[Gee4orce]

In the spirit of Halloween: who's been watching the current Most Haunted Live! ? It's available in the US on the Travel Channel I think, and on Living TV in the UK. It goes out at 9PM-12AM GMT. If you don't know, it's a night vision ghost investigation program, conducted live and uncut.

They are in Edinburgh this Halloween, and have done 2 night so far in a build up to the Halloween show tonight. No matter where you stand on the whole 'is it real, is it made up' front, there's no denying that the two shows so far have been sensational. Last night three members of the crew received nasty looking cuts on their backs and legs from - well - who knows ? I bailed out at about 11:15 last night - what happened after that ?

Apparently Stuart was refusing to take part in any more Most Haunted's. For those of you who don't know the show, Stuart has balls of steel - he's done things that would scare the living daylights out of most people whether you believe in ghosts or not (eg sitting in dungeons, crawling down dead end culverts in total darkness, etc). He's lost all his hair through the stress of being on the show, apparently. Last night, he got cut across his back 'somehow', and it looked pretty nasty.

I don't know how much further they can take this show - if it carries on like this they are all going to be suffering PTSD for the rest of their lives . Catch it now, while the going is good !

[USB HUB]

CATS and I have been watching. The sound guy (Jonathan I think is his name) had a "nasty" gash on his leg. It looked pretty deep. Of course, Yvette was going nuts. Although I'm more of skeptic .. I never see anything on the CAMS .. alot of people were seeing things. It's a good entertaining show. We actually tape them as we don't get home until 5:30 and the show here in the states in 4-7 eastern.
Better than watching the rerun horror movies.

[Gee4orce]

It's best to be sceptical, that's for sure, although I've seen plenty of things on various MHs that - if genuine - are pretty much inexplicable.

The webcams - I don't know what the heck people are seeing on there ?! It's got to be their imagination, coupled with poor quality images. Complete waste of time - best to ignore them.

[kick52]

Originally Posted by USB HUB 

CATS and I have been watching. The sound guy (Jonathan I think is his name) had a "nasty" gash on his leg. It looked pretty deep. Of course, Yvette was going nuts. Although I'm more of skeptic .. I never see anything on the CAMS .. alot of people were seeing things. It's a good entertaining show. We actually tape them as we don't get home until 5:30 and the show here in the states in 4-7 eastern.
Better than watching the rerun horror movies.

yeah..

i used to watch the old non-live ones on a free channel in the UK...

it seems better stuff happens in the live ones mostly..

[- - e r i k - -]

Is Derek Faker still on?

DEREK REVEALED – AGAIN


We’ve already covered the hilarious/hapless progress of the UK “Most Haunted” TV show – which we hear is due to be picked up by some brave channel here in the USA! – and the misadventures of Derek Acorah, their resident “psychic.” We knew there were some discovered tricks – see Commentary, May 14 and other references – but now a major participant has blown the official whistle and shown us the insides of this mess.

Resident parapsychologist Dr. Ciaran O'Keeffe – who trained under Dr. Richard Wiseman, so he’s well prepared to keep his eyes open – joined the show in April 2004, and became suspicious of Acorah's actions on a shoot at Castle Leslie in Ireland, where a 17th-Century four-poster bed had been claimed to levitate. Dr. O’Keeffe recalls an amusing faux pas by Acorah:

As we walked into the bedroom, Derek touched the bed and came out with extremely accurate information… He insisted he got all the information just from touching the bed. But it was the wrong bed.

The production company claims that “mediums” like Acorah aren’t told where they’ll be filming, nor do they know any details about the locations. But Dr. O’Keeffe, certain that Acorah must have had prior knowledge, devised a plan to see if he could be trapped. He could. While on a shoot at a jail, the “psychic” described a long-dead South African jailer named Kreed Kafer, which was – unsensed by him – an anagram of “Derek Faker.” Says Dr. O’Keeffe:


I wrote the name down and asked another member of the crew to mention it to Derek before filming. I honestly didn't think Derek would take the bait. But during the filming he actually got “possessed” by my fictional character!

