10 Halloween Urban legends

So the original Cos-play holiday is coming.  Good old All Hallows eve.  I like it for semi creepyness.  But more Halloween is the gateway to that holiday roller coaster. Once Halloween goes by it seems like the rest of they days and nights fly by with unparalleled speed.  Soon enough you are toasting a new year and wondering just what happened to the rest of the year.  Well as a kid Halloween was one of the bang up beat all holidays.  You would get to dress up as something weird, horrific or cool and go get free candy.  Nothing better.  At that age, Christmas is light years away.  Once you are older, you're lucky if you can taste Thanksgiving's pumpkin pie before you are done opening presents.  Well this list is more about the urban legends that I remember hearing during Halloween.  I can't verify one of them and I'm not going to snopes.  Here we go...

10. melt the candy -  This one was about kids who's earth grown druid hippy parents didn't want them having any candy but they didn't want them to miss out on all of the fun of the holiday, so they would let each of their children pick out one candy item and then melt the rest in a big pot.  Sometimes instead of melting the candy would be crushed so nobody could make use of this horrible capitalist treat.   No this story didn't make any sense but it did teach me a grave disdain of granola chewing hippies.  No candy, humph!  They must be communists!

9. The cat lady - This was a local tale and a bit more involved as it required people to trespass onto a persons property to witness rows of tiny cat graves.  That's the assumption anyway.  Was I ever able to prove it?  no.   I had heard about it from those that had.  Oddly enough nearly every locality has some kind of story like this that involves someones secluded property and some very tall assumptions.  If you ever have the chance to trespass on private property, I don't recommend it. It's scary at best.  Illegal at worst and these poor people are probably not at all what you think and would just like to be left alone.

8. apple razor blades - This one has been around for ages.  The kid hater that finally gets their revenge by sliding some Remington steel razor blades into a bushel basket of red delicious and hand them out as treats to all the miscreant kids wandering around.  Looking back I keep wondering what kid would be dumb enough to take a bite of an apple without looking it over.  Not to mention the parents examining the candy for potential bombs.  The truth is, no self respecting kid would ever have seen that apple make it home.  An apple is right next to a tooth brush from your neighborhood dentist in the Parthenon of sucky Halloween treats and would probably have been thrown away...or something.

7. kidnap kids - Oh yeah I heard this one a lot growing up.  There were bands of bad people scooping up kids by the dozen and kidnapping them.  Nobody would know the difference because it was Halloween.  I have yet to hear about a kidnapping during Halloween, and if there is, I don't want to hear about it.  But honestly how many witnesses are there on the streets?  Then again, nobody ever accused a criminal of being smart.  It was because of this that I never went into anyone's house to experience peeled grape eyeballs and cold spaghetti guts or the mini hallway of terrors.  I just knew I was going to suddenly be abducted.  I envisioned some kind of giant steel cage filled with costumed kids wishing they had taken heed of their friends mothers advice.

6. old folks giving away full candy bars - If I was only the one street over I would have made a HAUL!!!  Usually the day after Halloween I would hear from my friends about some house or street full of old folks that just loved the young-ins and were giving away a kings ransom in candy.  Full size candy bars of many varieties.  Take one, Take a few!  Enjoy your youth!  For some reason I never found the Eldorado of elderly handing out packaged confections.  I was just happy to have a bag full of small candy and pixy stick dust in the bottom of the bag.

5. kids getting their candy stolen - I had heard about roaming bands of punks that were stealing kid's candy.  I had never witnessed it myself, but it seemed plausible.  Those older kids were capable of anything.  Certainly stealing from the law abiding 8 year olds of the town was not beneath them.   Once again, I had never had my lollipops purloined.  In fact the only thief of my candy was mom and dad and it was never the crap candy either.  They always went for the peanut butter cups and chocolate bars leaving me with peanut butter taffy and smarties.

4. Pop Rocks Mikey - Once pop rocks started coming on the scene, they were a big deal in the Halloween candy rounds.  They were rare and wonderful.  If you did happen to get any, you would immediately hear the inaccurate tale of Mikey the kid from the life cereal commercials and how after eating more than his fair share of pop rocks he downed several carbonated soft drinks the name of the brand escapes me.  Close after he would have to be rushed to the hospital because his stomach exploded like he had an alien exchange student in his small intestine.  Never happened.  Thanks to one of the very first Mythbusters shows this was proven to be particularly impossible.  Great story though.

