Most of them are probably seeing bears.
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I work for a 130-year-old venue with a lot of legitimate history. The array of famous dead people who supposedly haunt it never fails to amuse me—but “they” sell the occasional ticket, so we try not to poo-poo it too aggressively. It’s a fine line.
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Some of them, but many of them are experienced hunters and hikers who know what bears look like, and some of them describe creatures in considerable detail who are definitely not bears.
Here’s a site that archives a lot of reports by a variety of people:
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This is a large part of my gripe with many paranormal enthusiasts.
I am fully willing to accept that ghosts are a possibility (“there are more things in heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio…”); my issue comes when people are so eager to believe that whatever they saw/heard was a ghost that they completely dismiss other plausible explanations. But that’s just me and my issues, I suppose.
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I’m willing to suspend my disbelief for fun, just like I do for movies, TV shows and video games.
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I have noted that ghost stories and time travel stories are both about the same thing - regret.
I can enjoy both as stories. I mean, I don’t believe in hobbits, either. 
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I always roll my eyes on those paranormal investigation shows when they’re creeping around in the dark and going “What’s that???” when they hear a random sound that they wouldn’t even notice if it happened during the day.
But I keep watching anyway, because it’s fun.
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When I was little, I could swear that I saw a face upside down in the window looking at me and also that something would come up from the basement and I could see its entire journey to my room where it’d stand next to my bed. Now, this may have just been vivid dreaming and/or sleep paralysis, so take that with a hefty grain of salt. Scary movie scenes probably also played a role.
However, I had an experience in Savannah, Georgia when I lived there. Now, I’d lived there several years and it was supposedly one of the most haunted cities in the US since so many historical buildings had been spared from the Civil War and restored and such. One of these is the supposedly haunted restaurant “The Pirate House” which has tunnels underneath leading to the river so that drunk/unconscious patrons in ye olde times could be shanghaied and forced to be free labor on crews. I’d been there before and nothing’s ever happened. This time, I half-jokingly whispered an invitation for a ghost to join me for dinner. Well, nothing happened while I ate and the room was full of other people. However, by the time I finished eating, I was the only one in the room. Now, I never saw anything, but when I tried to stand up, I got extremely dizzy, weak, and broke out in a cold sweat. I’ve never felt that way before or since. It was very strange. It took me several minutes to get up enough strength to leave. As soon as I exited the restaurant, I was perfectly fine. Of course, there’s no proof or anything, as this was all just personal experience, but it was very odd and if just some coincidence, its timing was uncanny, lasting only as long as I was alone in the room trying to leave to when I did finally exit the restaurant.
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Oh, when it comes to paranormal shows, I love the ones that are just stories by victims or people investigating solely to help people and not trying to necessarily ‘prove’ anything. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, as they’re stories and still interesting either way. Additionally, if telling the truth, it was real enough to the victims and probably helps them to at least talk about it without being ridiculed.
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Oh, like the time I could absolutely SWEAR that I heard shouts and hoofbeats coming up the hill next to me when I was climbing Little Round Top at Gettysburg? And there wasn’t even a reenactment that day!
I’ve heard things and thought that I’ve seen things on and off over the years, but the two that really stuck with me were the aforementioned Gettysburg incident and the following:
On my second trip to Dublin, my friends and I visited Glasnevin Cemetery, home to many Irish luminaries of the past, including Eamon de Valera, Daniel O’Connell, and Michael Collins. Most of the place is a very jumbled, tightly packed graveyard with few paths. We were picking our way through one of those paths, me in the lead, when a voice behind me said, quite clearly:
“Hello there, I’m right behind you!”
I replied, “Of course I know you’re behind me. And since when did you perfect an Irish accent?”
I turned to see my friend staring at me like I’d gone nuts. She said, “What are you talking about? I didn’t say anything!”
It was early in the morning, no one but the three of us were in the place, and I got a chill up my spine. On a wild thought, I backed up several paces and looked at the stones closest to the path.
