Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with ghosts

Horror Twists

Holly — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 07:10:21 -0800

Two horror films from about 10 years ago, M. Night Shyamalan's "The Sixth Sense" and Alejandro Amenábar's "The Others", basically have the same twist at the end (which I won't describe here). Are there any other films you've seen with the same twist or similar - released either before (ideally) or since?

Have you seen this weird movie?

Half-a-Dozen Paper Cranes — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 11:42:24 -0800

I'm trying to figure out the title of a movie I saw on tv a few years ago. It was an English language horror movie set in Japan; the main characters were a western family (I think they might have been from the US, but they could have been Canadian) who were living there because of some family member's job. There was a scene involving Noh masks, and I think there were ghosts with swords. There was definitely a scene with demon crabs and a little girl. I think the movie was from the 80s, but I'm not sure. I've done some searching on IMDB and Google, but I can't find anything helpful.

Looking for unsolved "real" paranormal stories.

jbickers — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 07:23:04 -0800

What are some (non-Roswell) examples of unsolved "paranormal phenomena"? I'm looking to find some great examples of unsolved paranormal events/happenings. While Roswell is the biggie, of course, I'm looking for things that didn't make it onto the radar of most people. Good examples would be the Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter and, to a lesser degree, the Bell Witch (lesser only because of the popularity of the films it spawned; otherwise, this is a perfect example).

So, what are some other examples that are (a) still "unsolved" and (b) have their own set of adherents/researchers who believe it actually happened?

How do I translate "Bavarian Hiasl"?

RedReplicant — Sun, 03 May 2009 13:46:16 -0800

Translating from a Bavarian Legend - what is a Hiesel/Hiesl/Hiasl? I've been working on identifying a drawing in the small museum here at my university, and I've concluded that it's a picture of the ghost of Matthias Klostermayer, the "Bavarian Hiasl" appearing to a poacher. Here's a link. I've found some good German biographies of Klostermayer, but what I haven't found is a translation for his title. Anyone know what a Hiesel or Hiasl or Hiesl is? Many thanks for any input!

Looking for good film depictions of the classic Victorian haunted house.

greenie2600 — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:12:03 -0800

Looking for good film depictions of the classic Victorian haunted house. I want cobwebs, furniture covered with sheets, floating candlesticks, portraits with eyes that follow people around the room, secret passages, wrought-iron fences, creepy attics, thunder and lightning, skeleton keys, overgrown cemeteries—you get the idea. The classic formula, as parodied in Scooby Doo—but without the parody.

House on Haunted Hill is a good example, but I already have that. More!

Scary Websites for the Halloween Season?

interrobang — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 13:10:53 -0800

Please recommend some spooky, scary websites for late-night, Halloween Season reading. This question from a couple of years ago has some good stuff in it, especially the "Caver" story, which is no longer there but viewable on archive.org. Please let me know about some spooky websites to look at and read late at night. Thanks!

Recommend some ghostly mystery books, please!

giggleknickers — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:48:51 -0800

I'm looking for supernatural mysteries! I've seen a lot of Asian movies with an excellent, tried and true plot: a person finds out that they, or their home, is being haunted. They set out to investigate why, and the mystery gradually unfolds until it all comes to make sense at the end.

They tend to be billed as horrors, but they aren't scary (or trying to be), just mysterious. Perhaps creepy, but the point of the story is the mystery, not the scare.

I love these kinds of movies, and I remember there were loads of books like this when I was a pre-teen, in the "young adult" section. Unfortunately, I haven't really found any for adult readers.

When I do find them, it turns out that it was just a hoax by some bad guy and there was no supernatural influence at all. That makes me want to throw the book at the bastard author.

Can anyone recommend some books that have such a plot?

Add a new category to this list: Aliens, Monsters, Ghosts...

Flying Saucer — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:51:29 -0800

Aliens, monsters, and ghosts. The big three. But is there a fourth? I am working on a writing project and am struggling with a conundrum that I thought I'd bring to the hive mind.

It seems to me that in speculative fiction (which encompasses science fiction, fantasy, and horror), there are three major elements, or adversaries:

1. Aliens
2. Monsters
3. Ghosts

The brave souls who fight these creatures have been the basis of all kinds of exciting stories.

