'fess Up! Which One of Ya'll Here Believe In Ghosts?

[DADavenport]

I was talking about the old Stanley Hotel in Estes Park below in the discussion "Saturday Night Question" and I thought this would make a fun topic.

I'm writing some articles for the Left Coast Crime 2008 site...A Coloradan's
view of fun things to do in Denver when you are writing about the Dead...and everyone coming has wanted local Ghost Tours. Including a day trip to Estes Park and the Stanley. That's why I'm doing the Ghost Tour there at the Scottish Festival, so I can fill them in. That leads me to this question...

How come so many crime/mystery writers and fans LOVE ghosts and goblins? Is it because we love the chills up the spine? Could it be that hauntings are usually connected to crimes, unsolved mysteries and the grisly and macabre doings of our fellow man?

And how many of you actually do believe in the supernatural, other than God or Goddess?

Come on. Let's tuck another couple under the belt and 'fess up! We're all barflies here, and who loves a ghost story more than a bar full of writers!

[I. J. Parker]

Oh, come!

[Anne Frasier]

i've been on several ghost hunts, but i've never seen anything to convince me that ghosts exist. one thing i have noticed is that people who want to believe in ghosts will completely toss out and ignore more logical explanations for audio or visual occurrences.

[DADavenport]

LOL! I ALWAYS keep my options open. Half the time I'm a realist, especially when dealing with psychics and mediums. Then other times there are things within my own scope of reference I can't explain. So I try to be open-minded about it all. But that doesn't keep me from loving a good, creepy tale.

My MIL is one of the toughest, most pragmatic women I know. She was a total nonbeliever until something occurred with my husband when he was around 3 years old. She heard him talking up in the family home's attic. She went to check on him and asked what he was doing. Instead of saying something normal like "Playing with my trucks." he replied, "I've been playing with that man over there." and pointed to an empty corner. She thought imaginary friend of course, even though Cliff had never mentioned one before. A few months later her mother found an old family album nobody had seen in years. They were all going through them when Cliff pointed out a man in a bowler hat and handle-bar mustache. "That's the man I was playing with in the attic." It was a great , great uncle who had been dead for years. And if Miss Shirley, soul of sanity, began wondering at that point, so do I, now!

[Anne Frasier]

i recently moved into an old Victorian mansion that looks just like the house in psycho. i kept thinking that i might finally have proof of ghosts in this joint. the third night my bed started shaking violently. i thought it was an earthquake, and i was wondering if i should run from the building when the shaking stopped. At that point the hair on my neck was standing up. it's happened almost every weekend since then, never as violent as the first time. during one episode a dog i was taking care of woke up from his spot on the rug and looked around. i've decided it's a train, but who knows?

[carole gill]

yes, i do suppose i believe(or want to). England is supposed to be a very haunted place. I went into a dungeon (ON A TOUR!) In a castle once--and truly felt as though I couldn't breathe. (nerves?, not necessarily. also there are parts of the Tower of London where i wouldln't want to linger at night. Please could you put up a photo of that hotel that scared King?! love to see it!) And i think we are inpsired by the supernatural whether we write it or not because we have good imaginations. As do the readers of supernatural and mystery!

[DADavenport]

Carole, try www.stanleyhotel.com. Great website with tons of info and pictures. It's a gorgeous place.

[Karen J. Laubenstein]

There are places, and there are times, and it happens. Especially at twilight or night, and when alone. When I got lost in Pompeii and everyone had left, and I couldn't find my way out, and I was Deaf so couldn't HEAR anything, but I could feel. The glass covered lava-frozen bodies with their teeth seem to smile and then the goosebumps, the hair rising on the neck, the sudden movements out of the far edges of the eyes, and that pounding that starts in your chest and soon is throbbing in your head, followed by sheer panic--and suddenly you have to run, blindly, but run! Get out! Get Away! There are beings there, obviously, for you are NOT alone. Then a spotlight hits and people surround you babbling in all these indeciphierable languages and you're escorted out, but you glance back, and know they are watching...

