Fun story, but your question was so leading that of course he said he smelled it. Now if you'd just asked if he smelled anything, and he'd said, "Yeah, I smell pipe tobacco"...
Ghostly Encounters
- Thread starter EmoBorg
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Fun story, but your question was so leading that of course he said he smelled it. Now if you'd just asked if he smelled anything, and he'd said, "Yeah, I smell pipe tobacco"...
Doesn't lack of repeatability point to coincidence rather than any kind of direct cause?
Once it was just moderately raining outside and I told my brother and friend that they'd better turn their video game off because the power could go out, even though it really wasn't that bad of a storm. And literally right after I said that the power turned off. Am I a magician? A psychic? No, it was just a funny coincidence. If I tried to repeat it, of course it would never reliably happen.
Once it was just moderately raining outside and I told my brother and friend that they'd better turn their video game off because the power could go out, even though it really wasn't that bad of a storm. And literally right after I said that the power turned off. Am I a magician? A psychic? No, it was just a funny coincidence. If I tried to repeat it, of course it would never reliably happen.
Not if the same conditions are impossible to recreate. To meet the initial conditions he would have to not have memory of the first experience, because having had the experience itself completely biases any further attempts at recreating it.
Though it could also have been coincidence! It's just extremely unlikely, as he was thinking of his grandfather at the time.
I have NEVER had any kind of similar "hallucination" ever in my life. And really, I wasn't so freaked out and startled to such lofty heights as to hallucinate or see/feel/smell things. There was the momentary scare of the snow, but the adrenaline rush was very short lived. I remember being under the table, laughing with my friends at how silly the whole thing was. We got up, a few went to the window, and I picked up the skull to put it back on the table when the smell started. So, the "flood of chemicals", what little there was, had already passed.
I agree with that, but unfortunately I was just a kid and didn't think to ask it like that. However, when I stopped smelling it and asked him if he still smelled it, he said he couldn't (mind you I didn't prefix it with "I stopped smelling it"). I also confirmed it with him, asked him to describe it. He said something like "It was a pipe tobacco smell, definitely not a cigar or cigarette." And this wasn't a friend who was susceptible to leading questions. He also didn't dismiss this as a hallucination or mirage.
There is absolutely no way for you to know that. These things happen all the time, and due to their nature, most of the time people don't know that they're not real sensations.
You were primed to be thinking of your grandfather, even if the adrenaline had completely left your system, such priming can last for hours, days, even weeks.
Again, how is magic the more likely explanation than any of this?
Most want to believe in evidence of the supernatural as it means they can be less scared of going back to what they were before they were born.
Reality doesn't care about what you want. That sly minx just does whatever.
...that said, nothing will stop the Great Demon from eating your soul. Bob is actually a rather nice fellow...
Reality doesn't care about what you want. That sly minx just does whatever.
...that said, nothing will stop the Great Demon from eating your soul. Bob is actually a rather nice fellow...
The house, which is a second house on the property I live on, has never had a change in scent aside from that one time. Furthermore, I brought actual roses into it in 2009, and nothing lingered from it.
BTW - I have slept at the house. Overall, nothing else has happened except the other thing I wrote which I don't see a response to - the picture of the Virgin Mary which flew off the wall into my friend's lap - never fell before, and did not fall down - it flew away and down into her lap at a 90 degree(?) angle. Three of us were in the house and we all saw it happen. We also tried to repeat it by hanging the picture up both securely and loosely and hit the wall.
It never fell. Even if it did, flying OUT from the wall doesn't make sense; the weight of the pic plus gravity should make it fall down at an angle, not in a "roundish" launch forward.
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And your disregard and lack of anything substantial to explain what happened invalidates nothing I experienced. BTW - if you believe what I've written are the most "boring and prosaic of explanations" of an incident which occurred, then continuing to read and respond to my posts on this topic seems a rather silly thing for you to do...right?Wrong on both accounts.
Again, 1. I don't like the smell of roses, or most flowers in general, so it's not something that would be on my mind to even "imagine."
2. As I said, there were no flowers in the house, and no air fresheners or anything else which would give off such a scent. And even if there was an artificial source, there was no draft, never mind that artificial scents tend to smell "manufactured" as opposed to fresh and real.
So yes, further explanation IS warranted.
Nothing you have said remotely discounts either possibility I put forward, or suggests anything but the most boring and prosaic of explanations. So no, there is no need to look any further than the mundane.
Thanks for playing, and please stay away from the water, Stripe.
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As I said, I was WITH the last person in there (my mom) every time she went there, which was maybe 2 times prior MAX. She doesn't were rose-scented anything. No one else had been in there, unless they broke in - something which would be pretty obvious.
The 4 rooms don't have anything that smells like roses, otherwise I could have nailed it. I have been going in and out of that house frequently over the past year now, clearing out and throwing away items, and there's nothing rose scented or flavored. And AGAIN, there was no draft.
