forestSS Posted February 8, 2012 #1 Share Posted February 8, 2012 (edited) Which theory do you believe may explain the phenomena of ghosts, hauntings, apparitions and poltergeists etc? Has anyone heard of the stone tape theory? Edited February 8, 2012 by forestSS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle Richard M. Posted February 8, 2012 #2 Share Posted February 8, 2012 The theory that energy can't be destroyed or created. Which means, what happens to our energy? And, if our energy reaches another body, that might explain reincarnation or possesion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sakari Posted February 8, 2012 #3 Share Posted February 8, 2012 (edited) " fear of God " scare tactics to urban Legends, campfire stories, Hollywood, and the Scify channel adding to the hype that they are real through the ages, and that was a very simplified / short answer. Yes, that is what theory I think is the best answer. Edited February 8, 2012 by Sakari Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karlis Posted February 8, 2012 #4 Share Posted February 8, 2012 Which theory do you believe may explain the phenomena of ~~~ ... ~~~ poltergeists etc? Welcome to UM forestSS. Real ghosts seem somewhat hard to pin down, but poltergeist activities do have quite a lot of researched "evidence". The following is from just one Google search, and there is lots of other information available. That said, don't be scared off by the above poster, Sakari; he is our resident skeptic. In parapsychology, Nandor Fodor proposed that poltergeist disturbances were caused by human agents suffering from some form of emotional stress or tension. William G. Roll studied 116 different poltergeist cases and found that the agents were often children or teenagers, and supposed that recurrent neuronal discharges resulting in epileptic symptoms may cause recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis (RSPK), which would affect the person's surroundings.[2][4][5][6][7] The case of the Rosenheim Poltergeist, where none of the disturbances could be explained via physical means, was suggested to be caused by psychokinetic forces. Rosenheim, Germany (1967) Main article: Rosenheim Poltergeist ... Dr. Friedbert Karger was one of two physicists from the Max Planck Institute who helped to investigate perhaps the most validated poltergeist case in recorded history. Annemarie Schneider, a 19-year-old secretary in a law firm in Rosenheim (a town in southern Germany) was seemingly the unwitting cause of much chaos and controversy in the firm, including disruption of electricity and telephone lines, the rotation of a picture, swinging lamps which were captured on video (which was one of the first times any poltergeist activity has been captured on film), and strange sounds that sounded electrical in origin were recorded. Karger stated that "these experiments were really a challenge to physics" and the disturbances "could be 100 percent shown not to be explainable by known physics."[11] Fraud was not proven despite intensive investigation by the physicists, journalists and the police. The effects moved with the young woman when she changed jobs until they finally faded out, disappeared, and never recurred. Source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sakari Posted February 8, 2012 #5 Share Posted February 8, 2012 Welcome to UM forestSS. Real ghosts seem somewhat hard to pin down, but poltergeist activities do have quite a lot of researched "evidence". The following is from just one Google search, and there is lots of other information available. That said, don't be scared off by the above poster, Sakari; he is our resident skeptic. In parapsychology, Nandor Fodor proposed that poltergeist disturbances were caused by human agents suffering from some form of emotional stress or tension. William G. Roll studied 116 different poltergeist cases and found that the agents were often children or teenagers, and supposed that recurrent neuronal discharges resulting in epileptic symptoms may cause recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis (RSPK), which would affect the person's surroundings.[2][4][5][6][7] The case of the Rosenheim Poltergeist, where none of the disturbances could be explained via physical means, was suggested to be caused by psychokinetic forces. Rosenheim, Germany (1967) Main article: Rosenheim Poltergeist ... Dr. Friedbert Karger was one of two physicists from the Max Planck Institute who helped to investigate perhaps the most validated poltergeist case in recorded history. Annemarie Schneider, a 19-year-old secretary in a law firm in Rosenheim (a town in southern Germany) was seemingly the unwitting cause of much chaos and controversy in the firm, including disruption of electricity and telephone lines, the rotation of a picture, swinging lamps which were captured on video (which was one of the first times any poltergeist activity has been captured on film), and strange sounds that sounded electrical in origin were recorded. Karger stated that "these experiments were really a challenge to physics" and the disturbances "could be 100 percent shown not to be explainable by known physics."