3. Near Death Ghost experiences - What better time to trot out the Halloween themed story about a ghost or someone you knew that was playing with a ouija board or holding a seance?  My dad had several he liked to entertain us kids with.  One he told was of a local group of 3 friends that decided to go into an abandoned house to play with a parker brothers brand ouija board.  By the end of the night.  They were all hospitalized and were unable to say anything about the horrors witnessed, but they all had shock white hair from the experience.  Oh yeah, it was a chiller.  Dad didn't appreciate a lot of followup questions about a lot of his stories, so we took him at his word.  It was vivid enough that I still remembered the images I had imagined as a kid of these poor shocked kids that were foolish enough to play with the Devil's Telegraph.

2. LSD Candy - This was the more modern version of the razor blade apple.  It was lsd laced candy.  Since LSD was often ingested on a sugar cube, why not on candy?  Once again, hippies ruin everything.

1. Hot Pennies - Along with the razor blade apples I had heard of bitter old people only scant days away from their final death rattling breath that wished nothing but ill for the youth.  The tale goes that they would heat up stacks of pennies and put them in the kids bags.  The pennies were so hot that they would melt the candy and go right through the plastic candy bag rendering it some kind of time lapsed pinata.  I'm sure they would peer out their window and laugh their bitter cold laugh as kids tried to collect their nights booty as it was spilling out into the street.  Never witnessed, but heard nearly every year.

Once again, I thought maybe this was it.  But then another idea crept into my addled brain.  Who knows?  maybe it will happen again in 15 days.  Come back and find out!

10 things that might happen in the afterlife.

Heaven and Hell.  These are the original black and white of life.  One is the ultimate reward and the other is the ultimate punishment.  Has anyone ever been there?  Not as far as we know.  There are of course no end of people that are willing to tell us what it is like, so I figure what the hell...umm, I mean heck, I'll try to divine the nature of both areas.  Better yet, I'll just tell you some of the possibilities that may await us on the other side.

10.  A LOT of surprised people - Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, and all of their sister cities are places for people that are mostly good or mostly bad, or mostly undecided.  Assuming you go to Heaven, there will be a lot of people there that you were certain would not belong there.  Conversely Hell will have a lot of inhabitants that are surprised that they are there.  The difference is of course the realizations of Heaven are usually extrospective and realizations in Hell are mostly introspective.

9.  Nothing - Sure you believe in an afterlife full of one thing or another, but there IS the possibility that once the lights go out, that's it, nothing else.  Yes, I know, there are lots of near death experiences and ghostly EVP's that would point to our spirit going on to ethereal greatness after we shuffle off this mortal coil, but how about the big void.  You won't be there to be bored so it won't be THAT big a deal.








8.  Haunting something - So instead of an ACTUAL afterlife, maybe there is just a bunch of ghost friendly haunting sites.  Possible haunting areas do NOT include rickety old homes, abandoned schools, or defunct mental institutions.  Who wants to hang around there forever?  How about the Haunted house at Disneyland?  They would LOVE to see some actual haunting mixed into those 999 happy haunts.  How about an airport frequent fliers club?  That would be pretty swank.  You could mess with their free wireless internet access.

7.  Field Trips! - In order to make heaven and hell what they are supposed to be; supremely enjoyable and supremely miserable.  You really have to have a break from your misery or your rapture in order to fully appreciate the state you are in.  So every so often the people from heaven have an exchange program with the people from hell so they can experience each others state of being.  After a while they return to their regularly scheduled afterlife and they can think alternatively 'Wow, this heavenly stuff is gosh darn great!'  or 'Crap I hate this place.  I forgot how much I hated it here.'.  Of course this may not be true at all if dying changes our basic nature such that we can only feel misery or joy.  If that's the case then we can all live through eternity right next to each other.

6.  Compare ends - Assuming you get to talk to other people that have passed on, I imagine the conversation at the post life cafeteria would sound something like this:
Dead guy 1: 'So how did you end up...you know...'.
Dead guy 2: 'Dying?  Oh, I died of consumption.  Long and slow, but it got the job done'
Dead guy 1: 'Oh, Tuberculosis?  Yeah, they all but wiped that out later'
Dead guy 2: 'Yeah, I know, but if it isn't one thing...'
Dead guy 1: 'Sure'
Dead guy 2: 'So how was yours?'
Dead guy 1: 'Oh, I was stung to death by giant Japanese wasps'
Dead guy 2: 'WHAT?!?  Really?  That's horrible'
Dead guy 1: 'Tell me about it...Anyway, pretty glad that's over with.'

