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.

10 Things that will NEVER be fair

Fair, what a concept.  First I think it would be fair to go over a couple of definitions of fair.  The definition of fair is behavior in accordance with the rules.  The popular definition is that all will be treated the same way in the same manner.   In that way, I'll list a few things that just aren't fair.

10. Life - Ok, lets just get this one out of the way first.  This has been said by parents to children since time began.  The consistent reply to every young persons wail of 'That's not fair!'  Nothing about life is fair, and yet life follows cause and effect and we must deal with it as best we can.  Everything else that follows is defacto contained within life, but we hear this one so often that I had to mention it.

9. Talent - I'm good at a few things but I'm not great at any of them.  I can not think of one thing that I am better at than anyone I know.  I know other people that are very likely better than anyone THEY know at certain things.  After a while I came to realize that there is really no such thing as Talent.  Instead there is interest and drive.  If you work at anything long and hard enough then you will be as good as you can be at that thing.  It may not be possible that you can be the best ever at anything.  Some other people may have better faculties to expand their interests further than you can.  So if they work at it just as long as you do, they will be better when the limits of your mind and body have been met.  No fair.  I have to take solace in the fact that no matter what it is you are good at, there is only one person on the earth at any one time that can be the BEST at it.  Out of billions of people, it COULD be you, but it probably isn't.








8.  Luck - Lady luck is a capricious wench.  I have considered myself both lucky and unlucky as most have.  I think for some reason this is more about how you view the circumstances of your life.  When I look at things on an piece by piece basis I think I'm not lucky at all.  If there is a random element in a game that will determine if I win or lose, I will more often remember the times that things didn't pan out for me.  I still believe that the distribution of random numbers is still statistically straight and all things even out.  On the other hand on a more macro basis I consider myself very lucky,.  I have a great family, I have a great job, I live within my means and I have hobbies I enjoy and am able to do (this blog among them).  How much more lucky do I need to be?!  No fair indeed.  Have you ever noticed that not only is Luck a lady, but it's a Lady that sings when everything is over?  hmmm...

7.  Produce. - This little game we play at the Grocery store is pretty interesting.  When we pick out fruits and vegetables we look at the color, we poke and prod and we try to find the best bits that are available, but the skin of the fruit doesn't necessarily tell us if its good.  Sometimes you get the best looking apple that is just pithy and sour.  No fair!





6.  Technology - This is a horribly unfair thing in life that has really only afflicted us with it's crooked dealings recently.  It seems that every time we buy and learn new technology it gets replaced with something 'better'.  The one I had, well that's no longer really useful at all.  Even though 3 years ago it was the peak of it's advancement.  Just once I'd like to be able to use some technology until it wears out instead of have to replace it because it's simply no longer useful.  No fair!

5.  People - We are taught from a young age to share and play fair for the most part.  The truth is, people are inherently unfair in their tastes.  Lets look at pop music v.s. any specific music that you tend to like.  Pop music is universally decried as crap by people and yet it is what sells the most.  Meanwhile the 'good' music you like is there only because of the bullheadedness of the artists.  Of course we are talking about individual taste.  On a more difficult note people often lie cheat and steal.  It's who we are.  We are unfair.  Hopefully, we try individually to be more fair and thereby make the world a little better place.

4.  Traffic Fines - This isn't universal, but Traffic tickets don't really seem to be fair at several points during their application.  Depending on the infraction it seems that the law is being applied unfairly at the start.  Some people always get the ticket and some people get out of the ticket.  Then you get this arbitrary fee based on your infraction based on the city you are in.  This is not fair because the money you need to pay may or may not be a deterrent to the law you've broken.  Lets take speeding.  I speed.  You speed.  We all speed.  Some people don't and they usually clog traffic with their constant law adherence.  When we get a ticket the fee will remain the same for everyone that broke the law.  Well if I'm a millionaire paying a 250$ fine is not much more than an annoyance.  If i'm a single mother of 4, that ticket is going to really hurt.  So what we are saying by our traffic penalties is that we want to keep the poor safe?  I guess that's noble, though inadvertently so.   Some states and countries actually make your speeding ticket a percentage of your income.  now THAT would hurt in the same fashion no matter who you are.  But it's still no fair.


3.  Cellphones - These aren't fair to people with fat fingers.












2.  Rebates - I hate rebates, they are very unfair.  For those of you that have shopping done for you, a rebate is a way to discount a product, but not really.  You buy something at full price and then you take the rebate certificate and study it.  After careful study, you will find that you need Proof of purchase as well as your receipt (another proof of purchase) and a picture of the store that you bought it from.  A picture of you opening the product so we can see that it was used and not resold on ebay.  A link to ebay with that item at the time you sent in the rebate showing that you didn't sell the item on ebay.  A ridiculously large manila envelope with environmentally friendly adhesive in which to post all of these items.  THEN,  send all of these things in to the rebate fulfillment department that is usually somewhere in New Mexico postmarked no later than 15 days but not before 7 days from the date on your receipt.  Between 4 and 20 weeks you can expect your rebate to be denied for some reason.  The most likely reason being that they didn't want to pay it in the first place and now it's too late to try to get your money so you will hopefully give up.  Otherwise, you will get your 4 dollar rebate on that crate of facial tissues.

1.  Working for the man - If you are self employed, just think of this as a top 9 list.  If you work for someone though, you should understand that as good as the company is that you are working for, they are paying you less than the money they make from your services.  Sometimes a LOT less.  There are those that would argue that since you have the security of a regular paycheck, you will accept less in payment.  That would be true if your job were TRULY secure.  The last 5 years have shown us that no job is particularly secure.





A new year dawns.  I really can't believe I've written this blog for as long as I have, but reading the last couple of entries, it seems to be rather apparent.  Keep reading!  tell your friends!  Thanks!!!  And Happy New Year!