[11] Fraud was not proven despite intensive investigation by the physicists, journalists and the police. The effects moved with the young woman when she changed jobs until they finally faded out, disappeared, and never recurred. Source True on the bold, please don't think I am some jerk, or a negative Nancy......I just agree with certain theories out there that can explain them, and mt differ from others.. Karlis has a good point, I just posted a link on another topic regarding " The Entity ".....I started digging deeper into that story, and found UCLA was involved in the investigation.It got pretty involved, and some very interesting theories were coming out. If you want the link let me know. And welcome to UM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CakeOrDeath Posted February 8, 2012 #6 Share Posted February 8, 2012 (edited) True on the bold, please don't think I am some jerk, or a negative Nancy......I just agree with certain theories out there that can explain them, and mt differ from others.. Karlis has a good point, I just posted a link on another topic regarding " The Entity ".....I started digging deeper into that story, and found UCLA was involved in the investigation.It got pretty involved, and some very interesting theories were coming out. If you want the link let me know. And welcome to UM. Sakari is a skeptic, but he is by no means as dismissive of some of our other resident skeptics. I think the "traditional" ghost phenom is a mix of culture/religious beliefs mixed with the fear of the unknown. I also think in some instances mental illness or enviromental factors. Edited February 8, 2012 by CakeOrDeath Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forestSS Posted February 8, 2012 Author #7 Share Posted February 8, 2012 (edited) Thanks for the replies. I have been looking over many of the available hypotheses/theories to explain ghosts and apparitions. What I find odd that many ghosts researchers don't want to know what a ghost is, they are just out to try and locate them. I am more interested in the explanation of why ghosts occur. Over the years I came to a conclusion that the supernatural theory ie ghosts as departed spirits does not add up, but recently I am having doubts about that, it may well be possible,, but the thing is I seek a physical explanation for the paranormal and in many cases there is strong evidence that ghosts can be explained by electomagnetism, there was also an early theory called the telepathic theory of ghosts which concluded ghosts were telepathic hallucincations the theory help to explain how more than one person at the same time could witness the same ghosts, this theory however is mostly ignored today. Theres also the stone tape theory which says ghosts as thoughtforms or some type of energy which can become trapped in physical objects and released at some point. Edited February 8, 2012 by forestSS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CakeOrDeath Posted February 9, 2012 #8 Share Posted February 9, 2012 I can't help but think that "ghosts" are created in the brain, perhaps induced by things that effect normal brain function. If they were energy, trapped in physical items and released, we would see constant occurences of the phenomena, as billions of things have perished. And if it is energy, would sentience matter? We should have squirrel energy ghosts and snail ghosts etc... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sakari Posted February 9, 2012 #9 Share Posted February 9, 2012 I can't help but think that "ghosts" are created in the brain, perhaps induced by things that effect normal brain function. If they were energy, trapped in physical items and released, we would see constant occurences of the phenomena, as billions of things have perished. And if it is energy, would sentience matter? We should have squirrel energy ghosts and snail ghosts etc... Very good point........Just the human deaths alone......And yet, not one single confirmation that Ghosts exist.( other than in the mind and movies ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vitruvian12 Posted February 9, 2012 #10 Share Posted February 9, 2012 Thanks for the replies. I have been looking over many of the available hypotheses/theories to explain ghosts and apparitions. What I find odd that many ghosts researchers don't want to know what a ghost is, they are just out to try and locate them. I am more interested in the explanation of why ghosts occur. Over the years I came to a conclusion that the supernatural theory ie ghosts as departed spirits does not add up, but recently I am having doubts about that, it may well be possible,, but the thing is I seek a physical explanation for the paranormal and in many cases there is strong evidence that ghosts can be explained by electomagnetism, there was also an early theory called the telepathic theory of ghosts which concluded ghosts were telepathic hallucincations the theory help to explain how more than one person at the same time could witness the same ghosts, this theory however is mostly ignored today. Theres also the stone tape theory which says ghosts as thoughtforms or some type of energy which can become trapped in physical objects and released at some point. Even if stone tape theory had any real basis it would only account for the recording medium. A recording on anything is useless without a playback device. What would act as the playback hardware in the stone tape theory? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