FYI - Part of my job actually requires me to be able to locate smells - animals which may have urinated/defecated/vomited in their cages. I've also pin-pointed electrical shorts from heating pads and the washing machine, in addition to numerous cases where an animal has a skin or ear issue. As crazy as it sounds, I track down unusual smells and locate them quite frequently.
I've yet to have someone tell me my claim of a strange or suspicious scent/smell ends up with no cause.
I went from my house, to my grandmother's. It's attached to the main house. Only the carport is open (has a roof.) No blustering wind that day, and no draft. Even if some magic cloud of rose hitchhiked on me, my motion would have dissipated it. I went from walking, to a very slow walk, turned slightly, stopped, then stared. The house had its normal smell. Then there was the smell of roses. It was very obvious because I even backed up a titch and said out loud "what the...?"
Funny, but as someone who was a wolfdog handler and trainer, as well as a safety back up for wolf and tiger handlers, trusting your senses and perception are a MUST, as they increase your chances of survival if a situation gets tense and/or dangerous. In addition, trusting and knowing yourself, your senses and your surroundings is something which plays into martial arts, which I've taken (Southern Praying Mantis style Gung-fu, and Tai-Chi).
Sorry, but I don't agree with your assessment at all, unless it applies to individuals who are lost in their own existence or just follow what everyone else does without understanding when and where they are at any given time.
Just not buyin' it. It should also happen more frequently over the years then - not just with this, but other things as well - and it hasn't.
If you and some of the others think it's a hallucination, cool - that's OK. Now what about the flying picture and the 2 additional witnesses, plus our failed attempts to RE-knock the pic off the wall afterward?
Ryan8bit - Doesn't lack of repeatability point to coincidence rather than any kind of direct cause?
GrandMOTHER. She was the one who last lived in the house.
There's a lot of attention to detail with regards to how my experience was impossible, yet some of the written details I've posted seem to be repeatedly overlooked.
Like I said, I don't go looking for this stuff. I don't want to believe in things like that, but what happened, happened, along with the picture flying off the wall in 2009. Anyhow, I do appreciate your responses.
Since someone could believe in ghosts and disbelieve your story, asking what exactly it was you were referring to not believing in was a question worth asking, for the purpose of clarification.
Anyway, an unexplained smell is not the smoking gun of ghost stories. Just as likely as a ghost is that some god played a prank on you. You really should weigh the likelihood of alternate explanations.
Again, you wouldn't have to have deliberately picked up the scent. One of you could have picked it up without knowing it and not realized it until later.
If you were breathing, air was getting in and out.
That's cool, but irrelevant.
It is not my assessment. It's how the brain works. Pick up a freaking science book.
The flying picture is a different story. Sounds interesting. What were the circumstances?
Um, you're the one who is overlooking details. That post was made in response to someone else who smelled pipe smoke from his grandfather. So, is my point made now? Even those of us with keen observational capabilities make mistakes. Like you just did. Right here.
Then learn about the science. Find a rational explanation, and open your mind to the possibility that you might have imagined it.
Then it is fortunate that you experienced nothing worth explaining, or even vaguely extraordinary.
You really don't take criticism well.
You really don't take criticism well.
I think that's the heart of the problem actually, and it is the same with a lot of believers...They seem to think their eyes work like video cameras and their ears like audio recorders, capturing picture perfect images and sounds from the world around them. They can't seem to imagine that their senses could fool them, when really that is part of the brain's job: to fool you so you don't realize that your senses don't actually work all that accurately. They don't realize that since every experience they have is a construction of the brain that can be created with or without sensory input, an experience that is completely manufactured by the brain (like the rose scent may have been in this case) can be utterly indistinguishable from a real experience. These people seem to be offended by this idea, when it doesn't have anything to do with sharpness of senses, observational skills, intelligence, or anything else...it's just how the brain works.
In my experience, this inability to recognize this particular flaw in the human experience of the world is even more common in professed non-believers who have a sacred cow, which is exactly what Romulus Prime has here.
There's another thread about conspiracy theories. Ghosts and aliens and supernatural things are conspiracy theories as well.
Why?
I'll tell you.
The human brain and mind have one specific goal: make sense of this world. Every information is categorized, classified and put in order. Our brain looks for patterns, and when there are none, it tries to create patterns. That's the way it works. That's how we can make sense of all. We connect visual information with tactile information with audio information and so forth. That happens in very basic processes as well as the higher cognitive processes.
The problem is: once we experience something that makes no sense, something that we do not understand, our brain goes nuts on the search for a proper explanation, for a pattern, for a classification. Again, that happens in the basic processes and the higher processes. The easiest explanation is always that someone or something is responsible for the event that just happened. That's the basis for optical illusions. And the basis for conspiracy theories. And the basis for superstition.
That's why there's a god of thunder. That's why strange noises at night must come from the monsters in the closet. That's why the Twin Towers were demolished and didn't fall apart themselves. That's why my friend who committed suicide all of a sudden without any warning signs had to be murdered. That's why after I've been rejected by 3 women in a row, all women are the same. That's why this strange coincidence that just happened to me has to involve a higher, supernatural power such as a ghost. That lighting bolt that struck me just after I yelled at my mother, that must have been a warning sign from a higher power. Because the brain cannot compute coincidences because they make no sense.
