37 replies to this topic

[forestSS]

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 by forestSS, 08 February 2012 - 01:33 AM.

[Kyle Richard M.]

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.  

[Sakari]

" 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 by Sakari, 08 February 2012 - 04:01 AM.

[Karlis]

forestSS, on 08 February 2012 - 01:32 AM, said:

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

[Sakari]

Karlis, on 08 February 2012 - 09:03 AM, said:

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.

[CakeOrDeath]

Sakari, on 08 February 2012 - 05:21 PM, said:

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 by CakeOrDeath, 08 February 2012 - 09:01 PM.

[forestSS]

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 by forestSS, 08 February 2012 - 10:38 PM.

[CakeOrDeath]

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...

[Sakari]

CakeOrDeath, on 09 February 2012 - 12:10 AM, said:

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 )

[vitruvian12]

forestSS, on 08 February 2012 - 10:36 PM, said:

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?

[forestSS]

Quote

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.

vitruvian12, on 09 February 2012 - 03:08 AM, said:

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 by forestSS, 09 February 2012 - 05:43 AM.

[CakeOrDeath]

forestSS, on 09 February 2012 - 05:40 AM, said:

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.

[Blueogre2]

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.

[Eternus]

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 by Eternus, 24 February 2012 - 07:07 AM.

[wittyusernamefailed]

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).