Scientific explanation for Ghosts?

I don't really believe in the ghosts, probably because I've never experienced anything supernatural. However, my girlfriend is an absolute believer, claiming she saw a ghost when she was 15. Any attempts to try and reason with her gets her angry, and then we get in an argument. She's level headed, extremely bright, and a college graduate. But when it comes to ghosts... :dizzy2:

So what do you guys think of this?

http://zidbits.com/2010/11/25/a-scientific-explanation-for-ghosts/

Can anyone with a science background confirm? Is there any truth to infrasound being the reason?

 

I've heard high levels of electromagnetic pulse can lead to the creepy crawly paranoid "is someone watching me?" feeling. High emp can come from things such as a mix of old and new wiring, malfunctioning or poorly made electronic equipment, very strong electronic equipment, etc.
And of course, some people are more sensitive to emp than others.
Infrasound sounds to be pretty similar, and I see no reason to question it's legitimacy.

Other explanations of aberrations include semi-consciousness and dreamlike states (this could especially explain things like shadow people appearing in bedrooms.)

But for full out ghostly encounters, I've heard some rather radical explanations, including, a personal favorite: that they are 'glitches' in time-space.

 

I "saw" a ghost once -- though that was just an episode of sleep paralysis. You see, our brains are wonderful and fascinating organs, but they're far from perfect. That's the beauty of it all. It's not a far-fetched theory at all that the mind can make up these supposed ghost sightings given the ideal circumstances.. i.e., in a spooky environment.

 

I've heard this before. I don't have a science background in the slightest, but it makes perfect sense to me.

i've also often thought that sleep paralysis episodes could contribute to ghost sightings. I often feel or see a threatening presence when I'm having sleep paralysis. I don't believe in ghosts at all but it definitely confused me the first couple of times it happened and i can understand how someone who is more inclined to believe in the supernatural would mistake a hypnogagic hallucination for a ghost.

 

I'm a college graduate, could even be considered an "old woman" (lol), and I'm quite "level-headed", in my 2nd part of life in work as a cook. I can assure you believing in ghosts, spirits, or whatever you want to call this (I prefer spirit but ghost works) doesn't require reasoning with and I've known since an early, early age that there is a whole 'nother world that a lot of people just can't, won't and don't see!

I've seen lots more that just one ghost, honey.

Is it not a law of physics that energy can/does only change form and is not "destroyed". It is proven that we, humans, produce a type of electrical charge...why is it so "ditzy" to believe that we may, indeed, as forms of energy continue to exist after physical death?

 

Science offers explanations for evidence. If there is evidence of infrasound, then science can offer an explanation of the infrasound. If there is evidence of things going bump on the night, then science can offer an explanation of things that go bump on the night.

If there were evidence of spirits of dead people ... well there isn't, so science can't explain it.

Science explains evidence. It doesn't explain beliefs, conjectures or imaginings.

 

I wouldn't use the word "ditzy". But E=MC2. That means no energy is being destroyed when you die. The energy is your mass or "body". The electrical charges that give you consciousness dissipate when you die. Much the same way they dissipate when you turn off a TV or radio. Or when the battery in your Ipod runs dead.

 

I've gotta say, WoodDoug, that at least you have addressed this...but still, we have an electro-magnetic type of charge.
I'm just saying...it just seems quite (or as) possible that instead of the consciousness dissapating, it continues; but on a different energy level.

In fact, I do believe that there probably is science that explains a whole heck of a lot; but, we (the "regular joes") aren't privy to this.

Besides that, there has actually been unexplained sightings on films (everywhere, and in my town in particular), same with when they take in their ghost-proving equipment...now, I just kidding; but not.
There are recorded places and instances of "cold spots"...I mean what kind of evidence do ya want?

 

swamp gas reflecting off of Venus

 

Nu uh...it's off of Mars

 

Sleep paralysis is some creepy shit. It freaked me out the first few times it happened to me

If you know anyone that sees ghosts, space aliens, peeping toms or other weird phenomenon when starting to fall asleep, have them research sleep paralysis. It used to happen to me regularly when I worked a night shift and would get overly tired.

 

Have you ever woken up and before you're fully focused you thought you seen a face in a shadow of your sheets or some other object in the room? The human brain is instinctually hard coded to seek faces in objects. When your tired or switching between states of sleep and awareness sometimes dreams and imagination overlap on to your perceived reality. This is why most claimed events happen at night.

Most people also have an inherent belief in spirits from thousands of generations of religious programming which adds to the affirmation of "supernatural" events. It should also be taken into consideration our human nature to exaggerate events, not remember correctly, or flat out lie for attention. People also lie to gain support for their particular organization of ignorance, the birth of all religions...

 

I have seen and even felt many strange beings during sleep paralysis. When I was younger I thought that I was awake and that these things were real. There are often many levels to my sleep paralysis, so that waking up for real requires waking up several times in the dream. It took me a long time to figure out that I was most likely sleeping when I saw or felt these beings.

The weird thing though, is that the dream is always, without a single exception for the 12 or so years I've experienced it, taking place in the room that I fell asleep in. The thing that tipped me off to the fact that I was sleeping was that one particular aspect of the room would be different: a lock on a door would turn the wrong way, or the room would be too well lit.

 

i believe in ghosts and have seen one. they don't scare me, i know i'm being followed by something - my ex girlfriend believed this also.

 

There used to be street dances in my hometown in the 40s. My gramma was not given to exageration so I believed her when she told me that when she left a street dance to come home to get something ,she said when she went upstairs,she saw her deceased mother standing and trying to communicate with her. She got very frightened and ran down the stairs and back to the dance. I grew up(?) in that old 2 story brick house and that upstairs attic was strange. I hated to go up there when I was a kid-just a weird feeling and I used to really haul out of there when I had to turn my back and leave. The house was built by my great grand parents in 1916 out of bricks from fallen buildings hauled down from the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. I suppose implications could be drawn from that by some believers. I don't understand sleep paralysis-never heard that before.

 

i lived in a house for a few years that i thought was haunted

my girlfriend thought it was haunted, my brother thought it was haunted, his wife thought it was haunted, and the neighbors told me that they could hear the piano [it had one] playing when no one was living there

there was a bunk bed [it was an old hunting lodge] built into a corner of the living room, on day one we'd blocked it off with a screen and never moved the screen away after

except when the brother and wife came to visit and we suggested they sleep there, and they chose sleeping bags on the stone slab floor instead

[i've always been weak on furnishings]

never saw anything or heard any pianos or whatever, but that place still gives me the willies

 

Ever seen one in daylight?

 

apart from anecdotal evidence which is notoriously flaky. or personal experience. (13 individual orb sightings in Eastern State Penitentiary and counting...)