For example, in the comic book and the movie, the Men In Black fought aliens.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer fought monsters.

Ghostbusters fought ghosts.

Mulder and Scully fought all three.

So my question is...is there a fourth category? Spirits, maybe? Elves? Combining the categories has already been done -- remember the alien ghosts of "Final Fantasy"?

Any thoughts?

There's something strange in the neighborhood...

Metroid Baby — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 11:14:47 -0800

The apartment building I'm moving into might be haunted. I know it's not rational to believe in ghosts, but I'm kind of superstitious. The other day I was Googling the address where I'm moving in a few weeks, and I found a couple mentions of the building being haunted. My reaction has ranged from "cool, ghosts!" to "oh no, ghosts!" to "psht, ghosts don't exist." My inner Scully tells me it's ridiculous to even entertain the notion of a haunted apartment, but my inner Mulder wants to believe. And I've got to admit I'm not a very good skeptic in practice, especially not when it's midnight and I'm all alone in a dark apartment.

So my question is twofold. The first part: how can I tell if my apartment is haunted, and what should I do if it is? I'm not sure how you know if a funny sound, a stray thought, or a sudden cold feeling is due to a paranormal presence rather than a more mundane source. On the rare occasions in the past when I've sensed something strange, I've been able to rationalize it as my senses playing tricks on me. What should I be looking for, and how do I know whether it's just my imagination? And if ghosts do exist, and if they exist in my apartment, how can I coexist peacefully with them? Real or not, the last thing I want to do is piss them off.

The second part: How do I keep a healthy sense of skepticism about this and avoid turning into Scooby-Doo when the lights go out? There is a part of me that strongly wants to believe in the supernatural, but I want to keep that in check. I don't want to get carried away, and I don't want to become paranoid or gullible. And I definitely want to be able to sleep at night.

For the record, I've visited the building twice, I like it, and it seems like a perfectly normal apartment building to me.

I feel a little silly asking this question, but I'm curious all the same. Thanks for your help!

Ghostly

Jacen — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 13:50:48 -0800

Are there any Native American stories or legends or beliefs about the deceased coming back as horses? Possibly as spirit animals?

Do Atheistic Cultures Have High Instances of Hauntings?

Gnostic Novelist — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 19:26:35 -0800

Do reports of hauntings exist in atheist or non-Christian countries to such an extent as they do in America? I'm fascinated by the myriad of documentaries that appear every week regarding hauntings/ghosts/etc. Do atheistic countries with no particular spiritual influence (i.e. Sweden vs. China) have such high reports of hauntings or reports of ghosts? What about Islamic cultures?

The lighthouse ghost

zek — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 15:33:47 -0800

Does anyone recognize this old Scottish lighthouse ghost story? I haven't heard anything like it since I first read it.

Basically there's a lighthouse keeper in a remote area of Scotland. Every time the lightkeeper goes to bed, some weird monster drifts from the depths of the lighthouse into the room, hovers over the bed, and is sufficiently frightening or hypnotic to where the guy in bed can't get up. The monster somehow drinks a fill of blood, and the lightkeeper can't remember what happened in the morning. Eventually it goes on long enough, night after night, to where he dies of blood loss.

This was in a ghost story collection (probably Victorian era, maybe M. R. James or the like) that I checked out at the school library about 25 years ago. I seem to recall there were some other interesting spine tinglers in there, too.

Sound familiar?

How to set up a fake ghostly haunting?

robocop is bleeding — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 09:49:37 -0800

How to best fake a haunting, demonic possession, or alien visitation? After years of enjoying shows like Ghost Hunters, A Haunting, and various shows of that ilk with friends, I would like to set up a fake "experience" for them.

How best to go about setting the stage (ie, creating "experiences" that get people thinking the place is haunted), running an "investigation" (ala Ghost Hunters), and giving everyone a good scare?

We have a couple moving into a new apartment in the next month. He is the sort that would get really into/freaked out by this sort of thing and she is the sort that would help me set him up for the haunting. There would, of course, be a big 'reveal' at the end to make sure he can still sleep at night in his new home.