forestSS Posted February 9, 2012 Author #11 Share Posted February 9, 2012 (edited) If they were energy, trapped in physical items and released, we would see constant occurences of the phenomena, as billions of things have perished. And if it is energy, would sentience matter? We should have squirrel energy ghosts and snail ghosts etc... Yes animal ghosts insect ghosts have been reported by people. Also objects such as buses or ships have also been seen by people as ghosts. Now some people when they hear about this then become skeptical can be possible that objects such as buses can become ghosts? This is where the thoughtform theory comes in, that ghosts are some how pictures or thoughts materializing themselves either from the subjects mind or from some other source. Even if stone tape theory had any real basis it would only account for the recording medium. A recording on anything is useless without a playback device. What would act as the playback hardware in the stone tape theory? I don't know about the mechanism. The Stone Tape theory is a theory which is hard to find references for. I have searched for along time, I managed to find two researchers who advocated the Stone Tape theory, they released a couple of books about the theory in the 1970s it appears, I will order the books at some point and when I do, do a proper post over how the mechanism may work. If I can remeber correctly though, one of these researchers has linked electromagnetism to the stone tape theory, somehow PSI (in this case a ghost) is stored in electromagnetic waves and may be able to be released? I don't know about this yet, it is a theory I need to seriously research. If you see my other thread however about theories of UFOs you would see that I advocate the electromagnetic theory, infact there is a book called electric UFOs which in some of its chapters claims an electric origin for ghosts. Il go through it at some point. If the human brain is exposed to certain levels of electromagnetic activity then it can stop normal functioning of the brain and invoke altered states of consciousness and hallucinations, indeed this may explain some paranormal phenonmena. Edited February 9, 2012 by forestSS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CakeOrDeath Posted February 10, 2012 #12 Share Posted February 10, 2012 Yes animal ghosts insect ghosts have been reported by people. Also objects such as buses or ships have also been seen by people as ghosts. Now some people when they hear about this then become skeptical can be possible that objects such as buses can become ghosts? This is where the thoughtform theory comes in, that ghosts are some how pictures or thoughts materializing themselves either from the subjects mind or from some other source. I don't know about the mechanism. The Stone Tape theory is a theory which is hard to find references for. I have searched for along time, I managed to find two researchers who advocated the Stone Tape theory, they released a couple of books about the theory in the 1970s it appears, I will order the books at some point and when I do, do a proper post over how the mechanism may work. If I can remeber correctly though, one of these researchers has linked electromagnetism to the stone tape theory, somehow PSI (in this case a ghost) is stored in electromagnetic waves and may be able to be released? I don't know about this yet, it is a theory I need to seriously research. If you see my other thread however about theories of UFOs you would see that I advocate the electromagnetic theory, infact there is a book called electric UFOs which in some of its chapters claims an electric origin for ghosts. Il go through it at some point. If the human brain is exposed to certain levels of electromagnetic activity then it can stop normal functioning of the brain and invoke altered states of consciousness and hallucinations, indeed this may explain some paranormal phenonmena. I think you are getting close in the tail end of this paragraph. "Ghosts" are definitely a phenomena, I don't think everyone who claims to see a ghost is lying or a loon. I think there are probably numerous enviormental factors and forces that lend to manipulating the brain to "see" and "hear" all sorts of things that can't be rationalized. That is why I do wish science would play a bigger role, looking at the things surrounding the phenomena. I belive there is a reason certain regions are "hot spots", I think geology could probably teach us more about ghosts than parapsychology. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blueogre2 Posted February 21, 2012 #13 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Well, my two cents are that ghosts are human spirits that due to various conditions being appropriate are able to manifest in the physical world for brief periods of time. Now that being said, what most people experience are not ghosts at all but non human spirits of a not so nice disposition. As for what allows either type of spirit to be able to affect reality, I can only surmise that they use some type of unknown energy, but of course all this is making the assumption that spirits exist in any objective sense of the word. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eternus Posted February 24, 2012 #14 Share Posted February 24, 2012 (edited) i read in a book that ghosts are souls that are in a dream state like when your dreaming you are flying and during the dream it does not feel weird or strange , it feels normal , and when those who can speak with ghosts talk to them they can awake from this state and move on Edited February 24, 2012 by Eternus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wittyusernamefailed Posted February 24, 2012 #15 Share Posted February 24, 2012 As I have stated before, I am leaning towards the "wrinkle in time" theory. In that we are experiencing a sort of wormholelike effect. In which depending on the severity we can either just sense the happenings on the otherside of the "hole" ( on the weaker spectrum) or actually interact with them ( in the more severe cases). