Your first tale mentioned that he described the man. Was his description of the man accurate? You said yes, yet only gave about three details. I could 'guess' and hit an accurate prediction just on statistics and have done so Many many times. Yet, I am not psychic.

Similar to many beliefs that require faith, what you are describing is based more on a want to believe than on any actual facts or science. Understanding even a little science demonstrates the futility of believing in ghosts or souls. But there is an interesting facet to human nature. This facet is that even though we are already Unique with our heightened intellect, humans, throughout history, have tried to embrace beliefs that give us a privileged or special place in the Universe.
In early days, the Earth was the Center of All Creation.
Only Humans Have souls. Etc etc.
Is that justification for the fact we never see animal ghosts?

Ghosts are like fairy's, goblins, gnomes, elves, demons and angels. Believers come up with lots of convincing tales of personal experiences that don't add up to anything more than the believers imaginative desire to justify a belief.

cosmicdave, the trouble is not that you can or cannot prove the existence of ghosts. It's that you can't even test it in any way. there is Zero- None - Zip - Zilch evidence of ghosts and yet, you will believe anyway. Only because that is your desire. Your mind's already made up.

Along with pareidolia, you might check out the brains activities in regards to seeing what isn't really there.
It's a survival trait. Better to see a predator that isn't there than not see one that is,
It's the part of our mind that is still skittish and ready to fight or flight from living in the wild.

Ever see a clock and it says 12:30 then look again just a moment later and it says 3:30? And you're like.. I know it said 12:30 just a moment ago- I SAW IT.

No, you just thought you saw it.
Ever say the wrong thing and someone corrects you and you swear up and down that wasn't what you just said?

How often do you misinterpret what you see? All - the - time.
But since your mind's actively believing in ghosts- when you see something that triggers the "ghost belief" - POOF!- You think your vision has just justified that belief. You ignore all the other mundane things you miss-see and mishear through-out the day.

Can you explain to me why it is, scientifically and in detail, that a ghost shows up on film?
Understanding the principles of how a camera functions and captures light and how the chemical process works on the film...

After doing so.... Can you, then, explain what it is that makes ghosts supposedly ALSO show up on pictures taken by digital cameras which work entirely differently from analog ones?!

See, people don't know any better. They hear that ghosts show up on film, it doesn't occur to them that digital cameras are different from analog and so they produce pictures taken with a digi-cam supposedly showing ghosts- the same as they would with an analog camera !
Hello... did ya miss the boat? That's like showing me a picture of sound or smell. You need the right equipment. Apparently this doesn't occur to the average believer layman, nor do they want it to occur to them. It completely undermines their claim.

No such things as ghosts.

Isn't this a skeptical forum?

__________________
If this writing is blue you're going too fast!

No, because for ghosts to exist you have to have a belief in the afterlife.
Yes it can, cold-reading isn't about just asking leading questions, its about reading body language and unconcious signals. Similar to how poker players read another players 'tells'. It can appear supernatural, but isn't, it can be learned.

Actually, we could just test this, your brother cannot cold read anyone on this forum, so we could set up a little experiment in order to see how accurate your brother is, say have a volunteer email details of themselves to a moderator. Then let your brother do his thing. Then look at the results.

__________________
The most important mental attribute anyone can have is the ability to recognize when one's own comprehension of a topic is insufficient. Without that, one's knowledge simply becomes tautological: it is "impossible" for there to exist wisdom one does not already possess. - JayUtah

There is no light in space. - Moon Man

No

__________________
At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

I don't believe in ghosts until I seen one.

But still, it's a product of our own imagination.

Sorry, Dave, but he's cold reading. He's doing it in a way that's clearly not obvious to you, and it's entirely reasonable to assume there's no malice or insincerity on his part. It's likely he's not aware he's doing it (which is fairly common among amateur "psychics"), but he's doing it all the same.

Peace Makes Plenty is right: it's not only about asking leading questions, but rather building upon the feedback you get while throwing out guesses. Confirmation bias, always present (especially if you're someone who wants to believe in psychic phenomenon), means that misses tend to get ignored while the occasional grazes tend to be interpreted and/or remembered as hits.

Reading body language is a skill like any other. Some people have natural talent at it. Some can be trained at it. Some will always be bad at it. It would not surprise me if your brother turned out to be a better-than-average Poker player.

It isn't especially hard to test psychics using proper scientific controls, controls that will both recognize legitimate psychic ability while simultaneously preventing attempts at fraud.

Far less formally, it's quite possible to turn the tables on cold readers (both amateur and professional), and manipulate the reading to some extent.

Story time. --------

One time in particular, I met someone who fancied himself a natural psychic, and who insisted upon doing a reading for me. (I wasn't especially interested, but wasn't entirely unwilling to go along with it, to a point.)

This guy was an amateur, so he wasn't consciously cold reading in order to scam me for money. (Well, actually, he was trying to scam me for money, but the psychic bit wasn't part of that. That was just a plea for my approval. I didn't get the impression he was able to keep friends, so much as a small circle of sycophants on retainer.)

