Ghosts, Visitations from beyond?

[crypto]

Most of you likely read the prayer request thread, and heard about how my friend Beth lost her grandmother. Not to sure if she'd be happy I'm telling this story, but eh it's interesting and worth discussing. helping me take my mind off other matters. (See Prayer request 2)

Aparently today Beth was in the shower and thought she saw her grandmother in the mirror or soemthing.

Then the phone rings.

She answers and there's no one there. She figures it was a wrong number or soemthing so she gets back in the shower.

Phone rings again and this time when she answers theres a lady there that asks if Mary is there. Mary was Beth's grandmother.

"I'm sorry, but my grandmother died about two weeks ago."

"that can't be right, i was just talking to her and she told me to call back."

She checked the caller id, but both times the number came up as unknown.

Beth isn't sure what to make of this, and when I started to say that there was some documentation of simaler stuff she cut me off with a "I don't beleive in ghosts". Wasn't even going to use the word.

So there it is. the glimps of her grandmother could have to do with Beth's mental state. But I can't explain the calls.

[pablo]

I've experienced some seriously weird shit (in the presence of others) that would make your skin crawl. However, I don't believe in ghosts in the romantic sense. This book does a great job presenting some wonderful explanations.

[kinako mochi]

Okay, it's fireside story time. I'm sitting here with my new apartment by myself in the light of one lamp, so I hope I don't freak myself out.

I was raised with a wealth of ghost stories, some clearly spun tales, some fluffed up from strange to sensational, and then there are the ones that prove themselves to me through experience.

I grew up on Maui, in a former plantation family. It's one thing to fear things you make up in your head to match the stories, and spread those stories around, but it's another to know of the sensationalism, then experience the unknown for yourself.

One such event was when I was just a baby. My father got a house in a new neighborhood, and I was just teen months or so. I'd stand in the crib, and cry and point at a spot in my room, until my parents would comfort me. When I could talk, I'd do the same, except cry, 'man, man', terrified. Later my parents would consult a traditional Hawaiian priest, who told him to plant ti leaf on certain sides of the house and said prayers in Hawaiian while throwing coarse salt. The episodes faded soon after. The priest said that the house was built on an old burial site.

Another was as a teen, around the time of my first suicide attempt. I was ticked and took off in my old Corolla coupe to drive my anger away. I drove far north from Lahaina, past the hotels and into pineapple field land on both sides of the road. The road got narrow and very curvy about ten miles out from the nearest house, and soon it was just me, the ocean on my left, and the mountains and cliff to my right, and the dim glow of non-halogen headlights peering yellow into the darkness. This continued for about fifteen minutes, when suddenly I was seized by a sudden dread. I ignored it as just nerves and kept trying to be angry, but it got stronger and stronger, until I had to turn around, nearly frantic with fear. It was mortifying at the time

[Fhqwhgads]

hmmmm...

I've never seen ghosts or aliens. So they both go in a bucket in my mind marked "Pending". I've had a number of experiences with the supernatural however and my experience has lined up with what I find in my Big Book O' Jesus.

I was about to say there's no Scriptural evidence for ghosts but actually that's not true. King Saul went to a medium at Endor and had her call up Samuel's shade. Who promptly chewed him out and told him the Lord was about to deliver him into the hands of the Philistines, IIRC... 1 Sam. 28 has the story if you care.

I'm put in mind of C.S. Lewis's opener to Miracles where he talks about a friend of his that had seen a ghost; however the friend did not believe in ghosts before their experience, and continued to not believe afterwards. So from that angle, even seeing is not necessarily believing then.

EDIT: I just remembered another quote, by KP Yohannon, something to the effect that believers should live with eternity stamped on their eyes. I like that. Keeps the perspective in check.

[Ryalyn]

I believe in angels and demons and that they can do stuff that people attribute to ghosts. Whether there's something more beyond that, I'm still not sure. I've been very happily unexposed to the whole thing.

[amazon princess]

Personally. I'm very open to all paranormal phenomenones even aliens. Mainly cause I think we depend too much on what we know to classify something we dont know nothing about. My mother died when I was six. I often talk to her telling her what kind of day I had or if I have a personal issue. I know shes not there yet I kinda believe she listenes to me somehow.

[kinako mochi]

Hawaii is a place full of spirits and their manifestations. I'll relate a story my dad related from an employee of his while managing a local Ben Franklin's back in the '80s (long gone now).

She was a lady of Portuguese descent, a very practical and grounded person, otherwise. Her story is freaky though. *if you are squeamish, skip this now*

She lived in a faraway (for Maui) town from where she worked, a little hamlet on Maui called Hana, on the extreme east side of the island, and worked on the extreme west side of my home town of Lahaina. Her commute was about two hours long, as the slow progress across the eastern north shore is 25 mph or sometimes slower due to the cliffside road and the frequent rains.