But Dr. O’Keeffe was only getting started. On another shoot he invented yet another fictional character, a highwayman named “Rik Eedles,” this being an anagram of “Derek Lies.” As expected, Acorah immediately sensed the presence of the departed soul of this fictional character, but not the anagram. The parapsychologist now says:

In my professional opinion we're not dealing with a genuine medium. When Derek is possessed he is doing it consciously – all we are seeing is showmanship and dramatics… I made up stories about Richard the Lionheart, a witch, and Richard's apparition appearing to walk through a wardrobe – the lion, the witch and the wardrobe!

Acorah, as expected, bought it all, failing to divine that Richard I reigned 500 years before Craigievar Castle – where he was “possessed” by Richard’s spirit – was even built. It appears that Acorah overcomes all such seeming difficulties with ease.

In a three-night special presentation from Manchester last month, Most Haunted claimed to be broadcasting live from the site of a Victorian asylum, a place where host David Bull (!) told the rapt TV audience that thousands had died in torment. The show actually took place in the ruins of an old convalescent home, and no one had died that way at that location. Of course, Acorah moaned and carried on as asylum patients in extremis would have done, his finely-tuned psychic senses once more betraying him by tuning in on a fiction.

Interviewed after the exposure, Dr. O’Keeffe verified that he’d been correctly quoted by the media in all his statements. But Acorah has had little to say. He knows that the public will forget this affair, and he’ll still carry on with his silly pretensions – and he’ll be believed.

The Unsinkable Rubber Duck Syndrome is manifested once again….

[Gee4orce]

Nope - Derek went off to pursue other things - acting presumably ?!

David Wells is their current medium. Much more believable IMO. Also, if there's no tomfoolery going on - he's incredibly accurate.

[talisker]

I saw some of last nights show, and being from Edinburgh, I found it quite amusing. The supposedly revelatory snippets of information that their historian person in the studio was uncovering are widely known. If you go on one of the many tourist "ghost tours" of Mary Kings Close, or read a book on Edinburgh history you'll probably pick up most of them. Entertaining though, which I suppose is the point.

[Y3a]

fictional entertainment at best. I Liked Derek but he IS a fake like all the others.

[Gee4orce]

Unfortunately, there are some elements of the show that drag it down. The new 'historian' is a great example - you're right that she doesn't say anything that you couldn't find on google in 2 seconds.

However, take away the crap, the showbiz, the acting up for the cameras - and you're still left with a few things - maybe just 1 or 2 incidents per show - that are really inexplicable. Not so long ago the Edinburgh vaults provided actual, scientific, peer-reviewed, evidence for something 'paranormal' going on. At the very least, this sort of thing needs to be investigated properly.

[Y3a]

Originally Posted by Gee4orce 

Unfortunately, there are some elements of the show that drag it down. The new 'historian' is a great example - you're right that she doesn't say anything that you couldn't find on google in 2 seconds.

However, take away the crap, the showbiz, the acting up for the cameras - and you're still left with a few things - maybe just 1 or 2 incidents per show - that are really inexplicable. Not so long ago the Edinburgh vaults provided actual, scientific, peer-reviewed, evidence for something 'paranormal' going on. At the very least, this sort of thing needs to be investigated properly.

Uh huh................ So are you saying that it WASN'T investigated properly last time? Then how could it be "actual, scientific, peer-reviewed" proof?

[Gee4orce]

I meant generally : this sort of thing in general needs to be taken more seriously by regular science and investigated more, because there is now some scientific evidence for something 'paranormal' (ie. the Edinburg vaults research).

[- - e r i k - -]

Really? Scientific evidence of something paranormal? Quick, call Randi and get a million dollar for funding for this research right now!

[Gee4orce]

Er - I said 'paranormal' - the quotes are relevant

Here's the BBC article : BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Ghosts 'all in the mind'

In any case, doesn't Randi require that the phenomena be repeatable ? That would rule out a lot of perfectly natural phenomena too. I could witness and fully document a supernova for instance, but it wouldn't satisfy Randi's requirements :/

[- - e r i k - -]

Science requires things to be repeatable so there goes your 'scientific evidence'

Besides, quoting an article with the headline Ghosts are 'all in the mind' doesn't exactly strengthen your case

Ghosts 'all in the mind'
By Arran Frood

Ghosts are the mind's way of interpreting how the body reacts to certain surroundings, say UK psychologists.

Dr Wiseman's team used hundreds of volunteers
A chill in the air, low-light conditions and even magnetic fields may trigger feelings that "a presence" is in a room - but that is all they are, feelings.