The idea of the reading was, supposedly, that if I were to pick two people I knew with the same name, and said each (same) name while thinking alternatively of these people, he could tell me about them.

During the reading, I gave him as little verbal feedback as I could get away with, only answering direct questions, and being careful to not volunteer information.

I was also careful to put on my own poker face. Not because I'm good at guarding my reactions. In poker terms, I'm a fish. A fool to be parted with my money. But I am also, however unskilled, someone who has enjoyed a long fascination with stage magic, psychology, and security, particularly when combined.

It should have been quite obvious to the amateur psychic that I was a hostile readee and that I was attempting to smother my reactions. What wasn't immediately obvious to my host is that this was very much the image I intended to portray. The poker face was pure misdirection. I can't hide my reactions very well, but I learned long ago that I can lie with my face.

Now, I let him go for about half the reading without actively lying to him, but without volunteering information either. During this half of the reading, he had no hits. The only time he grazed was with statements that were so vague as to be without content.

For the second half of the reading, I gave him feedback using my face. A slight quirking of my eyebrow. The barest curl at the corner of my mouth. Subtle widening or shifting of my eyes. Altering my breath just a bit. That sort of thing.

I found I was able to exert a great deal of influence on what he was making up about my friends. He was quite willing to follow the garden path I laid for him. There were no hits, by the way, during this section of the reading. He never came close.

Now, this story is purely anecdotal, of course, and there were no scientific controls whatsoever on the pseudo-experiment I pulled, but it's pretty clear this amateur "psychic" was just a natural face-reader whose ego got ahead of him. (Well, that wasn't his only problem by any stretch, but the rest of it isn't relevant to this thread.)

End of story. ------

Your brother, Dave, may simply be a natural face-reader who has made a few especially memorable, but statistically insignificant guesses. Probability guarantees someone's going to guess right if you throw enough guesses (or people making guesses) out there. It's the same law of probability that allows folks to win every lottery, just about every week, despite the hideously long odds against an individual win.

__________________
And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling [faces] lyin' to ye' everywhere ye' go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.

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...

__________________
Game over, you lose, we hope you enjoyed playing the exciting game of Thermodynamics...

TrAI,
I hate to do it to you. I hit quote at first so I could disseminate your post but.. It would have been line by line and that was too much.
The second, longer portion of your post is pretty much a big fat load of bunk- the same bunk mystics and charlatans have been spewing for centuries to raise specific doubts in order to make their beliefs look more "plausible" or "possible."
Suspend reality enough to make the story believable. We expect it from Hollywood.

Problem is, science tells us otherwise, with hard facts, evidence and testable hypothesis.

The problem with the four things you just posted as "views" to explain "phenomena" (really hitting the quotes here...) is basically the same. They are harebrained theories based on speculation that has Nothing to do with biological Chemistry.
For example: The idea that a violent act leaves an Imprint upon a scene. The trouble here is that the chemicals need to all be in the right mixture and the right potency. Merely SECONDS after an event has occurred, many of the pheromones, and other chemical traces have already dissipated. Given an hour, everything's so shifted around that there is no recognizable pattern left that resembles the original "imprint."
The only time a person gets a "spooky feeling" at the scene of a violent or tragic event is because they Already KNOW a violent or tragic event took place there. Otherwise- they get no feeling at all and think nothing of it.
Think about all the violent encounters In Nature that occur regularly. Animals fighting to the death and devouring eachother. Why don't we Always get Spooky feelings anytime we walk through the woods? I mean, we would get overwhelmed and inundated by some major spookiness. Heck, most of us feel more peaceful when walking through the woods! Then the next question- Is it only when it's a Human tragedy? Why then, are we special? As usual... Humans thinking they are special and hold a special place- so far even as to leave a special imprint when a human meets tragedy as opposed to say, a kangaroo.

I'm not even going to TRY on the "fabric" one. You couldn't even get the explanation out there without stumbling and I would only stumble more trying to make any sense of it.

TrAI, I am not saying you hold these beliefs or are promoting them. And I'm aware you make intelligent posts all the time, so I'm not attacking you or your mind- but the placement of these absurdities that CosmicDave would love to jump on as support for his own claims- when they are in fact, utter complete Hogwash. It reminds me of some of the theories spun in ATM like that Black Holes are Cosmic Vacuum cleaners and Spiral Galxies are like water circling a drain. They are not supported by any observational science whatsoever, but seem to look reasonable to someone that doesn't know the observed evidence and it's meaning.

Any Police or Sheriffs dept. Homocide Detective can describe in much greater detail what is left at a crime scene, how long it lasts and what its potency is. Sadly for the detectives- not much lasts for very long at all.
Most of these self proclaimed psychics are supposedly sensing events that are DECADES old- which may as well be a thousand years for the chemical traces involved.

Voices are the result when air is passed through our vocal chords. Being incorporal, how do ghosts produce vocalizations without vocal chords?

