Ghost appearances explained - 5 different reasons you think you saw a ghost

Many people say that they have seen a ghost. I am not saying that they didn't THINK they saw a ghost, it's just that the bodies senses are easily fooled. Here are 5 reasons that could explain a ghost sighting:

1) Paraedolia 

The mind is hard-wired to recognize faces. It is in us from babies. We need the obvious capability to recognize family and friends and identify enemies. The way a shadow or a mark sits on a wall may appear to take on a human shape. Especially when only glimpsed for a brief moment. Paraedolia is when the brain is trying to piece together the recognition factors and automatically fills in the missing or vague pieces. This happened to me as a child. I happened to be passing my parents bedroom when I swore I saw my dad in bed. I saw his head on the pillow. I went downstairs and told my mother only to be informed that my dad left for work some hours earlier. My mother was worried my dad had come home ill and gone to bed. On looking in the bedroom he wasn't there.


2) Charles Bonnet Syndrome

 Charles Bonnet Syndrome is a condition that causes patients with visual loss to have complex visual hallucinations, first described by Charles Bonnet in 1760. These hallucinations are the brain attempting to make sense of visual signals and "filling in" the missing pieces of the puzzle. In fact, not that far removed from Paraedolia. Sufferers of this condition are quite used to seeing all kinds of bizarre things that they realise just aren't there. One woman reported seeing a young man sitting on her sofa and smiling at her. She could see him in vivid detail and even described his clothing and facial features.


3) Shadows

Light can sometimes play tricks. It can throw a shadow on a wall, and dependant on where the light is coming from and what it passes across, it can cause some human shaped anomalies that the already excited mind sees as spectral.


4) Hoaxers

Yes, believe it or not, not all people are honest. OK, I am being flippant, but hoaxers have to be taken into consideration. Who amongst us hasn't pulled a prank at some time or other? With the advent of paranormal tourism some public buildings whose owners previously used to keep quiet about alleged hauntings are now shouting about it from the rooftops. There's money in them there spooks!!


5) Hallucinations

As Ebenezer Scrooge said to Marley's Ghost "There is more of gravy than of grave about you". He made the very logical connection that food and other stimuli, or indeed illness, can cause people to hallucinate. It's a well recongized fact.

To quote from another fictional character, Sherlock Holmes. "When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth". If you can say with 100% certainty that all above instances have been ruled out, or indeed the incident was also witnessed by one or more credible witness, then you have seen something that is unexplained. Not necessarily a ghost - just unexplained.