There is no need to limit ideas to simple hauntings. Demonic posessions, alien visitations, and strange Lovecraftian horrors from beyond sanity are all welcome for the set up.

My whack explanation needs refining

greta simone — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 08:21:29 -0800

I have this weird theory involving ghosts (sort of) and I want to know if there are essays or writers out there with similar theories I can use to develop my own... Ok, this is kind of abstract, so pardon if any of this is vague.
This is the short version-- I kind of believe in ghosts, not in the sense that people are coming back from the afterlife to send messages or what have you, but more in this sense: that spaces (homes, buildings, outdoor spaces) themselves have a kind of memory that retains the essence of powerful spirits (and by spirits, I don't mean souls, I just mean spirit as in exhuberance of personality for example). When someone with a powerful spirit dies in some uncommon/unnecessary way that the spirit leaves an imprint on the memory of the space they occupied. And this is what those who see or sense ghosts actually experience.
What I want is not approval or agreement of my theory-- I just want to know if anyone has read or can direct me to sources that similarly reflect what I'm trying to get at that I can use to make the explanation of my idea a little clearer or to expand what I already think. Thanks!

Yeah, it's sort of a rhetorical question

shannymara — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 22:52:56 -0800

How come we never hear about nude ghosts? Clothes always seem to go into the spirit world in anecdote and popular culture. Is this a reflection of society's taboos, or do ghost believers have an explanation?

Cheap & Weird Things To Do In N.Georgia (US)?

mikeybidness — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 17:50:51 -0800

I'm an Aussie who is going to be spending a month in northern Georgia, in the area of Cedartown/Tallapoosa visiting his girlfriend's mother and boyfriend for Christmas. I'm looking for cheap and interesting things to see and do in the area -the weirder the better. I'm not adverse to travelling into Atlanta. Any advice you could give would be much appreciated!

Have you, personally, seen a ghost?

adzm — Fri, 31 Dec 2004 01:28:44 -0800

I know many otherwise-skeptical people who believe in ghosts. Further discussion often leads to anecdotes, or a single bizarre happening from a long time ago. Perhaps my skeptical mind closes me off to the experience. So I wonder, has anyone here personally, preferably recently, experienced the paranormal? I remember being young and reading all about ghosts and etc. One of my good friends was all about the subject too. Some night afterwards I awoke, and headed to the bathroom... when out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw something. I really didn't, but I wanted to believe it was a ghost, and so I did. I had mentioned it to many people.. and after years I never thought about it. Years later, after some introspection, I decided to stop feeding the lie.

Suspense Novel Recommendations

orange swan — Sat, 30 Oct 2004 12:55:20 -0800

The lights along the dim hallway flickered as she walked toward the door at the end. The floor of the old house creaked underneath her webbed feet, but otherwise all was still. Until she heard the sound of footsteps behind her, and she turned and saw.... I love ghost stories. Can any of you recommend some good ones? To give you some idea of what I would like, I loved Edith Wharton's creepy tales and Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, but I'll pass on any more Stephen King or Peter Straub. I want good writing, subtlety, suspense, and enough thrills and chills to scare the feathers right off me.

Parenting a Visionary Child

putzface_dickman — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 06:45:14 -0800

My 6-year-old daughter sees things other people don't. "Skitter scatters," ghosts, auras. She just started school and there's something in the lunchroom only she can see, and this one makes her nervous. [mi] First, I'm asking for someone who's had them to tell me how he or she dealt with these experiences, and how that turned out.
Second, I want to know what myth/story/magic/cinema might yield to identify this mysterious object.
From my girl:
It's on the ceiling of the cafeteria. It's the size of two adult fists. It's black and white and swirls. It's shiny but not sparkly. It is magical and not mechanical. The one picture she has drawn of it shows an uneven black band swirling around a mostly white center. (I imagine it's motion and appearance are like Jupiter's red spot.) It seems to float against the corrugated metal of the ceiling.

Believe me, I would be no less skeptical than some of you surely are, but I have chosen to respect her experiences and I'm asking for people to respect this query. There are familial precedents that have been that have been used to reassure, but not encourage her. Please don't advise meds, or counseling.