[Gee4orce]

Erik - you've completely got the wrong end of the stick of what I'm saying. I'm not saying that there are such things as ghosts - just that there is some evidence to suggest that there are things that can be construed as 'ghosts' or the 'paranormal' (dang - there are those 'quotes' again !)

Also, don't over-personalise things - you're being a troll. It's not 'my' evidence - I never did the reasearch. I'm just passing on information

Ghosts may well be 'all in the mind' - but that's a bit like saying thoughts aren't real because they are 'all in the mind' too. As it happens, I know a couple of people who I trust 100%, who have experienced tangible physical phenomena that I'm at a loss to explain as a sceptic.

My point about repeatability is not that these phenomena weren't (they were, as it happens) - just that there are plenty of perfectly rational, natural phenomena that aren't repeatable. Ever read any Quantum Mechanics ?

[- - e r i k - -]

I have read plenty of quantum mechanics. I am at a loss to explain or even understand it myself, but there is rational science behind it and it does not apply to anything else that isn't on a quantum level (and certainly quantum phenomena is repeatable). I certainly don't see the correlation between quantum mechanics and other 'unexplained phenomena' or 'the paranormal'. And repeatable does not mean that you have to be alive to observe it, certainly there have and will be more than one supernova.

And remember: just because there doesn't appear to be a natural explanation at first doesn't mean there isn't one. Occam's razor you know.

Oh, and sorry for personalising the issue, but I do need to bring up that you brought in your own personal anecdotes* in the very next paragraph.

* And as we know, anecdotes != data.

[Gee4orce]

I guess I did. I have some good ones too Unfortunately nothing remotely paranormal has ever happened to me - but someone very close to me had something happen to them that was very physically real, and very hard to explain.

As for 'natural' explanations - well, I believe it's all a part of 'nature' so to speak. Occam's razor is the most useful tool - but sometimes (as in the instance I alluded to above) the simplest explanation is that there really is something paranormal going on.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by Gee4orce 

I guess I did. I have some good ones too Unfortunately nothing remotely paranormal has ever happened to me - but someone very close to me had something happen to them that was very physically real, and very hard to explain.

As for 'natural' explanations - well, I believe it's all a part of 'nature' so to speak. Occam's razor is the most useful tool - but sometimes (as in the instance I alluded to above) the simplest explanation is that there really is something paranormal going on.

No, that's the intellectually lazy explanation for it.

[Kevin]

Isn't that one where they went and searched for Mothman.

Though John Keel probably knows more about the subject than anyone else.

I suggest anyone interested read any of his books.

Keel argues that a non-human or spiritual intelligence source has staged whole events over a long period of time in order to propagate and reinforce certain erroneous belief systems. For example, the fairy faith in Middle Europe, vampire legends, mystery airships in 1897, mystery aeroplanes of the 1930s, mystery helicopters, anomalous creature sightings, poltergeist phenomena, balls of light, and UFOs. But ultimately all of these anomalies are nothing but a cover for the real phenomenon. Keel takes no position on the ultimate purpose of the phenomenon other than the UFO intelligence seems to have a long-standing interest in interacting with the human race.

[Gee4orce]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

No, that's the intellectually lazy explanation for it.

uh ? Occam's razor says that the simplest explanation is normally true. Sometimes you come to a point where the simplest explanation is that there's something going on that we don't yet know or understand. That's not intellectually lazy - that's good science, and investigating the unknown is where new breakthroughs have historically been made.

The problem with science today is that people are afraid of pursuing 'fringe' investigation because it will probably be the end of their academic career and their grant funding. Many breakthroughs in the past have been thanks to so called heretics who weren't afraid to stand up and say, "hey, maybe the simplest explanation is that everything orbits the sun, not the earth ?!" and so on.

If you're not feeling intellectually lazy, I can provide you with the details of the incidents I've personally been told about, and we can see if you can come up with a simpler explanation than "there's something we don't know or understand".

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by Gee4orce 

Sometimes you come to a point where the simplest explanation is that there's something going on that we don't yet know or understand.

[Y3a]

You are falsely assuming that human perception is perfect. It's NOT.

[Gee4orce]

No, I'm not. the incidents I know about are pretty damned unambiguous !