Two rows back, right next to the path, was a stone of a young woman who had died 70 years earlier, close to my age, and shared my first name. Same spelling and all. (My first name isn’t rare, but the spelling isn’t horribly common.) It just made me smile, wave at the stone, and say, “Hello, nice to meet you!”
I felt weirdly satisfied, and for the rest of the day, I was in a very good mood. So, a happy Irish ghost story!
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As far as ghost shows, I got started with Most Haunted. Even continued to watch for a little bit when it was proven a fake, because the history was interesting but eventually stopped all together.
Ghost Hunters came along, and will still tune in to this day. I also check out Ghost Adventures (while a bit goofier, they ALWAYS make it entertaining). And occasionally, Dead Files. Even though I think that’s even goofier than Ghost Adventures because it’s ALWAYS the same old story of ‘evil’ or ‘I don’t like this place’…or ‘something baaad is here’.
I still remember the time GA was in Ireland, I think, and out of the total blue, as they where driving a golf cart near a cliff edge, you hear a very creepy ‘NNNNNNNNNOOOOOO!’ I think it was as aaron was asking a question that sounded very banshee like. still the weirdest thing i’ve seen on ‘reality’ tv…so if that show is faked, they do a very good job of it.
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I thought Most Haunted was pretty entertaining, even though I always thought Derek Acorah was a fake. (How many different country houses can King Charles I haunt at the same time, anyway?) I liked it for the history bits and for creeping around ancient houses in the dark… some of those British houses are a thousand years old. Much preferred David Wells as the resident psychic. I don’t know if he was any more genuine than Derek, but he was certainly more convincing.
I enjoyed Ghost Hunters for a while after they dropped all the stupid “dramatic by-play” between cast members and just focused on the ghost hunting. I think they were pretty genuine… rumor has it the producers were always after them to gin up fake evidence to make it more interesting, but they refused.
The other shows, with dude-bros “locking themselves in” and whatnot never appealed to me.
YouTube is the place to go now for interesting paranormal investigation stuff.
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I’ve basically stopped being able to take any so-called “haunted” location seriously if it’s appeared on more than one ghost show. I’ve (so far) seen at least five different locations that have appeared on more than one ghost show, and it seems for each show the premise of the “haunting” at the location is different. A recent (just yesterday) example: Sedamsville Rectory. Saw it on Ghost Adventures first where the haunting was portrayed as being demonic and affecting the man at the place adversely to the point where they thought he was being “oppressed” (on the way to full on possession), but then what do I see on another show called “Haunted Collector” but the same location, only this time the haunting isn’t demonic and turns out to be due to the spirits of dogs who were killed during dog fights at or near the location (the dogs were allegedly kept in the rectory’s basement). And of course no mention is made of any other paranormal groups investigating the location from one show to the next.
And people wonder why I’m skeptical… 
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I once saw what can only be described as a transparent cat. I remain unconvinced as to the existence of ghosts though.
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Yeah. While I wouldn’t expect them to mention competitors on their show, some of these places DO come off as ‘fame hungry’ by appearing on so many various shows. like the ax murder house. I think that was on GA AND GHs…
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Well, I happen to have a ghost CAT (not one of mine!) I have had four different cats in this house, two of which have passed away, and sadly, I’ve never seen either of them since they passed, but they most definitely could see this ghost cat when they were alive. I decided I was crazy after seeing him/her four or five times and had never told a soul that I could see this big tabby cat ghost in my house. A good friend of mine was working for me in my small home business, and she came into my office one day looking very confused. She said, “did you get another cat?” I said, “no, why?” She said, “I swear, I just saw this tabby in your bedroom after I walked out of the bathroom and figured it was George (I have a living tabby), but then when I entered the living room, he was asleep on the couch! I backed up a few steps to look in your bedroom again, and the cat was gone. Am I losing my mind??”