Her family, due to some kind of strange past mishap or curse, seemed to attract incidents that to this day still mystify all who hear about them.

She used to start her day very early in the morning, 4am or so, and start out towards Lahaina. Still very dark, she said that every once in a while, she'd see off in the corner of her eye something move in the rearview or off on the side of the road in the glow of her headlights. She'd be concentrating on the road of course, but the distraction was there, and it followed the car. In the beginning, it spooked the heck out of her, but as it became more and more routine, she began to tire of it and instead just tolerated it. But what would happen later is absolutely mortifying.

She said as time went on, as she got to a certain spot, occasionally the light began to take shape, and became a little creature. It flew, and from what I can remember my dad telling me, it was vaguely humanoid, about the size of an office wastebasket. It had a face, a horrifying mask of anger and rage. It often few right into the windshield, and tried to claw its way into the car, tormeting her for miles! Of course this poor woman was scared out of her wits the first few times it happened, but as determined to feed her family and not allow this whatever it was to affect her life, she eventually began to ignore it.

So picture this. A lady, whose commute every morning involved terrorism from Slimer, who she said she simply screamed with all her might at, as nasty as it did, and it would disappear! Isn't that hilarious? My skepticism at the time asked what if she was making it up, and was just sick or something? He said that many who drove that road at night, tourists too, sometimes would see the lights and occassionally, the thing, so it wasn't an isolated incident. A familiar connecting experience was the scratching of its nails against the window glass and paint. What the heck was it? And why did it terrorize this lady so? Being so long ago, I figure the answers are pretty distant, but I'll ask my father the next time I give him a ring.

[Llewellian]

Well, i am not superstitious...or do belive in esotheric things. In fact, i am really rational - but i have to admit, i am an agnostic.

And since my worsest accident i ever had, i believe in the fact that there is someone that has an eye on you.

It was last year - i drove home on one of the german superhighways with no speed limit, it was a cool, dry and starshiny night with full moon.

Suddenly out of nothing, i began to think of my dead grandma very, very heavy. This thought nagged on my for some minutes. And then, in the moment i wanted to overtake another car that drove slower than i was, a "ghost driver" came driving along on the wrong side of the lane.

I dont know, if i have translated that right. For explanation: German highways are seperated in the driving directions. Normally, no car can drive on your side against your direction. A "Ghost Driver" is a motorist driving against the traffic on those separated motorways.

I was absolutely shocked. The one car was right to me, we both blocked both lanes and this "Ghost driver" came up to me very very fast. I mean, i was driving at a speed of 180 km/h, and according to the police investigation later, he was doing that too. Suddenly, time absolutely slowed down. In a total matrix effect.

I remember that i heard a voice - the voice of my grandma. "Do not fear, hit the brake and go right." And so i did.

I hit the brake, slowed down, came behind the other car i wanted to pass. The suicide freak changed on our side, to hit us instead of using the now free left lane. The car in front of me hit the "Ghost driver" unslowed. A high speed impact at matrix time really does look funny. The both cars in front of me just "desintegrated" and were totally blown to bits. Both cars began to fly, got lifted up from the street, one to the right side making backflip somersaults, and the "Ghost driver" did some "Knight Rider" Stunt flying just over my car, i turned my head up and saw his motor from below through my roof window. I had had a speed of 160 km/h at this time, i even noticed the time on my clock. Every part, every wheel, anything that flew i noticed, as if the world stood still. I then drove through a shower of car parts and everything just seemed to move out of my way in slow motion.

Then i was through, time began to get fast again and 500 m later, i stopped.

I got out of my car and went back to the accident place and helped the driver from the other car to get out. He was absolutely unharmed, like me. He had just a little "glass dirt" from the crushed windshield on his jacket. And after that, we both pulled out that suicide freak of his car - he was just bleeding a little bit out of his nose, inflicted by his airbag.

No one got harmed. Two cars that were absolutley "nonexistent" after that crash. Ripped, folded and crashed like a sheet of paper you crush between your hands. I mean, 160 the one and 180 the other... physics, mathematics say: Add it together...no one survives that....


And then the police came.

After the papers, i drove home, with my car. In the morning, i checked it. Only 2 little scretchs in my paint. Both no longer than 2cm. And motor oil spilled on my roof and the back part of my car. Besides that, nothing....absolutely nothing.