Ok - I'll take the bait. Explain this one to me.

The person I know (a very close relative whom I trust implicitly 100%) was in a room in a large old victorian house. It was mid morning, on a bright clear, still day. There was only 1 other person in the entire house (the owner), and she was on another floor of the building.

Suddenly, the door of the room slammed shut. Now, these are big heavy old victorian doors on stiff hinges, and there was no draft (end even if there had been, it's doubtful a draft could move this door). This is in the days before firedoors were standard requirement, and the door did not self close like a firedoor must. OK, strange, but not totally inexplicable.

My relative went to open the door again, only to find that it had locked itself. The really strange thing is that this door had a five lever mortice lock. In this kind of lock the key must turn 360� in the lock to draw the bolt in or out. The key can only be removed or inserted at the 0� position. The bolt cannot move in (or out) if the key is not present; if the bolt had been out (locked) when the door was open, there's no way the door could have shut because the bolt would have prevented it, and it cannot be pushed into the lock. It's possible for the lock to lock or unlock fully if the key is turned 1/2 way in the lock and the door is slammed - but this would result in a locked open door, or an unlocked closed door.

Not only was there no key present in the lock, my relative had to call to the other person in the house who then spent several minutes looking for the key, which was downstairs in another part of the house.

I think you'll agree that there's no confusion of perception there ! I'm pretty confident that I can tell whether or not a door is a) open or closed, b) locked or unlocked and c) whether or not the key is in the lock.

Also strange, these door did actually have secondary Yale locks (the kind that can slide in and out even when locked) - these were the locks that were in daily use on these doors (because in a fire you can open the locked door from the inside without a key). The mortice locks were not in common use - as far as I know the owner had to search quite hard to actually locate the keys.

If you have any suggestions what happened, I'm all ears, because the only rational explanation I can think of is that somebody shut the door, locked it, and returned the key to where it belonged. But the only other person in the house was on another floor at the time. Beyond that it gets more implausible to suggest a 'rational' explanation than to accept that maybe there are forces unknown that can move and manipulate physical objects.

[Y3a]

Um, they don't know exacly what really happened, and ASSUMED it JUST HAD TO BE ghosts, etc.
They could be lying to you anyway.

So first you say ghosts. So is their a "Holy Ghost" ? You end up opening a LOT of doors and it will lead you to "Nutcaseville". First their are mindreaders, and those who claim to speak to the dead, and those who can tell you the future. Why aren't they wealthy, since they would know the winning lottery numbers, or what stocks to buy?

I'm sorry you beleive in such sideshow nonsense, but that doesn't make it true.
IT"S ENTERTAINMENT!

[olePigeon]

Originally Posted by Keel

Keel takes no position on the ultimate purpose of the phenomenon other than the UFO intelligence seems to have a long-standing interest in interacting with the human race.

'Unfortunately I got stuck on the Earth for rather longer than I indended',
said Ford. 'I came for a week and got stuck for fifteen years.'

'But how did you get there in the first place then?'

'Easy, I got a lift with a teaser.'

'A teaser?'

'Yeah.'

'Er, what is...'

'A teaser? Teasers are usually rich kids with nothing to do. They cruise around
looking for planets which haven't made interstellar contact yet and buzz them.'

'Buzz them?' Arthur began to feel that Ford was enjoying making life difficult
for him.

'Yeah,' said Ford, 'they buzz them. They find some isolated spot with very few
people around, then land right by some poor unsuspecting soul whom no one's ever
going to believe and them strut up and down in front of him wearing silly antennae
on their head and making beep beep noises. Rather childish really.'

[cSurfr]

I just watched those three episodes, and I can't say that I'm impressed at all. I'd be more frightened by the the teletubbies in a dark alley. There are a lot of sites that debunk the entire show.

Didn't anyone else notice the medium lift the table in the first show? Or the disappearing cuts and scratches in the 3rd?

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by Gee4orce 

uh ? Occam's razor says that the simplest explanation is normally true. Sometimes you come to a point where the simplest explanation is that there's something going on that we don't yet know or understand. That's not intellectually lazy - that's good science, and investigating the unknown is where new breakthroughs have historically been made.