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vitruvian12 Posted February 24, 2012 #16 Share Posted February 24, 2012 As I have stated before, I am leaning towards the "wrinkle in time" theory. In that we are experiencing a sort of wormholelike effect. In which depending on the severity we can either just sense the happenings on the otherside of the "hole" ( on the weaker spectrum) or actually interact with them ( in the more severe cases). I wouldnt call that a theory. Its more along the lines of a completely baseless notion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gnostic-deity Posted February 26, 2012 #17 Share Posted February 26, 2012 As I have stated before, I am leaning towards the "wrinkle in time" theory. In that we are experiencing a sort of wormholelike effect. In which depending on the severity we can either just sense the happenings on the otherside of the "hole" ( on the weaker spectrum) or actually interact with them ( in the more severe cases). i like that. makes sense to me i guess... other wise i think its all energy. why we can see that energy sometimes, i dunno. maybe it has to do with our energies connecting with each other...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nyuk Posted February 26, 2012 #18 Share Posted February 26, 2012 Hya Ive got a completely baseless notion How bout this Ghosts are simply memories from a previous lifetime. People who see the same ghost at different times are simply remembering that person who could have known them in a previous lifetime. Well, thats it, What do you reckon ?? (please note, just a notion i have. I cannot prove it, nor shall i argue about it, or defend it) nyuk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DBunker Posted February 26, 2012 #19 Share Posted February 26, 2012 There are only one thing, in my oppinion, that explains the ghost phenomenon..... human imagination. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Volatile32 Posted March 17, 2012 #20 Share Posted March 17, 2012 First of all, I am a skeptic, but I have seen things that I can't explain. These questions brought me to this forum. I personally believe that once a person dies they go to Heaven or Hell. I guess it is my Baptist upbringing but it is what I believe. As to the OP's question, I believe that demons are all around us. They take the forms of people to give doubt and create chaos in the human world. I also believe that there are angels among people and that many sightings of "ghost" may actually be angels or demons. The truth is that we do not know what an actual angel or demon looks like. We would like to believe that angels are beautiful creatures, but we do not know. How do we not know that the Mothman may actually be an angel of death? I once heard a pastor say that the greatest power Satan has is doubt. If a demon manifest itself in the human realm as a loved one that has passed, would this reaffirm your faith or create doubt in your faith? I am sorry if this went a bit off topic, also, please don't think I am some Bible thumping fundie. This is just my personal views on what we see as ghost. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sakari Posted March 17, 2012 #21 Share Posted March 17, 2012 First of all, I am a skeptic, but I have seen things that I can't explain. These questions brought me to this forum. I personally believe that once a person dies they go to Heaven or Hell. I guess it is my Baptist upbringing but it is what I believe. As to the OP's question, I believe that demons are all around us. They take the forms of people to give doubt and create chaos in the human world. I also believe that there are angels among people and that many sightings of "ghost" may actually be angels or demons. The truth is that we do not know what an actual angel or demon looks like. We would like to believe that angels are beautiful creatures, but we do not know. How do we not know that the Mothman may actually be an angel of death? I once heard a pastor say that the greatest power Satan has is doubt. If a demon manifest itself in the human realm as a loved one that has passed, would this reaffirm your faith or create doubt in your faith? I am sorry if this went a bit off topic, also, please don't think I am some Bible thumping fundie. This is just my personal views on what we see as ghost. Thanks. You just described 90% of the population Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Volatile32 Posted March 17, 2012 #22 Share Posted March 17, 2012 You just described 90% of the population LOL, not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Socio Posted March 17, 2012 #23 Share Posted March 17, 2012 One I explantation I heard a while back was alternate time lines or realities bumping into or brushing against each other momentarily. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Socio Posted March 17, 2012 #24 Share Posted March 17, 2012 As I have stated before, I am leaning towards the "wrinkle in time" theory. In that we are experiencing a sort of wormholelike effect. In which depending on the severity we can either just sense the happenings on the otherside of the "hole" ( on the weaker spectrum) or actually interact with them ( in the more severe cases). That could possibly explain intelligent voice responses many get when trying to record them answering questions, manipulating objects like flashlights etc... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Paranormal Skeptic Posted March 23, 2012 #25 Share Posted March 23, 2012 Man I missed this place, but to answer the question - None. There is no theory that exists that prove or explain ghosts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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