h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes, I do believe in ghosts! I have not seen one myself, but I polled the family once, and learned enough stories, that I believe there is something in the stories I have heard and read...

Great PS by the way!

So what stories did you hear?

I wrote to my cousin in the UK, and he hasn't had any such experience, but his wife was terrified when she was a child, by an angry old gyspy woman in a field she was playing in - and even more so when she realised the angry woman was a

My brother had a work colleague who was walking down a corridor in a building and saw a man, a perfectly real and solid man, walk through a wall where a door had once been. That's how I know that ghosts are not always thin and ethereal looking.

These are the only ones I can think of right now... Oh, I've just remembered one I read about in a 'rationalist' magazine. It was amusing as the man who told the story was desperately trying to come up with reasons why he had not seen what he had seen. He had gone back to his home town, and while walking along the street, saw the local priest, a man he had hated when he was a teenager. The priest gave him a puzzled and sad look, then walked on. When the man got to his mother's house and said he'd seen the priest, his mother told him that the priest had been dead for 5 years. The man then had to come up with some idea about how it was all an artifact of his memory! Yet he had walked parallel with the priest for 5-10 minutes!

Weird stories. I've never seen anything like that, and don't know anyone who has. Of course I've read lots of stories in magazines and stuff, and never really knew whether or not to believe them.

Lots are probably just overactive imaginations/being tired/scared. But I've heard some stories about angels that can't be explained away, so maybe s are the same. But I'm not sure.

Could you share some of your angel stories?

I heard of one guy who came off his motorbike and ended up in a ditch. He kept hearing this female voice telling him to roll over, so eventualy he did. When the ambulance crew arrived he told them about it and asked for her. But there had been no-one with him. Turned out that if he hadn't rolled over his lungs would have flooded with blood and he would've died.

That's a great story...

It reminds me of a band called (I think it was ) 10CC. They had a song in the 1970s, called 'I'm Mandy, Fly Me', about how one of them had been in a plane crash, and was rescued by an angel... It was a freaky song, but that was many, many years back.

Not sure if I know the song, but it sounds good.

I'd heard another story of a young child who, for some reason, got hit and run over by a lorry. But amazingly was fine. Later in hospital the child asked for the "man in white" and everyone thought it meant the doctor. But the child said the man in white had held onto him when the lorry hit him.

That's another great one... I might have heard some myself, but I can't think of anything specific right now...

Ian Wilson, the writer, has done a really good book about ghosts, which I read in about 1998.

I think I've heard of him. Not too sure.

It must be even harder to proove than a lot of other things.

Oh, it is...

In the '90s, I was in the kitchen, in winter, writing a letter to my cousin in Wales, and the room became filled with the smell of lavender. (My son identified it for me). The thing is that we have no lavender any hwre near, and the windows were shut anyway to keep out the cold. As ghosts often manifest as scents, I did wonder if something had happened to my cousin Margey. But nothing... I did wonder if it was a previous tenant of the house having a look around - there once were an old couple living here who were gardening mad!

Weird. Isn't it often said that when a ghost arrives the room gets cold? At least that's the most common one I've heard. That and things like footsteps, and actually seeing the ghost of course.

Yes, I have heard about the cold thing....

I've just spent the weekend in a big old castle on a church retreat. It was scary coz ypou'd walk through a door and get hit by cold air and then the next room's really warm. We also had a table quiz in "the crypt". Think it was really a cellar or something, but it was a bit scary.

Couldn't help wondering if there were any ghost stories about the castle.

That sounds like a great weekend! If the castle is old, well, you never know...

In Dunedin, a city in the South Island, there is a place called Larnach's Castle - the guy who built it was involved in a murder, suicide or both, it seems, and my Mum who went to Dunedin all the time was the first to tell me that it is haunted. In fact I am sure that everyone acknowledges that it is! I'll see if I can find a link about it.

Here's some information about the Castle...
http://www.teara.govt.nz/1966/L/LarnachsCastle/LarnachsCastle/en

Sounds beautiful. I hgave to make it to New Zealand sometime.

So what are the ghost stories then?

There's an old house near me that is suposed to have a few ghosts. One room where the master of the house was shot dead is supposed to have the ghost of his wife come running in like she did when she found him dead. There's even a secret cupborad in the room where gloves and the gun (I think) were found years later. Once got a guided tour and when the tour guide was telling us the story, the door clicked and she jumped out of her skin thinking it was the ghost.

Sadly, all I remember of what my Mum told me (back in the 1960s or '70s) is that the man who built the castle, is supposed to haunt it.

That's interesting, the story you mention... There are so many thousands of stories abounding about ghosts, that it must be hard (and a deliberate choice) not to believe there's something in it..

I never was sure what to believe when I hear ghost stories. I suppose there's probably something in it, though is there not something about old castles and the simple suggestion that can explain a lot of the stories?

<< though is there not something about old castles and the simple suggestion that can explain a lot of the stories?>>

To a large extent, yes, that's true... but the other stories, ones that I hear from friends and family, are another matter, though one has to be discerning about it all of course...

I'd love to hear stories that can't be "explaimned away" by tiredness/darkness/fear/suggestion/waterpipes etc. Or se a photo that's real, rather than a weird trick of the light or a blurry object in the background.