That does not assume that a paranormal explanation is the most likely when there is something that can't immediately be explained or you simply don't understand what is going on. In fact, it is much more likely in the situation that you explained that:
a) the person was telling you a good story
b) the owner was playing a trick on him

Just assuming that "ghosts did it" is the intellectual lazy explanation, playing of your natural inclination towards the mystical.

And that's totally understandable, some people have the need to spice up their world with the mysterious.

[Gee4orce]

Neither (a) or (b) are plausible. As I said, I trust the person 100%, and they told me this story about 2 or 3 hours after it happened - they were still shook up about it. (b) is just not a plausible explanation either - I thought I already explained that the other person was an another floor entirely (might have even been 2 floors away).

I'm genuinely interested to hear any actual, plausible physical explanations for this experience. I never said 'ghosts did it' - I don't believe in 'ghosts' - I do believe that science is being too arrogant if it things it's discovered every extant physical phenomena.

Erik - noticing your .sig, have you read 'The God Delusion' ? I'm reading it at the moment - man, I bet we could have some fun on MacNN debating THAT one !!

[Y3a]

Obviously, your trust is stronger than your understanding of how perception works, or that they could have been wrong in their perceptions. So, your friends have PERFECT perception? LOL

[Cipher13]

Originally Posted by Gee4orce 

uh ? Occam's razor says that the simplest explanation is normally true. Sometimes you come to a point where the simplest explanation is that there's something going on that we don't yet know or understand. That's not intellectually lazy - that's good science, and investigating the unknown is where new breakthroughs have historically been made.

The problem with science today is that people are afraid of pursuing 'fringe' investigation because it will probably be the end of their academic career and their grant funding. Many breakthroughs in the past have been thanks to so called heretics who weren't afraid to stand up and say, "hey, maybe the simplest explanation is that everything orbits the sun, not the earth ?!" and so on.

If you're not feeling intellectually lazy, I can provide you with the details of the incidents I've personally been told about, and we can see if you can come up with a simpler explanation than "there's something we don't know or understand".

Originally Posted by Kevin 

Well, actually, the simplest explanation will always be supernatural.

Why is the sky blue? Because a god made it that way. Easy. Forget refraction and absorption of light - too many syllables there! That's lazy. That's not good science. That's pure simplicity with no consideration for anything else.

You are taking ockham's razor far too literally - when employing lex parsimoniae, you still need to follow scientific method.

Remember, the simplest explanation isn't always the best explanation.

Originally Posted by Gee4orce 

No, I'm not. the incidents I know about are pretty damned unambiguous !

Ok - I'll take the bait. Explain this one to me.

The person I know (a very close relative whom I trust implicitly 100%) was in a room in a large old victorian house. It was mid morning, on a bright clear, still day. There was only 1 other person in the entire house (the owner), and she was on another floor of the building.

Suddenly, the door of the room slammed shut. Now, these are big heavy old victorian doors on stiff hinges, and there was no draft (end even if there had been, it's doubtful a draft could move this door). This is in the days before firedoors were standard requirement, and the door did not self close like a firedoor must. OK, strange, but not totally inexplicable.

My relative went to open the door again, only to find that it had locked itself. The really strange thing is that this door had a five lever mortice lock. In this kind of lock the key must turn 360� in the lock to draw the bolt in or out. The key can only be removed or inserted at the 0� position. The bolt cannot move in (or out) if the key is not present; if the bolt had been out (locked) when the door was open, there's no way the door could have shut because the bolt would have prevented it, and it cannot be pushed into the lock. It's possible for the lock to lock or unlock fully if the key is turned 1/2 way in the lock and the door is slammed - but this would result in a locked open door, or an unlocked closed door.

Not only was there no key present in the lock, my relative had to call to the other person in the house who then spent several minutes looking for the key, which was downstairs in another part of the house.

I think you'll agree that there's no confusion of perception there ! I'm pretty confident that I can tell whether or not a door is a) open or closed, b) locked or unlocked and c) whether or not the key is in the lock.

Also strange, these door did actually have secondary Yale locks (the kind that can slide in and out even when locked) - these were the locks that were in daily use on these doors (because in a fire you can open the locked door from the inside without a key). The mortice locks were not in common use - as far as I know the owner had to search quite hard to actually locate the keys.

