Originally posted by Onyx
*Sit's down, has a look around and has a drink.*
So, do you have any ghost stories to share with us? 
*Ahem*
When I was very small I saw my great-grandmother sitting in our living room. Although she had been long dead.
My personal theory on ghosts:
I think ghosts may well be the spirits of the dead. Stuck in this plane of ecistence because of the usual reasons -- guilt, unfinished business, etc.; or perhaps as a kind of purgatorial experience before going on to the next world. However, I think this type of ghost is very rare. The vast majority -- I'd say, around 90% or so, to be generous -- is more than likely a residual energy type of thing. Leftovers from impressions made upon the atmosphere or material objects, by the energy of certain events or persons.
I believe this to be especially true of EVP -- Electronic Voice Phenomenon. Clear voices that turn up unexpectedly on tape recordings, and purported to be the voices of the dead. I think it more likely that these "voices" are really sounds (of real human voices) that have traveled through the atmosphere, become distorted, and turn up in certain places where and when conditions are right. But they may not be audible to the normal human hearing range, although sometimes they are. That's when you hear a disembodied voice in your house
But there are so many sound waves, radio waves, microwaves, etc. etc., that are beyond our direct daily experience, I don't think it difficult to believe that sounds or even images could bounce around for a while before coming into our range of hearing and/or vision. When that happens, people cry "ghost".
Of course I'm not a scientist so this is just my theory that's been developed through bits and pieces of info
Thoughts?.......
P.S. Sherry for all who want it. Mineral water for those who don't