__________________
I hate being wrong, but love it when i'm set straight. Harlan Ellison

Since this is a science board, it's not surprising that a large number of people here would be skeptical about such things. I think it's important to recognize that while we cannot prove the existence of ghosts, neither can we thoroughly disprove it. The subject remains in the category of things we just don't know, which for many people can be uncomfortable to admit. Think of all the theories people had about the causes of illness prior to the discovery of bacteria and viruses. Without the equipment to detect micro-organisms, how was anyone supposed to know of or verify their existence? Yet they were there all along. In the absence of this knowledge, people attempted to make meaning by coming up with all sorts of theories about why people got sick, including blaming the patients by labeling the illness as divine punishment. It is very possible that there is far more to the universe than meets the eye or what our instruments can measure at any given moment in time.

Actually i mean exactly what i said. Ghost is not an ambiguous term like UFO, its defined as a spirit or soul of someone who is dead. It implies an afterlife.

I think your giving variations on the Stone Tape Theory here. Its a nice idea/story* but doesn't carry any evidence.

*http://www.p-s-i.org.uk/stonetapearticle.htm

Additionally, i know of no mediums that make claims to any of your other hypotheses - they specifically make claims to communicate with the dead. So in context the statement stands.

Of course, i don't doubt that there are mediums that follow those other hypotheses. The fringe has its own fringe after all.

Your last comment about scents is interesting and certainly more plausible. But is it not the case that these scents are organic molecules and can be broken down by sunlight for example. So do not survive for longer than a few months at best.

http://www.fbi.gov/hq/lab/fsc/backis...research03.htm

__________________
The most important mental attribute anyone can have is the ability to recognize when one's own comprehension of a topic is insufficient. Without that, one's knowledge simply becomes tautological: it is "impossible" for there to exist wisdom one does not already possess. - JayUtah

There is no light in space. - Moon Man

The trouble with this claim is that it is an appeal to ignorance. In order for the claim to hold, we must accept the axiom that we are unable to detect something.
The next trouble is that technology is exponential.
Sure, a thousand years ago we lacked the instruments- but this does NOT detract from the sophisticated instruments we do have today.
Although there is much yet to be discovered, ghosts, demons and fairies are exactly the mystical explanation offered in the absence of science.
Claiming it is possible for ghosts fairies or goblins to exist on the fallacy of an appeal to ignorance is to step backward in time and deny the existence of the scientific methods, instruments and procedures and accumulated knowledge that do exist that also demonstrate very well that ghosts are a figment of the imagination and nothing more.
It gets to the point that in order to justify the belief in ghosts et al, you must explain away ( a LOT of evidence!) the evidence that is scientifically testable and measurable to to the contrary using arguments of ignorance or alluding to the "mysterious nature" of the Universe.

An inability to thoroughly disprove something is not proof that it can exist.

I cannot prove or disprove that I'm not imagining all this and my life is a delusion I suffer while locked in a padded room in a straight jacket and drooling on myself. However, to entertain such a notion is absurdly irrational and the odds of it vanishingly small.

If I am holding a piece of granite in my hand and someone speculates that a deeper mystery of the universe that I am ignorant of has created the illusion of granite over a piece of pumice, I will ignore such speculation simply because I am more likely to trust the overwhelming, testable evidence that suggests it is not pumice but granite. In order for the claimant to support his theory that it is pumice, he would need to devise a complex conspiracy theory that is not testable in any way and totally contradicts the observable and testable evidence. I'll say it's granite. And even if he's magically and unbelievably correct and it IS pumice, it doesn't matter anyway because it will still have all the properties of granite anyway and I will feel more sane in just accepting it is granite than I would in supporting wild speculations.

I think the OP was just to see if anyone had experienced anything paranormal. But yes, its one of the many questions that are raised when discussing this subject.

Others:
If ghost are incorporeal,how to they write/rap and move other objects?
Why can't ghosts remember their own names, mediums never say more than one?

__________________
The most important mental attribute anyone can have is the ability to recognize when one's own comprehension of a topic is insufficient. Without that, one's knowledge simply becomes tautological: it is "impossible" for there to exist wisdom one does not already possess. - JayUtah

There is no light in space. - Moon Man

I don 't believe in ghosts. If people produced ghosts when dying, we'd trip over them all the time, so many have lived and died over the last 30,000 or 2 million years, depending on where you draw the line of "humanity". Ok--I mentioned that to someone who replied, "but ghosts only happen if the person dies a violent death"---well, violent deaths were pretty common back in the prehistoric days. Not as common as dying as an infant, but common.

I tell you what--if I come back as a ghost, I'll be sure to let everybody know, and the matter will be settled. Now why didn't someone who's already dead think of that....

__________________
-----
Todd (Bowie, MD, US, North America, Earth, Sol System, Vega region, Local Bubble, Orion arm, Milky Way Galaxy, Local Group, Virgo A Cluster, Virgo supercluster, the universe in which spock is clean shaven)

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

personal page: http://blog.astrosketches.info