If you have any suggestions what happened, I'm all ears, because the only rational explanation I can think of is that somebody shut the door, locked it, and returned the key to where it belonged. But the only other person in the house was on another floor at the time. Beyond that it gets more implausible to suggest a 'rational' explanation than to accept that maybe there are forces unknown that can move and manipulate physical objects.

Why is it more rational to believe a ghost closed and locked a door (did the ghost have the key?), rather than somebody locking it and forgetting, then having it close due to a draft (no drafts, you say? You have far too much credence in your sources) [for example - I'm no lock expert, but you should get my point regardless].

[Gee4orce]

Did I say a ghost shut and locked the door ? Why are you assuming that that is the assumption I made ?

Supernatural explanations are rarely the simplest, because by introducing the supernatural you have basically just opened a pandora's box of as-yet-unknown-phenomena just to explain a single event.

In this particular instance, yes, I have absolute certainty that the source was correct in what they told me. The source is utterly trustworthy.

Drafts don't turn locks. The door shut itself - slammed in fact - and was immediately locked. There's no case of someone forgetting that they did it, and there's no possibility of mistaken perceptions here because (a) the person walked into the room through the open door (so it MUST have been open), and (b) the person was then unable to leave the room because the door was SHUT and LOCKED. It's very, very hard to imagine how one could be uncertain of those facts.

OK - here's a slightly easier one to 'explain'. I know of two separate and unrelated instances where two people have seen an apparent apparition, and the details have correlated. In one instance, somebody was awoken by the figure of a woman holding a baby in the bedroom. When they mentioned this to the former owner of the house, they admitted that they had also experienced exactly the same apparition.

In the other incident, a father and a son independently witnessed a figure walking along a lakeside at night. Each saw it alone, at a different time. Each told the mother/wife of the sighting. She never told either of the other's sighting, until many years later. Both men apparently described the same phenomena - yet witnessed it independently and years apart.

I also know of another incident involving door - a friend was staying in a cottage and noticed one of the doors was opened in the morning when it was shut then they went to bed. The next night he made a point of closing *and latching* the door. The next morning, it was open again...

I myself stayed in a cottage this year, and on the morning that we left I opened the bedroom door to find the picture on the wall opposite was hanging at about 45�. The picture was an old photograph of the front of the main house to which the cottage was attached. Paranormal ? Who knows. Strange ? Yup. Glad to be leaving - you betcha !

[Cipher13]

Originally Posted by Gee4orce 

Did I say a ghost shut and locked the door ? Why are you assuming that that is the assumption I made ?

Well, if i assumed incorrectly, what do you pose it was?

Supernatural explanations are rarely the simplest, because by introducing the supernatural you have basically just opened a pandora's box of as-yet-unknown-phenomena just to explain a single event.

Yes - "as-yet-unknown-phenomena" that you will never, ever have to explain.

The simplest.

In this particular instance, yes, I have absolute certainty that the source was correct in what they told me. The source is utterly trustworthy.

Then that is one of your faults. The source is trustworthy, yes - they wouldn't lie. But is the source reliable, insofar as perception goes? Did they really see what they believe they saw? Did they have a memory lapse?

You cannot vouch for the reliability of a source.

There is no scientific method there. You've no evidence, no tests, no replications, no results. Nothing at all.

Drafts don't turn locks. The door shut itself - slammed in fact - and was immediately locked. There's no case of someone forgetting that they did it, and there's no possibility of mistaken perceptions here because (a) the person walked into the room through the open door (so it MUST have been open), and (b) the person was then unable to leave the room because the door was SHUT and LOCKED. It's very, very hard to imagine how one could be uncertain of those facts.

Drafts shut doors. Tremors shut doors. Tremors trigger locks. Locks can be already set prior to a door closing. You have not established an order of events with any certainty - was the door locked before closing? Did it lock after closing?

Yes, the door must have been open if they walked through it (or do they mean they literally walked through the door, supernaturally? Why not? Then couldn't get back the other direction, for some reason? Prove that hypothesis wrong - argumentum ad ignorantiam is not scientific). Was it locked? They wouldn't know, with no need to "unlock" the door given it was already open.

It's very hard for you to be uncertain of those facts, but that's immaterial. You're already convinced. Nobody else is (I hope).

OK - here's a slightly easier one to 'explain'. I know of two separate and unrelated instances where two people have seen an apparent apparition, and the details have correlated. In one instance, somebody was awoken by the figure of a woman holding a baby in the bedroom. When they mentioned this to the former owner of the house, they admitted that they had also experienced exactly the same apparition.

