What are your paranormal beliefs?

[Hawkbit]

What next, a rational explanation for magnets?

[Amarr HM]

The real question is why you leap from "I don't know how this happened" to "the house is haunted"?  It's ok to not know how something happened.  That doesn't mean it could only have had supernatural causes.

It wasn't just an overnight decision, I'm pretty sceptical at best. It was a slow process of being fucked with over months.  Sure for most events there is a simple explanation, like lights switching off, windows opening, doors closing. The one event that was improbable was the latch, after that I just felt I had to accept otherwise I would be driven nuts.

Bad things happened in the house. Of course they did, it's an old house. How many houses are there where bad things happened and they're not haunted? Probably a shit load more.
Previous tenant had some sort of breakdown. Have you looked at mental health statistics in this country? People always seem normal and mellow until something happens, do you have any idea if this was restricted to his time in the house? It could be a perfectly normal but very unfortunate mental health issue.

So at this point I feel I'm going psycho on your post, apologies. I want to be clear I'm not saying none of the things you experienced didn't happen, this is purely about the explanation for them. One of the things about haunted houses is that seemingly unlikely things (like the temperature, noises and doors locking) happening in large numbers can all stem from a common cause. Like I said, you might be right but I'd urge you to think about whether haunting is really the most likely explanation for a series of unlikely seeming events.

Sure when I initially heard the guy who went off kilter, I said the same thing as you it's not really unlikely, but after all the shit happened I had to wonder was he getting fucked with too. On your point he was a writer who moved there to try and write a novel so yeah totally someone who would be ripe for a mental breakdown. I guess like I just said, accepting it was haunted is preferable to driving yourself nuts trying to figure out why weird shit is happening. Meltdown is the alternative.

[Amarr HM]

Have some time to answer properly.

Bad things happened in the house. Of course they did, it's an old house. How many houses are there where bad things happened and they're not haunted? Probably a shit load more.

I've never lived in a 300 year old house before or after that one. Not that I think an old house would automatically make it haunted, but seeing as it was the only house I ever experienced anything resembling paranormal, I could see a link there.

Previous tenant had some sort of breakdown. Have you looked at mental health statistics in this country? People always seem normal and mellow until something happens, do you have any idea if this was restricted to his time in the house? It could be a perfectly normal but very unfortunate mental health issue.

I sort of answered this one already, he wanted to go into solitude to write a book. After a few months he was evicted after he smashed all the windows. Whatever bothered him, he took it out on the house. Yes it was restricted to his time in the house, he apparently went on to live a normal life. Bit like my own experience, only time I could say I experienced anything paranormal was while I lived there. We had people sit the house while we were away, they also had some strange events during a single night.

Weird noises, temperature variations, etc. Now the thing is if there are temperature variations, some sort of micro-climate thing, that could actually be causing many of these other issues. Unusual or large temperature variations are not kind to building materials, especially wood and other older used ones.

The temperature variation was an odd one, you would stand at the front door and you could see your breath, then walk literally 5 metres away from the house and it would be a summer evening. But then the location of the house in a wooded area could result in this type of micro-climate.

The Bathroom incident. You've got an old wooden door in an old wooden (I'm guessing frame) that you are exposing to sudden heat and moisture from the shower. Is it at all possible this resulted in a change and movement that caused the old lock to fall in place and jam the door somewhat?

It was a dividing hall door and not the actual door to the bathroom, which was just a spare toilet (sorry, our nomenclature is funny here we call those bathrooms also) without a shower or bath e.g. not subject to huge temperature variance. Basically a heavy old wooden door and it was warped from age. I immediately tested it to see if it was possible for the latch to drop on it's own. My finding was that it was not physically possible without considerable force (a shoulder being pressed) on the top of door frame above the latch so the bar could drop. I also tried to pull the door extremely hard from the opposite side to see if it could drop this way, but as the door was warped it wouldn't fully close without pressure from the opposite side. Being a dividing door we never actually bothered to close it before or after.

So at this point I feel I'm going psycho on your post, apologies. I want to be clear I'm not saying none of the things you experienced didn't happen, this is purely about the explanation for them. One of the things about haunted houses is that seemingly unlikely things (like the temperature, noises and doors locking) happening in large numbers can all stem from a common cause. Like I said, you might be right but I'd urge you to think about whether haunting is really the most likely explanation for a series of unlikely seeming events.