[Karyn J. Powers]

I'm with Loomis on the energy thing. I've been to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. It was the first time and place that I ever felt that the gravity of a situation affected the specific gravity of a place. The first floor of the rowhouse/warehouse is virtually empty, save for a long glass covered display case showcasing her diary in forty of fifty different languages, and yet it was hard to move without being very deliberate. I was never short of breath or too warm or too cold, but as I climbed from ground level to the highest floor and then finally the tiny attic steps, I had the sensation of moving through a "dry" fog.

I've been there twice, in two different seasons, nearly twenty years apart. Both times the sensation was the same. Once we exited into a light rain and so the feeling stayed with me for most of the day. The second time into a bitter February wind, and it dissapated immediately.

[DADavenport]

I think the one place I have been to that affected me heavily like that is the Antietam Battlefield. Very strong sensations and emotions. And Bloody Lane is the most intense area there. Even the Civil War reenactors have a tough time with the feelings at Antietam, they say it is the strangest battlefield from the Civil War to visit overnight. And yet I have a strong, weird pull to buy an old farmhouse that sits within a thousand yards of it. What an amazing place that would be to own. Don't know why, but I would really love to own that place.

[Karen J. Laubenstein]

Yes - I've experienced that sense on and around the Civil War battlefields near Manassas, Centreville, Harper's Ferry, Charleston, and Gettysburg. It's disturbing. We've been there at dusk and it's like the feelings increase. Also, lived in a former Civil War funeral home when we were young, and the neighborhood kids all tried to scare us about our ghosts - and in the many rooms in the basement, we scared each other silly, but there was a definite SOMETHING there. Something that scared us so badly, I refused to go down there. And there were sounds in our huge attic, too... footsteps and such overhead. We were young, but we'll never forget living in that house, or the old farmhouse near South Paris, Maine, that is now a museum, but also had its share of ghosts! That house dated back to the early 1700's, and had crypts into the side of the mountain. I think we were the last family to live in it before it became a museum. I've read so many people experienced ghosts at places like Stonehenge and Egyptian tombs and I will never forget Pompeii and even the Colliseum in Rome and the crypts along the Appian Way in Greece. I also remember playing with a Ouija board as a child and having it spell out that it was our aunt and she asked us to thank our cousin for the yellow flowers on her grave - and none of us had even known my cousin had been there, let alone placed flowers there!!! And yellow!!! And on a dare in high school, I stayed all night at the Stroudwater Burial Grounds near Portland, Maine, where our ancestors have stones and that, too, is on the Register of Historic Places -- but we didn't make it all night. It's in the trees along the Presumpscot River, and we actually saw glimpses of people moving around (I did this with my best friend at the time), and while I couldn't hear, she could, and she kept telling me what she was hearing! We both got so scared we couldn't stand it! We rode our bikes out of there like we were being chased, and made it back the 8 miles or so to home in a blur!

So there's some of my ghost stories, so yeah, I believe in something from the past being there... whether it is ghosts or spirits or what, I don't know, but whew!

[Karen J. Laubenstein]

Want to note that author Stephen King's books caused these same feelings and responses and I stopped reading them because I hated getting that scared! I was in the midst of one of his books once, when my friend dropped by and slid open the sliding glass doors to my apartment, and I grabbed the metal poker to the fireplace and nearly committed murder!!! It can be dangerous! I haven't read many of King's books, since, as I did find it to be too much.

[DADavenport]

I stopped buying his hardbacks when I felt he was becoming too formula, but some of his books I consider great. The scope of The Stand was breath-taking. Loved it so much I bought the author's edition as soon as it hit the bookstores. People thought I was nuts. "There were too many words in the FIRST one." They'd whine. "What does that MEAN??. Not if they are GOOD ones!!!" I always said. The Shining is amazing and I also love Misery because his evil is so pedestrian and possible in that one. Annie Wilkes is a great creation. And he is one mean short story writer as well.