In the other incident, a father and a son independently witnessed a figure walking along a lakeside at night. Each saw it alone, at a different time. Each told the mother/wife of the sighting. She never told either of the other's sighting, until many years later. Both men apparently described the same phenomena - yet witnessed it independently and years apart.

This is evidence of ghosts?

Again, you are putting far too much faith in your sources, and are completely ignoring the infinite number of confounding factors that could be influencing the perception of those "experiences".

All you have presented is circumstantial, questionable evidence.

There's not a gram of science present in your posts.

EDIT: metric is the new imperial.

[Y3a]

That inbreeding problem must be far worse in the UK than they've let on.

[Gee4orce]

If you can't put up rational, adult arguments, you resort to childish insults ? Abuse reported.

About the door (again, for the slow of learning): The kind of lock the door has (as I explained, in depth) means that it cannot shut if the lock is already in the lock position. In order for the lock to lock (whether the door is open or closed) the key must be in the lock and turned 360�. No argument - there is no other way for a mortice lock to work. The bolts on these door are square edged, and do not slide back into the door with pressure. If they are locked, they stay locked, if they are unlocked, they stay unlocked.

That's why five and seven lever mortice locks are what are recommended for exterior doors, in stead of rim locks (which can slide in and out even when locked - thieves know this - they are very easy to force).

Uh - we don't have tremors here in the UK, not like with enough force to be felt anyways. If we'd have one that day, you can be sure that the tremor would have been the thing I remembered, and the incident with the door would just have been put down to the tremor. It also would have been national news.

I still have not said any of these incidents have anything to do with ghosts. For all we know there could be some physical phenomena that goes around randomly locking people into rooms - or some kind of telekinetic effect happening - who knows. That's kind of the point though - nobody knows. There's huge amounts of anecdotal evidence for strange things that we can't explain, and I think we should make an effort to investigate them.

[Y3a]

Again, YOU HAVE MISSED THE POINT that SEVERAL POSTERS have suggested.

IF they didn't actually see all of what was happening, then THEY reported to you what they saw, leaving out the stuff they didn't see then YOU GET FLAWWED DATA STATED AS FACT. The VIEWERS are reporting accuratly what they saw, but they didn't see everything involved that made it such a big deal to you and them. The observation was flawwed. People miss some of the visual and audio cues and misinterpret planes as UFO's, and magicians have been using methods like this for centuries to fool folks.

YOU DO have tremors in the UK... They are everywhere. You haven't experienced one lately.

[Gee4orce]

Hah. You should know about trolling.

Where have I not replied to questions ? That's just laughable ! What exactly is it you want clarifying, I'm more than happy to do so.

We had a minor tremor about 3 or 4 years ago, and believe me, it was national news for DAYS. I actually felt it. Tremors that are actually large enough to be felt are rare in the UK. I should know, I've lived here for 36 years.

There were no tremors in the area on the day of the door incident. Of that I am sure - but it is impossible to prove a negative. If you think a tremor could have caused a door to shut and lock, then that's a great theory. It's definitely 100% WRONG though. For starters, at the time of the incident I was only about 200 yards away, in my own house, and I would have felt it.

I understand what you're trying to say about an observer not stating what they didn't see. If that's the way you want to play it then I can think up endless possible reasons for what happened - but none of them are at all probable.

Yeah - maybe the owner had rigged up some mechanical mechanism that mischievously closed the door and locked it. Wow, she must have got a real kick out of that huh ? Plausibility ? 10%. Probability ? 0.0000000000001%

Or maybe there was a third person in the house that nobody knew about - probably an invisible, imperceptible Ninja with a bunch of silent skeleton keys. Or maybe he was David Copperfield, the magician.

Yeah, I'm liking the Ninja theory actually. Prove that isn't what happened ! Prove it !

[Y3a]

House settling? Daydreaming and not remembering touching the door? Rats? Ghosts isn't even a choice. NOTHING supernatural could be the answer. So whats left?

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by Y3a 

House settling? Daydreaming and not remembering touching the door? Rats? Ghosts isn't even a choice. NOTHING supernatural could be the answer. So whats left?

Wishful thinking.