Let me recount some scenarios to give you a feeling.

It was a single story cottage with old heavy doors which sat low nestled in a wood surrounded by a wall and trees. The fireplaces were all bricked up and the windows all had external shutters. It wasn't draughty but it was cold and poorly insulated with very poor electrics. It was small in size, about 800 square feet.

One night, after we just moved in, my wife and I were lying in the dark talking. It was a quiet summer night, no wind, no rain, all the doors were shut and all the windows closed. During a comfortable silence we were both lying still when suddenly the lampshade on my side of the bed started rocking loudly. I turned on the lamp, sure enough the shade wasn't connected properly to the lamp. But it was quite a heavy shade and it sat nice and firmly on the neck. So I tested it by tapping the skirting, but it just kind of bobbed a bit, didn't quite rock side to side. After more tinkering I realised whatever made it rock would have needed to be akin to a firm pat with the tips of your fingers or a push.

Another day soon after my wife told me not to place the toilet brush for the small toilet on the window ledge (this is where it was when we moved in) to keep it on the floor I obviously agreed. When she came home a few hours later the brush was sitting in the hallway six feet from the toilet, not where I left it.

Now the only time I saw something with my own eyes was one sunny summer afternoon, I was jamming with some friends in this famous hall (which also doubled as a front room). To the left me of me was our bedroom and in front of me was a singer. The singer stopped and asked me 'was I ok'?, I must have gone a shade of white. The bedroom door that was 75% open just closed itself. It did so in a very slow deliberate manner, it didn't speed up like the wind had closed and it didn't make a loud noise. Just looked like someone shut the door in front of my eyes. Nobody in the room, and no doors or windows open, no wind, never seen this door close itself and this was after living there over six months.

I became absolutely obsessed with buying the house and renovating it. This was an impossibility as it was a preserved building and couldn't be renovated or owned by anyone who wasn't the owner of the fifteen bedroom main house that it was the gatehouse for. Something had it's grip on me and even at the time I felt it was strange as I didn't really enjoy living there. Thinking about it now it gives me shivers down my spine.

[Lantyssa]

Another day soon after my wife told me not to place the toilet brush for the small toilet on the window ledge (this is where it was when we moved in) to keep it on the floor I obviously agreed. When she came home a few hours later the brush was sitting in the hallway six feet from the toilet, not where I left it.

I would so dig a ghostly maid.  I hate cleaning the bathroom.

[Yegolev]

The real question is why you leap from "I don't know how this happened" to "the house is haunted"?  It's ok to not know how something happened.  That doesn't mean it could only have had supernatural causes.

The line was crossed for me when we saw people moving around the house who were really not there.  Otherwise, it was mostly noises.  No objects were relocated that I can recall.

[Amarr HM]

I'm glad I didn't see any apparitions, way too scary. Did you ever look into the history of the house?

[Yegolev]

My dad thinks it had something to do with a previous owner hiding something in the house.  My dad told me his name once but I can't recall... I suppose it doesn't matter.

The guy who we hired to replace the kitchen cabinets was working on them one night while we were out, and when we returned he was gone and had left all of his crap laying around.  My dad saw the cabinetmaker the next day and he said he had to leave because he was seeing things and hearing noises, so no more working after hours!  Once the cabinets were replaced, though, all was well, so my dad thinks there was something precious hidden in the cabinets at one time.

[Furiously]

Image stabilization to the rescue!

 

[Cyrrex]

While I want to be sympathetic to the various paranormal experiences some of you encountered, I think the problem is simply that there is a simple lack of convincing evidence.  On the other hand, the world is positively filled with people who are liars, stupid, crazy, evil, naive and/or gullible.  So for the rest of us who have not had any of these first-hand experiences, it is for us far more likely that you are one of those people.  By orders of magnitude.

[Yegolev]

That's pretty much why I don't tell people about the apparitions.  The only reason even I think there is something to it is that I was part of communal viewings.  When the person next to you also saw it, that's super creepy.

[Ironwood]

Depends if the guy next to you is Tobin and he's writing a book.