I mean, i drove at a speed of 160 through all that car parts of those two cars that just - yeah, i have no other word that would fit but "desintegrated" - only metres before me. I drove through it like a snow plow. And hit absolutely nothing. As if someone would grab it in front of my windshield and put it away. I saw the parts coming in my direction. But then...they moved over my car or to the the left or right.... like snow before a plow.

So i came to one conclusion:

Either i was the luckiest boy ever on earth and steered through the car parts cloud in the right way, or my grandma was there and took care of me. I dont know. Maybe i will never know. But it is nice to believe that last thought.

[kinako mochi]

Those sorts of things ARE nothing if not freaky. For me, they seem to have a lot to do with change in my life, whether changing jobs, changing places (like this past week), or making new friends. It could have something to do with my being a lot more intuitive, which happens when you don't have a rigid routine and the same old safe boring grind.

For example, this past move. I was totally procrastinating getting stuff packed up, but when that feeling came that it was do or die, I finally got going and packed my stuff up and boxed them. I reserved a Ford cargo van for my move from Budget, and they said one would be available at 0730 on Mon of last week. Okay, all is set, I have all of my stuff ready to load and just have to wait for the morning.

I get to the rental office at 0730, and the guy kindly says no cargo vans are due until 10 that morning. Great. First snag, I think to myself. But the guy says we have a 15-footer, would you like that? What do I pay to upgrade? Nothing, he says. So I got a van two tiers higher on the price schedule for $25/day. Awesome.

Moving all of my stuff, 2000 lbs easy, was a bitch, and since my move was under non-amicable circumstances with the landlord, it was also solo. But I noticed that there was room for the stuff I would otherwise have had to leave at the old house, my mechanics' topbox and rollaway (was a sportbike mechanic for six years). If I had room, it was preferable, since it's easily $10K worth of tools at a house with minimum security and besides not being on the best terms with the former landlord, I jumped at the chance to get it into my domicile.

As I was rolling the huge toolbox into the van, I thought to myself, how the hell was I going to do this if I had the cargo van? It has no ramp, and I'm farting to get this 900-lb box aboard WITH the ramp on the 15-footer. Things were beginning to get weird.

That wasn't the end of strange coincidences. When I got to the new apt complex, the only spot close enough to park the behemoth van was 100 yds away from my door. I was thinking, holy crap, how am I going to walk all of this crap an armful at a time before nightfall? And I looked back at the load, and the answer was there

[Fhqwhgads]

I love these. MORE! MORE STORIES!!

(I'm trying to think of some myself but my memory's not what it used to be...what's more, it never was)

[kinako mochi]

Haha

[Fhqwhgads]

BTW, I have some REALLY freaky ones, if you're interested.

Awww yeah...Freaks R Us. Hit me!!

[kinako mochi]

Okay. Both these other stories were related to me by my father, and to my knowledge these are individual, personal experiences that have little resemblance to the boatloads of tall tales in the Hawaiian 'talk story' community, so they have a bit more authenticity, for whatever that's worth.

My dad lived in Lahaina, which is on the extreme west side of the island of Maui, and Kahului, the port town and county seat, is on the north end of the isthmus that joins the West Maui Mountains with Mt. Haleakala.

In order to get from Lahaina to Kahului (where the majority of the facilties and shopping is), you have to take SR 31 around the south end of the West Maui Mtns, on a cliffside road called a 'pali'. In 1957 a modern 2-lane was blasted out of the rock to improve traffic flow, but for years it was little more than a foot trail, with neatly stacked rocks in some of the coolies to allow for horse and early automobile traffic. Even the Hawaiians had been using a version of the route since antiquity.

In the early 60's, my dad had a good friend who lived in Kahului, so over the pali he would drive to hang out and see girls and whatnot. He had been raised with stories and lore about a woman dressed in white, that would thumb rides from passerby, get in, then disappear abruptly, right at the tunnel that marked the first mile on the pali. But as most of us do, he brushed it off as tall tales given propriety through time in service.

So he's dropped off his buddy at his house, and makes his way across the pali back home.

Now, the thing about the 'white lady' is she is supposedly an incarnation of the fire goddess Pele, and that if you transport pork in your car while traversing the pali, she will get medieval on you. So there my dad is, nonchalantly puffing along, with a few pork chops in the trunk. Nah, that's just an old legend, he thinks.

So he's at the tunnel, when the Plymouth, running fine and full of gas, conks out and dies, at about 1am in the morning. My dad gets out and does some checking, but all is fine, the motor won't catch. He remembers the legend, and it says if you leave a neatly wrapped offering of the pork you're carrying on the side of the road, you'll be free to go. Baffled by the car, he figures what the heck and leaves a chop on a piece of paper at the shoulder, gets in

[DinkyInky]

I was told at a young age that it was all my imagination, to ignore them, and they'd go away. I think my parents were afraid of it, to tell the truth.
My mother grew up in Korea, where you would honour the earthbound dead by placing incense and their favourite foods out by their graves. I think they appear sometimes because they just want you to know it will be okay.