5.  No pain mostly - Since the mortal human body is designed to feel pain as a protective measure against self destruction, I'm not sure what reason an immortal body would have to feel pain, other than punitive punishment.  I assume there would be no pain like we know it.   Since Hell is a pretty varied place depending on what you believe I couldn't say if you feel pain or not.  Most religions seem to think it's either a place where you will suffer the punishment which I assume means pain.  But will your back keep bothering you?  How about that bad knee?  That one tooth that never really felt right?  I guess if you are continually being consumed in a lake of brimstone you won't have to worry about those things anymore either.   Heaven of course converts the pain of those suffering in hell to pleasant mists and refreshing beverages for you to consume in your righteousness.  I just made that part up.  But I think it sounds good.

4.  No Church! - One way or another, Hell or Heaven.  You are already there so no more church!  No more listening to someone drone on about something they really don't know any more than you do because now you all know the same thing!  Doesn't matter how it ends.  Of course that's one less thing for the pious to look down their noses at you for, but that's ok, they'll have lots of other stuff.



3.  No food - Depending on the state of the afterlife, it seems that we won't be taking our mortal baggage along with us.  Assuming that is the case, It seems that there won't be any food because you won't be hungry.  Kind of a disappointment really because I really like food.  Of course the only reason I like food is because I'm mortal and my body employs mechanisms that make me hungry and then enjoy food so I will stay alive.  Once I'm dead.  I suspect that food will just look disgusting to me.



2.  No Holidays - I assume that since Heaven doesn't revolve around anything and nothing revolves around it, I suspect that there will be no holidays in the afterlife.  Unless of course we end up on Planet Heaven and Planet Hell.  Some theologies suggest that heaven is actually right here on earth.  In which case, there will be holidays.  But instead you will probably celebrate your death day.  Happy Death Day!  How long have you been dead?  Who cares, because that number can get really high.


1.  Everyone is roughly the same age - Let's assume for a moment that when you die, you maintain some kind of human form.  Ok.  Well if you are going to heaven, or you are arriving there in the same state that you left earth?  Not bloody likely.  You'll probably arrive somewhere in your late 20's.  That means everyone that gets there is there in their late 20's.  You will NEVER recognize your grandma and a lot of other people you left back on earth.  It will be a lot like a high school reunion in reverse.



Just some thoughts.  of course they aren't verifiable.  But I've never claimed this to be a 100% factual blog.  For that you need to go to Wikipedia...wait a minute...

See you in 15 days.

10 Paranormal things.

It's Halloween time again.  Time for all things creepy to take center stage and hog all the spotlights.  There is a word for all the things we like to think about around Halloween.  it's called the PARANORMAL.  Para from the french parachute and normal from the American abnormal.  Literally means 'I think you pulled that story out of your backside'.  Some people are unaware of all of the OTHER things that are also classified as paranormal and might like to broaden their Halloween horizons.

to wit and not in any particular order...

10. Ghosts - For me, this is what Halloween is all about.  I love a good ghost story.  It's the apex of mans innate fear of his own mortality.  The desperate hope for some existence albeit tortured, beyond this one.  Do I believe in an afterlife?  Yes, I suppose I do.  The only thing I know about it, is that it's completely different than anything anyone has ever thought of in our current mortal state.  I have written several blogs covering ghosts.  I hope you'll re-read them.   In short.  I don't believe in them, and yet I really do enjoy the idea of ghosts.  At this point I'm more inclined to believe that they are images from parallel realities that somehow overlap into our own.  Yeah, far fetched I know.

9. Psychic Phenomenon - I've had my hand at being psychic.  I'm pretty good at it. There are a lot of elements to psychic phenomenon though, clairvoyance is just one among many.  There is the medium that can contact the ghosts mentioned above.  there are those called 'sensitive' that can sense influences from an unseen world.  Distance viewing, the ability to project ones consciousness across vast distances, was even experimented with by military organizations in several countries.  They all involve our brain.  The problem is, the results are not clinically reproducible   This doesn't mean they can't happen, it just means it can't happen on any kind of measurable scale on demand.  As a result it also opens up the field to all kinds of fraudulent fortune tellers and mentalists.