[Cyrrex]

That's pretty much why I don't tell people about the apparitions.  The only reason even I think there is something to it is that I was part of communal viewings.  When the person next to you also saw it, that's super creepy.

Maybe it is apples to oranges, but I remember seeing one of those Cris Angel (the magician dude) specials where he took a bunch of C list celebrities and took them on a tour of a haunted hotel/motel, complete with spooky encounters, seances and all the trimmings.  He had every one of those motherfuckers (and much of the TV audience, I am sure) believing that it was 100% paranormal by the end of it, only to reveal at the end himself that it was all bullshit.  Whether he was fooling them or just the audience, we can never be sure (though I suspect he is good enough that he had them going for real), but the point is that it isn't terribly hard to fool people.  And if we take our personal opinions and experience of you as an upstanding F13 poster out of the equation, it is more likely that you are one of those people.

[Yegolev]

Cris Angel?

[Merusk]

Better version of the Stabilized Patterson Film:



Looks like a guy in a suit to me when you take away all the janikness of the original.

[Mithas]

Didn't several people come forward and say they were involved in that video and said it was a hoax?

[Paelos]

Hey hey it's a guy walking by in a monkey suit. I can relate.

[Cyrrex]

Cris Angel?

Yeah, yeah, I know.  I should have said Random Guy.  The point is simply that it isn't actually that hard to make people believe shit, and grouping people for a shared experience probably makes it easier, because people have a tendency to want to fit in so much that they will do so subconsciously.  See all religions.  But for people on the outside looking in, we are biased to believe you are either full of shit, being duped, or simply mistaken...because there are overwhelming examples of this.

I am not saying I believe or dis-believe, just trying to make the argument for what you are up against.  Even if your claims are totally true.

[Signe]

He might be pranking us.  Everyone who confesses to seeing ghosts and Bigfeet might end up mocked or even blackmailed later.  Me, personally, I believe in miracles.

Where you from, you sexy thing?

[WayAbvPar]

Didn't several people come forward and say they were involved in that video and said it was a hoax?

Several different people have claimed it. It is as easy to claim as it is to claim that it is a real animal. No one can produce a suit, and most special effects artist of the era have stated they didn't have the tech to make something that realistic in 1967. No proof either way.

[Samwise]

most special effects artist of the era have stated they didn't have the tech to make something that realistic in 1967.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrUFlFD4Lvo

The resemblance is uncanny.   

[Paelos]

People were probably thinking how awesome those special effects were back in the day!

[Malakili]

It is as easy to claim as it is to claim that it is a real animal. No one can produce a suit, and most special effects artist of the era have stated they didn't have the tech to make something that realistic in 1967. No proof either way.

The major difference being, you know, that we know suits DO exist already. This kind of false equivocation is silly.  Gee, it could be a guy in a suit, or it could be an undiscovered animal, or it could be aliens deliberately fooling us with high tech projections. No proof either way, they all have a 33% chance of being true!

[Samwise]

It is as easy to claim as it is to claim that it is a real animal. No one can produce a suit, and most special effects artist of the era have stated they didn't have the tech to make something that realistic in 1967. No proof either way.

The major difference being, you know, that we know suits DO exist already. This kind of false equivocation is silly.  Gee, it could be a guy in a suit, or it could be an undiscovered animal, or it could be aliens deliberately fooling us with high tech projections. No proof either way, they all have a 33% chance of being true!

I think this proves fairly conclusively that Malakili is in cahoots with the aliens.

[Khaldun]

On the Internet, nobody knows you're Bigfoot.

[rk47]

dont blow my cover.

[NowhereMan]

While I want to be sympathetic to the various paranormal experiences some of you encountered, I think the problem is simply that there is a simple lack of convincing evidence.  On the other hand, the world is positively filled with people who are liars, stupid, crazy, evil, naive and/or gullible.  So for the rest of us who have not had any of these first-hand experiences, it is for us far more likely that you are one of those people.  By orders of magnitude.

Oh hello David Hume On Miracles  

Also I really love reading about monster and cryptids and there are actually cases of ethno-zooology (I think that's the hip new name) have led to new species being discovered but these have more or less been smaller animals or extinct. The example I heard of was the legends of Thunder Lizards or similar leading to discovering a preserved skin of a giant Gecko that proved there was a factual basis for the legends. On the other hand with things like Bigfoot and a lot of other cryptid stories, there's lots and lots of literature out there on sightings, etc. All the cases I've seen where people actually delve into the research looking for primary sources though seem to result in eliminating 99% of that evidence or research because it's all based on the secondary literature about the original stories.