I proceeded to tell her ALL my encounters with this ghost cat, and I felt so validated knowing someone else had seen it!! We lovingly named him “Scoobs.” My friend worked here three days a week, and sometimes we would go months without seeing him, and then, BOOM, there he was. Although I could tell my kitties saw Scoobs more than we did as humans. They would stare into corners or would be watching something moving that wasn’t there. Interestingly, I haven’t seen Scoobs since my first cat passed away in July 2020 and then my second kitty in July of 2021. I sometimes wonder if they just all decided to go off and play somewhere else or whether they helped Scoobs cross the Rainbow Bridge instead of being stuck here.
I have a second story, but it traumatized me in a MASSIVE way, so I’ve never told people about it and am not really ready to. Only my best friend and a person she helped find to come “clean” my house know about it. Scariest goddamn thing that’s ever happened to me. I will say that the person who cleaned the house told me he felt that the presence here was tied to my abusive ex-husband who had recently moved out and that people with angry/abusive energy can bring in things that you have to get rid of after they’re gone. He had ZERO idea my ex was abusive (no one did at that point), so that was pretty shocking. The cleaning did work, though, thank goodness!
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There’s a stretch of road south of home that’s probably not haunted, but I’ve seen some odd things and likely could start some good rumors if I felt inclined.
One night my family was driving through there, and up ahead I saw a pickup truck with a guy standing next to it on the side of the road. The road’s pretty narrow in that spot, and I briefly thought my Dad was going to hit them. But when we got closer, man and truck were gone.
Another time I was waiting at a stop sign late one afternoon, when I saw a human shadow cast on a passing car. There was no one else around.
Now in hindsight, the shadow was probably just from a road sign. Still not sure about the pickup, though.
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Before I was born, my parents were living with my Dad’s Mom. My Grandmother was sick with cancer and a few months before she passed away the house was haunted by three ghosts. One ghost was a blonde woman in a white dress. My Dad saw her once while talking on the phone. He was pacing in front of a mirror when he saw her behind him in the mirror; he whipped around and there was no one behind him, but she was there in the mirror before vanishing. One night Mom and Dad had some deeply religious friends over for dinner and they saw the woman again. They thought it was Grandma who was out square dancing that night, and described her; Mom and Dad told them about what had been happening in the house and their friends immediately got up without a word, left and never came back. The second ghost was a hooded figure in a brown robe. One night Mom, Dad and their dog Snoopy, a miniature dachshund, were all watching tv, when the hooded figure went walking across the room and down the hall. All three of them, Mom, Dad & the Dog all saw it. The third ghost was the only one who may have been malevolent. Dad said it looked a little like his father but had red eyes and an evil grin. They only ever saw it on rainy nights. Dad first saw it outside staring at the house. Each night it got closer and closer. One night Dad woke up in the middle of the night and it was standing right over the bed, grinning before vanishing. Grandma had been seeing them too but refused to even talk about it, even to Mom and Dad. When Grandma passed away the ghosts left too.
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When I was about two years old or so, I told my parents I had spoken to Grandma and Grandpa. My Mom’s parents were still alive at the time, so they asked, when did they call? I told them I talked to them last night, in my room. They thought I was dreaming but then I told them it was Dad’s parents, not Mom’s. Both Dad’s parents died years before I was born. Mom and Dad pulled out some photos I had never seen before and asked if I recognized the people in them. I picked out my Grandparents immediately.
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I was born in California but lived in Arizona from a year old to fourteen. When I was about ten or so, we visited Tombstone, AZ. We were in a gift shop when a man dressed like Wyatt Earp entered the store. He stood there in the front of the store for a few minutes, with his hands on his hips, kind of surveying the room. He gave a little nod then turned around and left. We left a few seconds later but he was absolutely nowhere to be found. He wasn’t walking down the sidewalk, he wasn’t in any other shop, he wasn’t across the street, he was just gone.
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