8. UFO's - Unidentified Flying Objects.  In case you were living under a rock, or on board a spaceship that would like a better, more informed view into human societal relationships.  As a race, we humans are more and more intrigued with the idea that intelligent life from outer space is not only interested in us, but is interested in helping us.  I've discussed the elements and characteristics of Aliens in a separate blog.  Anything that is flying that you can't identify is technically a UFO.  Don't forget the UFO's little sister the USO.  Unidentified Sea Object.  these are ostensibly not aliens, but a race we don't run into much because they are from the bottom of the ocean.  They create craft that can interact with us, but they find us to be both violent and stupid and would rather not have anything to do with us.  Men in Black also fall under this heading.  Like the movie, these ill dressed aliens go around erasing peoples memories about extra terrestrials but not with nifty technology (as far as we know), but with vague threats and sinister intent.  Most sighting of UFO's will include some kind of resume about the viewer having been around a lot of airplanes and that was not like any airplane THEY'VE ever seen.  Of course we later come to find that 99% of all UFO sightings end up being military experimental stuff.  Is it because they are working in conjunction with aliens?!  maybe.  They aren't telling.

7. Exo-Biology - This covers Big Foot, the Yeti, the Loch Ness Monster, Chupacabra, Gorilla's and Orangutans.  What's that you say?  We've verified the existence of the last 2?  Yeah, I guess we have.  So to say that the others aren't possible is really kind of ignorant of the fact that we simply haven't discovered ALL of the animals on our little blue ball yet.  Any kind of strange animal that has more fancy and folklore about it than fact falls under this category.  Normally, if we can't identify it or capture or kill it, we don't believe it exists.  I presume pet ghosts also fall under this category, though I'm not really sure.  I think there are explanations for all of these creatures (the living ones anyway).

6. Religion - Hey now Mark, you are treading on thin ice here.  Yes I probably am.  But ultimately Religion often asks believers to assume certain fantastic events to be fact without evidence as we know it, but simply through faith.  As an exercise, take a good hard look at the deep religious philosophy of a religion that is not your own.  It seems strange doesn't it?  There are paranormal events that claim to occur in the name of religion all the time.  One of the more fantastic ones involve the liquification of a mass of solid holy blood during a ceremony.  For Christians, the bible itself contains many tales of paranormal events that can only be explained by the 'Hand of God'.  Even within Christianity, if you've ever attended a service of a church that is not your particular denomination, it all seems kind of strange, doesn't it?

5. Zombies. - These come in a separate place because They are kind of in vogue these days.  The idea that somehow the person that you once were now is a flesh/brain eating being that only knows to continually search for food. The idea that this could happen at all is ludicrous.  A zombie of of course is a human body that has been taken over by either a magic or parasite rendering the individual personality of the person inside that body to be dead.  The body now only hunts for brains/human flesh.  The old version of zombie just meant someone that was under the control of someone else.    On the other hand, there are some strange practices that involve a near trans like state of the individual (which usually involves some kind of mind altering drug) that makes them very suggestible.  Granted this is not the brain slurping zombie we all know and love, but some definitions change over time.

4. De Ja Vu - This is in a separate category because we've all experienced this.  The idea that you have already experienced an event and you already know what is going to happen next.  The feeling is so vivid that you could swear you know what will happen.  I don't have a problem with this.  I'm just not sure what to make of it.  My dad used to say that when you experience it, it means you are on the right track.  I'm really not sure what THAT means either.  I think that your brain optimizes similar experiences and sometimes gets it wrong.  some neurons fire that shouldn't and bingo, instant memory of something that hasn't happened yet.

3. Spontaneous Human Combustion - When I was a wee lad of tender years, this one really freaked me out. The idea the people could just burst into flame and turn to ash without disturbing their surroundings spooked me.  People would be found as a 1/2 burned pile of ash but with a leg or arm still intact. How does that work?! Weird.  It doesn't seem to happen as much anymore.  Probably because people are used to calling for help when they find themselves on fire now.  Maybe it was rude to ask for assistance back then.

2. Vampires - This doesn't fall under exobiology, nor does it fall under Psychic phenomenon.  If anything, it falls under religion and yet it's not a good fit there either.  Vampires like zombies are created through contact with other Vampires, but the Idea behind this fictional species is that you are either food or eventually enslaved by the Vampire that has bitten you.  You essentially become a part of their down line in a blood related multilevel marketing scheme.  They have lots of powers and in some cases will actually sparkle, much to their chagrin.  They bite their victims and suck/eat their blood.  If they feel so inclined, they will turn you into a vampire, otherwise, they just kill you.  There ARE some real life counterparts to this that aren't nearly as fantastic.  They mostly seem to be overly dramatic people that really want to stand out with the other people that stand out like them.