Basically, it all comes down to that: the brain trying to make sense of it all within its limits. But the brain doesn't care whether it's actually plausible for real in a scientific way, it's enough when it makes remotely sense. The easiest explanation is the preferred one. And the easiest explanation is always: "I know that someone did it, even though I don't know who it was."
Why?
I'll tell you.
The human brain and mind have one specific goal: make sense of this world. Every information is categorized, classified and put in order. Our brain looks for patterns, and when there are none, it tries to create patterns. That's the way it works. That's how we can make sense of all. We connect visual information with tactile information with audio information and so forth. That happens in very basic processes as well as the higher cognitive processes.
The problem is: once we experience something that makes no sense, something that we do not understand, our brain goes nuts on the search for a proper explanation, for a pattern, for a classification. Again, that happens in the basic processes and the higher processes. The easiest explanation is always that someone or something is responsible for the event that just happened. That's the basis for optical illusions. And the basis for conspiracy theories. And the basis for superstition.
That's why there's a god of thunder. That's why strange noises at night must come from the monsters in the closet. That's why the Twin Towers were demolished and didn't fall apart themselves. That's why my friend who committed suicide all of a sudden without any warning signs had to be murdered. That's why after I've been rejected by 3 women in a row, all women are the same. That's why this strange coincidence that just happened to me has to involve a higher, supernatural power such as a ghost. That lighting bolt that struck me just after I yelled at my mother, that must have been a warning sign from a higher power. Because the brain cannot compute coincidences because they make no sense.
Basically, it all comes down to that: the brain trying to make sense of it all within its limits. But the brain doesn't care whether it's actually plausible for real in a scientific way, it's enough when it makes remotely sense. The easiest explanation is the preferred one. And the easiest explanation is always: "I know that someone did it, even though I don't know who it was."
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Quite. And one really only needs to look at how our perception of reality can be totally altered by the introduction of barely perceptible amounts of chemicals to the brain, many of which can be naturally produced by the body, to understand how unreliable our senses really are.
Whoever said anything about "magic"? I'm just saying I had what I believe to be a subtle but distinct supernatural experience.
It's magical thinking, it's the same thing. Believing in the supernatural is believing in magic, just by another name.
Perhaps we'll just have to agree that we disagree on this.
I see magic as the enacting of powers beyond the normal by a corporeal being (like exerting mental influence over someone else, levitating objects, etc). In this case I'm taking about the manifestation of a spirit. I see them as two very different things.
^So do you think the spirit is something natural, then?
The site I work at is supposedly haunted. There are several buildings, one is a corporate office and the others are large warehouses. It was built back in the early 70s for a company that manufactured wheelchairs and, as rumor has it, several "on the job" accidents occurred resulting in people dying.
Several coworkers I know have seen shadows following them late at night. These are rational, intelligent people but they can't explain the shadows as they're certain it wasn't from them and there was nobody else around. Now, I've never seen or heard anything here and I've been in and around the campus at all hours, for the better part of 6 years (I work in IT).
That being said, the computers (about 120 physical systems and probably another 300 virtual machines) at our site have hardware failures and glitches at a far greater frequency than any of the other sites in other parts of the world. Hard disk failures, system boards, NICs or SCSI controllers dying, fan failures, network and fiber channel switch failures, brief IP connectivity losses, etc... We've been over the equipment in the datacenter numerous times. We've had the power inspected and everything appears clean. We're on conditioned power. There's a UPS with diesel generator backup for power outages. We're not being killed by brownouts or blackouts. All of our equipment is relatively new (< 5 years old) and even the very, very new stuff has had failures. Most of our production stuff is highly available so the business generally doesn't experience downtime regarding the systems, but whatever the cause, it's very odd. Maybe it's EM fields or something along those lines... I don't know.
Several coworkers I know have seen shadows following them late at night. These are rational, intelligent people but they can't explain the shadows as they're certain it wasn't from them and there was nobody else around. Now, I've never seen or heard anything here and I've been in and around the campus at all hours, for the better part of 6 years (I work in IT).
That being said, the computers (about 120 physical systems and probably another 300 virtual machines) at our site have hardware failures and glitches at a far greater frequency than any of the other sites in other parts of the world. Hard disk failures, system boards, NICs or SCSI controllers dying, fan failures, network and fiber channel switch failures, brief IP connectivity losses, etc... We've been over the equipment in the datacenter numerous times. We've had the power inspected and everything appears clean. We're on conditioned power. There's a UPS with diesel generator backup for power outages. We're not being killed by brownouts or blackouts. All of our equipment is relatively new (< 5 years old) and even the very, very new stuff has had failures. Most of our production stuff is highly available so the business generally doesn't experience downtime regarding the systems, but whatever the cause, it's very odd. Maybe it's EM fields or something along those lines... I don't know.
Again, why would those dead people haunt guys who have nothing to do with it?
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