My fathers family are all Catholic, and not at all superstitious. They don't believe in anything like spirits...well, nobody except my father.
When my favourite aunt(on my fathers side) died, everyone was very sad. People from all over came to pay their respects. The whole family in America came to my grandmothers home.

I as usual. caused no small amount of scandal by wearing white. My aunt had liked that hearing about that tradition when my mother told her that Korea was called "The Land of the Morning Calm" because of this wearing of white, so I wore it. I was bored out of my mind as people I had never seen before were trying to talk of things in Polish, thinking we kids didn't understand.
I saw my aunt, in her favourite green pantsuit in her bedroom. She sat on her bed and watched as all of us were together comforting each other with this strange smile.

She seemed so beautiful, and after a while of staring, I realised that all of her imperfections from the illnesses were gone. My mother saw me have this strange look on my face, and came up to me and placed her hand on my shoulder. I looked up at her face, expecting a lecture, but instead got a nod...I just knew that she saw her too. We walked into her room, and sat on her bed. The room had this chill in it, but I wasn't cold. I felt such peace.

My mother never told anyone about it, refuses to acknowledge it in front of others, but there was the proof. I wasn't crazy, didn't imagine it.

I hate funerals. Everyone likes to dress so bleak. I rather think of celebrating life. The cemetaries have this depressing chill about them. I'd rather throw a party for them. Have all of their favourite things there. Celebrate what was great about their life.

[PrettyPrincess]

I have one from when I was commuting to Los Angeles every day on the 5 Freeway.

I was on my way to class, and running a little late - and I admit it, I used to be one of those idiots who darted through traffic trying to get ahead. After this, I didn't do that anymore.

Anyhow, I had a clear spot in the left lane as we're heading towards a hill, so I pull into the lane and speed up. All of a sudden, I hear a voice telling me to move over into the center lane behind this green truck. Well, the truck was moving ten miles under the speed limit, and I thought to myself "ok, I'll just pass it first". The voice practically shouted "NO!! Get BEHIND the green truck." So I merge and slow down. At this point, we're cresting over the top of the hill - and traffic is at a complete stop. All of a sudden this big red truck - the tall kind that have been lifted and have huge wheels - those trucks always made me a bit nervous. Anyhow, this big red thing comes barreling out from the right hand lane in front of the green truck into the left lane (no looking, no signals) and SMASHES into the car that was in the left lane stuck in the traffic jam we'd just driven into. I could see the lady in that car - I saw her face widen as her airbags deployed. Luckily for her, she had a larger sedan, and even though the back half of the car was destroyed, she was OK.

The reason why this was especially scary to me, is I was driving an 85 Toyota Celica Supra - very low hatchback, shaped like 2 wedges <>. No airbags. If that truck had hit me, it would have bounced on my bumper and landed on the roof of my tiny car, and I'd have been smashed.

[Madhatter45]

Oh goody ghosty stuff. I have a ton of stories about paranormal encounters. I used to belong to a group of paranormal investegators (if you could call us that) a few years ago. We saw some totally freaky shit, some things I wish I could forget. So for now I think i'll post about something rather tame.

A Co-worker of my mother had asked me to come to his home to take a look at something a little strange. You see the house he lived in, the garage had a rather large fire in it from the previous owner. It didn't destroy the garage but it totally burned the hell out of all of the huge wooden rafters. What caused the fire was their young son playing with matches. He died in the fire but not before he was able to toss his favorite toy up on one of the rafters. Now what Bob (my mothers co-worker) had asked me to investigate was why in the world was this one particular spot on this rafter not scorched all to complete crap like the rest of them. The Nails holding the rafter to another are burned and charred like the rest of them, but around them there is a small shape. The shape is a rabbit. With his permission I did some tests. I took a butane lighter to the wood where the outline of the rabbit is to see if i could scorch it a bit. No dice. I used a wood burning tool (for creating art) to see if I could burn something into the wood. My burner wouldn't work on that particular spot. I did the requisit temperature taking and found that particular rafter was actually colder than the rest of the garage. Several months later Bob replaced all of the rafters in the garage. And the replacement for that particular one, the nails became scorched. Bob became worried, but I assured him that as long as his garage doesn't burst into flames and the "ghost" doesn't harm his family, he's okay. He has since then moved from that house, and to this day the nails are still burned. The rabbit has dissapeared but those nails...that's just creepy.

[kinako mochi]

I promised more, so here goes