1. Politics - This has elements of nearly everything above.  The Candidates appear to be both alien and born and raised here.  They haunt your TV with ads like only the most annoying poltergeist would dare.  You believe you've seen them all before saying the same things, because you have De Ja yuck.  They appear to be under the slavish control of their respective parties like zombies.  Like religion, they would like the faithful in their party to ignore the problems and focus on the good parts of the candidate.  After you've seen enough of their commercials, you would rather spontaneously combust than see another one.


As always, thanks for reading!

10 ways to convince people you've seen a ghost

I've said it before, I'll say it again.  I don't believe in ghosts.  But I really like the idea of ghosts.  It's very entertaining.  The whole idea that you can come back and annoy people when you are no longer alive is really very appealing.  See the world, get revenge,  find out secrets.  A whole world of amusement is open to the dead.

I realized that getting people to believe that you have seen a ghost requires extra things that will sway them to your ghostly point of view.  These are tips that will help you convince other people that you have seen, are seeing, or will see ghosts.  Maybe you'll get your own cable TV show, who knows?

10. - Yell a lot - Nobody will believe you saw a ghost right then and there unless you yell like you've just been stung by a giant bee.  Say things like 'Holy crap, did you see that?' and 'I can't believe what I saw'.  Then tell them whatever you like about the ghost you just saw.

9. - Claim to be a skeptic - This is such a weird phenomenon. For some reason we are more likely to believe someone that is unaffiliated with the thing they are talking about.  So if you are trying to convince someone that you have seen something otherworldly you should establish that you are a skeptic beforehand.  It's advisable to set this up with enough distance between you and the ghost story that it wouldn't be considered a preface.  Otherwise you risk them not believing you to be a skeptic and therefore believe that you are just another flighty ghost story person.

8. - Provenance is everything - I love the antiques road show.  watch it for any length of time and you learn that the story around and authentication of a particular item is at least as important as the item itself.  Got an old sword from the Civil war?  probably worth 500 bucks.  Got an old sword from the civil war that has DNA evidence of Robert E. Lee on it ?  now it's 50,000 bucks (the aforementioned example is not a quote.  Ask Lee's ghost).  So if you know who lived in a rickety old house and you can document that someone was murdered there or committed suicide then (for some reason) we know that it's much more likely to have ghosts in it and is therefore much more believable.  In fact, I don't know any of any haunting that doesn't have a good back story.

7. - Whisper - Ok, yes I did say yell a lot, but that was if you are seeing a ghost now.  If you are going to tell a story about a ghost you've seen before, you need to lower your voice to a hoarse whisper.  Give people a reason to listen.  Whispering ALSO has the added benefit of allowing people to hear background noises while you are telling your tale of the wierd.

6. - Don't play with dangerous toys, you'll see a ghost - For some reason ghosts and the devil seems to go hand in hand.  A ghost story gains stature if you were having a seance, or maybe playing with a oui-ja board before hand.  These tools of dubious effectiveness are often assumed to have at least a little influence in seeing something paranormal.  For some reason people still believe that devices will illicit connection to the spirit world and so if you preface your story with 'me and some friends were playing with a deck of Tarot cards one night...' Your story will have 7% more credence.

5. - Did you hear that? - I touched on this with the first element.  It's important to verify any ghost sighting with someone else to establish a witness.  Never say what you heard right off, let them say that so you can agree with it.  That way 2 of you have heard something otherworldly.  Open ended statements like 'Is it just me, or did it get colder in here?','Can you hear something?'.  On a side note, this is also a very good way to cover up intestinal distress...'I think I heard something.'

4. EVP - Electronic Voice Phenomenon is those ghosts trying to talk to you.  People have figured that Ghosts are trying to talk to us so as early as Thomas Edison there have been inventions to capture ghosts talking.   What do they have to say?  oh, lots of things like 'get out' and 'baloney' and 'your ratings suck'  Actually it appears that whatever they are trying to say is insignificant compared to what you think they said.  Go back to the old family tape recordings and you'll hear all kinds of background noise.  Isolate any of those noises and play with the speed and the frequency of the sound and eventually you'll hear aunt Tilley saying 'meatloaf' just to be part of the family reunion.  People LOVE these! and they add a lot to your story.

