Ever seen a ghost?

[SteveM(PA)]

I've always poo-poo'd any notion of ghosts, and my continuing goal is to make my kids as cynical as me. After tonight, though...I feel a little differently. I was watching a light-hearted show on the "Discovery Kids" channel about ghosts in Hollywood. The discussion was mainly about haunted old hotels, with people making all sorts of wild claims of seeing, like, Marilyn Monroe in a mirror, or doors mysteriously opening/closing, etc...the usual crap ("why doesn't anyone ever get this on film"...blah, blah). I was just telling my kids how the building we live in, which is about 300 years old, was once a hotel, and that hundreds of people must have sat right here in our living room over the centuries, yet never had I seen anything weird in our home. At that VERY moment (I swear this is true) one of my kids' wind up toys, sitting on a side table, which had not been touched for days, started freaking out (it's a little wind up racing game, you wind it up and the track scrolls by underneath a little race car). My kids were sitting on my right, and the toy was on my left, but just out of my reach. The kids are convinced that I wound up the toy, just to freak them out. Although even if I had done it, I don't think I would have picked such an obvious time, and I kind of think they know that, and it's causing their only smidgen of concern. I don't want them to be scared so I'm not going to harp on it. But I'm really freaked, and I'm avoiding the living room 😱

 

[dhartse]

When my daughter was younger, we kept many of her toys in a toy box, and it always seemed there was some darn toy going off making some noise in that thing. Not spooky at all, but quite annoying.

Duane

 

[pvdhaar]

Whenever the kids were the last to turn off the tap in the bathroom, it starts to drip around 5 AM.

Spooky? Yes. Ghosts? No. Just the temperature that drops overnight and the subsequent shrinking of the rubber washers inside the tap..

 

[sf]

I'm not sure about ghosts, but who can be?

There is a room in my grandma's house in Los Angeles, where, not matter what, you feel watched and it's always cold. Even on hot days. My hair always rises even approaching the room. It's an old piano room hanging off the ballroom. Yeah. Ballroom. BIG house in Hancock Park.

Scares me. I took my friend on a road trip once, and we stayed there for a night. I was watching TV upstairs when he came into my room and said something to the effect of "this place is crawling." He then told me about that room. I explained that this was normal, and nothing to fear.

Maybe it's just drafty. And all the painted portraits of forgotten explorers and aristocracy hanging on the walls just imposes a sense of ghostly audience.

I did set up my D70 one day (yes, I believe in the supernatural - if only for kicks), and shoot a 30 second exposure into that room with a wide angle lens. Nothing special.