You might want to check out this article, for another possible physical explanation: http://www.cracked.com/article_18828_the-creepy-scientific-explanation-behind-ghost-sightings.html

Ibby14 - 18 November 2010 11:35 AM

I have hesitated posting my thoughts on this, but you asked “What does a true scientific skeptic expect from me?” so I will answer you.

DarronS - 12 July 2010 06:39 PM

You are suffering from hallucinations. Frankly, you need to see a psychiatrist.

Unfortunately this is the type of answer your going to get here.

Never mind that no one has produced any evidence that ghosts exist. Every rational investigator who has looked into these claims found evidence of misinterpreted natural phenomena, fraud, or just plain old made up stories. Someone who really sees and hears these things is most likely hallucinating.

edited to help get the quotation symbols working properly.

DarronS - 18 November 2010 12:13 PM

Ibby14 - 18 November 2010 11:35 AM

I have hesitated posting my thoughts on this, but you asked “What does a true scientific skeptic expect from me?” so I will answer you.

DarronS - 12 July 2010 06:39 PM

You are suffering from hallucinations. Frankly, you need to see a psychiatrist.

Unfortunately this is the type of answer your going to get here.

Never mind that no one has produced any evidence that ghosts exist. Every rational investigator who has looked into these claims found evidence of misinterpreted natural phenomena, fraud, or just plain old made up stories. Someone who really sees and hears these things is most likely hallucinating.

edited to help get the quotation symbols working properly.

IF her brother was seeing the same thing then there’s not a good chance it’s hallucinations, and she saw the same thing multiple times.

As far as Infrasound the article says that such a thing can make you see theings that are blurry, streaked, or from the corner of their eye, not seeing a clear shot of a garden gnome, that seems kind of specific. But who knows, maybe everyone is different and it runs in families.

I’m not saying anything is true or false, personally I have no idea. Of course I have no evidence it does not exist either. (don’t bother, I’m aware) What a grand circle we could make!

Then maybe it was a hallucination caused by gas. Maybe the siblings were talking to each other about it, thereby creating a shared hallucination. A spiritual/paranormal explanation is no explanation at all. It gets us no closer to finding the truth, and it stops you from trying.

Maybe if I capture one it can make my garden survive, thats about my last hope! (if it’s of the “Garden” subspecies).

Ibby14 - 18 November 2010 11:35 AM

I wish you were in the NY/NJ area I’d love to speak with you further. I’m a retired 23 year police detective. I now work with a bunch of investigators that try to the best of our ability to start from neutral territory and do an investigation and try to find out whats going on by investigating the facts that are present. Of course that doesn’t mean we would come to the conclusion that Bilbo Baggins and family are invading your home or that it was swamp gas reflecting off of Venus or some other ridiculous thing.
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I belong to some web paranormal sites to keep up on what’s going on in paranormal circles, and I come here to keep myself grounded in the real world. I’ve found out to no big surprise that there are extremists in both camps that I find horrifyingly close minded; people that just ignore things right in front of them that the average Joe would find perplexing.

You’re quite right.  There are always extreme partisans on both sides.  Too bad you guys can’t float your own series on television.  From the way you sound, I’d much rather watch your investigations that some of the garbage we see on the Syfy channel these days.

advocatus - 22 November 2010 08:28 AM

You’re quite right.  There are always extreme partisans on both sides.  Too bad you guys can’t float your own series on television.  From the way you sound, I’d much rather watch your investigations that some of the garbage we see on the Syfy channel these days.

They have a mold made and ready, (used many times) and if you don’t fit in that mold, then forget it. There’s only so many variations they would allow, usually PC stuff to give it a nitch, like make the team all female or something like that, and to have people with actual investigation experience would really throw them off their game, they would get confused and that would be it! Of course even if we tried to show people what a real investigation would be like, then you’d have those darn editors pick you apart.
So no 15 minutes!

The problem with television is that they cater to the “True believers” because that’s where the ratings are.  Sometimes they’ll work up a variation with pseudo-skeptics, but they don’t want to really explain it because it would take all the “fun” away and the “true believers” would stop watching it.