3. - Ghost cams! - Even more than EVP's people really love seeing things on camera's.  Since ghosts themselves don't like to show up on camera very often, we have a new video phenomenon called ORBS.  These are little balls of UNEXPLAINED light that float around in the picture.  Take a series of pictures anywhere with a digital camera and look at it on your computer.  Surprise, you'll find some little orbs in there somewhere in one or two of the pictures.  These are ghosts because they could not be anything else.  Of course if you can actually film a real ghost doing something like flipping you off that would be even more convincing.

2. - Temperature readings - Ghosts need power to operate just like we do.  Since they can't eat or get fat, they have to take the power directly out of the air.  When a ghost is getting ready to manifest itself, you'll feel the area around you getting colder as the ghost in question saps the area of energy.  Get some thermal readings of actual temperature around you and there is EVIDENCE.  If it gets colder around you.  It MUST BE A GHOST!

1.- Have a prop - I used to have a haunted TV.  It was freaky.  You would be watching TV and all of the sudden it would start changing channels and then it would stop on some other channel.  Sometimes it would re-scan the channels or turn the TV off all together.  I don't know what departed individual decided to use my TV as a conduit to the living, but it was really annoying.  Oddly enough, once they stopped construction down the street, my TV stopped being haunted.  So if I am telling a good ghost story while in the area of this TV, it might suddenly turn on or change channels and EVERYTHING would be immediately verified as true.






I'm not saying that any of these things prove or disprove the existence of spirits.  I'm saying that if you want someone to believe you about ghosts, you should use some of these things to help you.  This list is by no means exhaustive but try some out the next time you are out by a camp fire.

top 10 things ghosts might really be instead of ghosts

I'm writing this entry because my other blog "Reasons why ghosts don't exist" is by far my most popular entry.  I want to see if this will give it some competition.

The other thing is, it seems that any time you get really scared of something, it turns out to be nothing at all.  And then you're scared of that.  We are just a race of sissy's.

10.  A low thumping noise - I've mentioned this before, but it's really true.  A low thump at a certain frequency will make you automatically think there is someone else in the room.  of course there isn't, but you will think they are and furthermore you will think they are up to no good.  All you need is the right frequency.  After that, it's easy.

9. Your overactive imagination - Me, alone, reading a book about UFO abductions/Ghosts/Bigfoot.  Loch Ness Not so much since I was never anywhere near large bodies of water housing surviving plesiosaurs.  Every creek in the house was someone looking to abduct me, I was sure of it.  I would hunker down under my blanket and make a tunnel to breathe out of.

8.  Do not take while operating heavy machinery - If you are taking some medications, it's possible that you will be inclined to see things.  Including but not exclusively ghosts.  You might see garden gnomes or gremlins as well.  If you are on something, you shouldn't really believe your eyes.

7.  But they said these were sleeping pills! - Kind of like above but in this case you might be seeing someone that has taken sleeping pills and is now in some state of zombification.  Sleep walkers are just as creepy as ghosts.  Even more so because they are REAL.  That glassy stare.  That vacant look.  EEEEEEEK!

6.  What time is it...HOLY CRAP! - If you are up really late and you are really tired, you will be able to start seeing things. It puts you out of the running for believable ghost story.

5.  Just one more for the road - I swear 1/2 of the ghost stories start out with I drank 1 more for the road and then I started walking home.  Then a woman approached me in old looking clothes.  And the story continues from there any one of several.

4.  I love sleep overs! - And so do ghost stories.  Mass hallucinations?  Mass Hysteria?  It's all possible.  If you were exposed to a bunch of 12 year old girls on a sleep over, you have probably been regaled with the tales of a ghost story or two at least.











3.  Who left the TV on?!? - If you really don't think the TV is on and you wake up hearing it.  it will FREAK YOU OUT.  But it's just the TV.  OR it's the ghosts watching TV because they are waiting for you to wake up.








2.  Scientists trying to contact you from another dimension. - Hey, don't rule this out.  Maybe the scientists are trying to contact you through a wormhole or dimensional doorway.  Freaky.  So don't be afraid, you are going to be advancing science!

1.  What's family for?  well I hope more than practical jokes! - I really wonder how many 'ghosts' are in fact your siblings trying to pull a halloween fast one on you.  Hey, it happened to the brady bunch on several occasions.