Actually one of the more damning things for me regarding Bigfoot being real is that nearly everyone I've heard from who is disproving Bigfoot would really, really like to discover it. You haven't got something like religion arguments where one side wants to prove things and the other doesn't, pretty much both sides want to find bigfoot but the people against it being real just don't have evidence.

On the ghost/poltergeist thing, yeah, people are really good at finding explanations for things and our brains don't like explaining things by random chance without agency. We also tend to evaluate probabilities along the lines of 'well there's story 1) and story 2) and we can't really offer definitive disproofs of either so they're equally likely' Ignoring all the other factors involved

[rk47]

I don't exactly believe in spirits, but seeing a bunch of possessions happening on Indonesian TV Horror-dare contestants was pr. convincing.
On one hand, I'd like to rationalize that they're just following a script, on the other I don't wanna risk crazy-cancer-brain by walking into some kind 'haunted, abandoned places' at night with no cameras or TV crew to bail me out the moment I start barking, growling, clawing on the tiles of the maternity ward full of the spirit of aborted babies in Bali.

[Tebonas]

Spirits of aborted babies? Thats the second time I read it in this thread. Is that a thing among believers in the supernatural? Even outside of the Christian faith (Bali being predominantly Hindu)? I mean it makes sense in our culture with our strong belief that unborn children somehow develop souls before they develop a brain or cognition, but I think that children in Hinduism are inhabited by reincanated souls of Ancestors. According to that internal logic those spirits should just inhabit the next possible target, shouldn't they? Haunting something really doesn't bring you nearer to Nirvana, in my understanding of it.

[Teleku]

I know when I was in Japan, concern about the spirits of aborted babies was a huge thing.  I'm fairly sure its very prevelent across all of Asia.

[Tebonas]

You learn something new every day. They even have specific prayers for the spirits of unborn children. Guess I didn't understand how reincarnation works, then.

[rk47]

Maybe it's the mother spirit possessing the contestant. I can't tell. 

[Samwise]

children in Hinduism are inhabited by reincanated souls of Ancestors. According to that internal logic those spirits should just inhabit the next possible target, shouldn't they? Haunting something really doesn't bring you nearer to Nirvana, in my understanding of it.

The general idea of a ghost is that it's a spirit that can't move on because of some kind of trauma it suffered in life, right?  In this case "moving on" would be reincarnation in a new life rather than going to an afterlife.  So all those aborted baby souls, under that logic, can't (or won't) move on to their next life, maybe until some sort of justice has been exacted, like the hospital burning down.  I dunno, just spitballing what an internally consistent mythology might look like.

[Lantyssa]

There's also that a lot of the eastern religions have a much more 'spiritual' side to them, and even if they aren't in a specific religion they are common in cultural beliefs.

[WayAbvPar]

It is as easy to claim as it is to claim that it is a real animal. No one can produce a suit, and most special effects artist of the era have stated they didn't have the tech to make something that realistic in 1967. No proof either way.

The major difference being, you know, that we know suits DO exist already. This kind of false equivocation is silly.  Gee, it could be a guy in a suit, or it could be an undiscovered animal, or it could be aliens deliberately fooling us with high tech projections. No proof either way, they all have a 33% chance of being true!

My point is that with several different people claiming to be in the suit, we know with absolute certainty that at least some of them are lying. You cannot say the same thing about the possibility of a real creature. And if the suit exists, why hasn't anybody handed it over?

I am sure almost no one cares, but Bill Munns (a special effects guy who took an interest in the slapfight over the PGF) has done some pretty extensive testing with regards to this particular footage. If you are curious it is worth a look.

[Samwise]

My point is that with several different people claiming to be in the suit, we know with absolute certainty that at least some of them are lying. You cannot say the same thing about the possibility of a real creature.

Disregarding how painful this logic is, the premise is false because we do know with absolute certainty that at least some of the people who have claimed to see Bigfoot are lying.  

I saw Bigfoot in my backyard this morning, btw, but he flew away before I could get a picture.