Paranormal stuff you believe

I keep an open mind... but if any of those things exist, they lose the "para" as far as I'm concerned.

The belief that intelligent alien life exists somewhere else in the universe is not a paranormal belief. Plenty of scientists and perfectly rational people believe it's probable. If you believe they're visiting us, or moreover, abducting us for study, that's a different story.

Exactly, yeah.

I believe Bigfoot (Bigfeet? Sasquatches?) did indeed roam the North American wilderness at least until the 20th century. But they'll all probably die out before we see one for good.

I apply pretty much the same logic (they're real, but probably extensively died out without being properly "discovered" by the time 2000 rolled around) to a handful of cryptids.

And I'd cross out ghosts quickly if it weren't for some freaky personal experiences that I still haven't figured out. And no, I'm not religious or anything, so there's no overt outside spiritual influence keeping me on the fence.

I absolutely love paranormal subjects, and cryptozoology (sp?). I'm like the Ghostbusters commercial, "I'm ready to believe you."

I just find the shit fascinating. Starting with elementary I would go to the school and local library and check out books on ghosts, aliens, Nessie, anything I could get my hands on.

I don't necessarily believe everything though. I have a bit of a hard time thinking Champ or Nessie are alive. Fairly small bodies of water, way too many people searching for them. I'm not sure about aliens visiting the earth. I just don't believe any government, from another universe or earth, can keep such a thing quiet. Even lifeforms that can create galaxy hopping spaceships probably has a horribly inept government.

Psychics I believe in. Both the see the future and the move a table across a room kind.

Aliens are a possibility, just based on our own existence and the vastness of the universe.

Cryptids (Bigfoot, Nessie, etc) don't exist until there is real proof otherwise. After sonar and other tests, I don't see how any rational person could believe in water beasties.

Ghosts--no compelling evidence. EVPs etc are odd occurances that could have many other causes. They aren't necessarily ghosts. Anecdotal evidence can just be tossed out because they are based on feelings, impressions and other vagaries. There is nothing concrete there.

Psychics--no. Any psychics I have ever seen are intentionally vague and will do all sorts of contortions to say that what they said came to pass. My sister-in-law thinks she's psychic when ever she was "just thinking of you" when you called. This is just people trying to think their special when they are just average.

I am especially pissed at police psychics who muddy the waters and only succeed in causing confusion and make it more difficult for the suspect to be caught. Fuck those people. Feel special and get attention on your own time.

Not to suggest that I am not entertained by this stuff. I am also entertained by Hobbits, werewolves and the occasional Jedi. I just don't believe that they're real.

Aliens: Not paranormal. They definitely exist but have much better things to do than dissect cows and probe asses.

Bigfoot: Basically all of cryptozoology is bullshit. Except for the Chupacabra.

Ghosts: Definitely bullshit.

So I guess you could say I don't believe in anything paranormal.

Except for the Chupacabra.

Aliens should exist. Psychics = most of them are bullshit, but having first hand experience with a real one, i can say they do exist and it fascinates me.

I think all of those are interesting subjects and I eat them all up. Too bad none of them exist. and if there is life on other planets, can't imagine it's much more than bacteria or something.

Psychics, yes. Aliens, yes. Ghosts, not so much, but anyone who's spent a significant amount of time in a place where people have died relatively recently know that no matter how sterile or unassuming the place, *something* is off.

Story time!

Jedi - yes.

Ghosts - Yes. Too much weird stuff happened within the first year that my brother died for me to not believe in ghosts.

Psychic - Yes to this too. I had a very weird thing happen while seeing a psychic that made me think it wasn't coincidental.

It really all depends how we're going to define "psychic." I believe that there are some very sensitive, very intuitive people out there, but I'm not quite sure what I want to call it.

I was raised by parents from New England. As such, I also have a healthy respect for witches that I can't quite shake. Not ladies with pointy hats and brooms, but, again, there are some very sensitive, very intuitive people out there and some of them grow a lot of herbs in their yard and hang out with weird little cats. The Blair Witch Project kept me awake for two days. I am aware that this makes me a wuss, but there's very little I can do about it.

I saw The Blair Witch project in the middle of the night at a drive-in that was located in the middle of the woods. I was bored out of my mind. I think this means that I have no imagination.

Anyways, I believe in none of these things, save for the existence of intelligent life somewhere else in the universe. I don't believe it visits us.

Zooey makes a very interesting point about psychics, though. A genius at body language, pattern recognition, and just a few other skills could probably tell us things about ourselves that we wouldn't expect.

Should we go ahead and make this the "My Paranormal Experience" thread as well?

I've had two experiences that have led me to believe in ghosts, and probably don't come across worth a damn in print. I think the first is more narrative, and less fear, so I'll share it.

I was 5 years old, and we had recently moved to the Dallas/Fort Worth area. We had a really modest home, not very big at all, and in one hallway were the doors to every bedroom and bathroom in the house. It couldn't have been longer than 2 rooms. My parents had put my Atari 2600 (Anyone remember a game called Stargate?) in their bedroom. I was in there one evening playing away as always, and for some reason I had to stop and get into the living room with my parents right away. I don't remember if I feared something, or felt something, but I know I had to get out.

So I went to walk down the hallway, and I got about 3 steps out the door and collapsed to my hands and knees. I immediately felt choking on my neck, and something pulling my head back. Whatever was happening it did NOT want me to get to the living room. I kept pushing through trying to get to my folks, and eventually I poked my head around the corner of the hallway and collapsed fully on my chest. Of course my mom came running up to find out what was wrong with me, and I have never told them what I "felt" but my mom thought I had fallen and hit my neck somehow on a table or my bed frame because I had bruising around my neck.

When it comes to psychics, I tend to think of that South Park episode when they mocked that beyond the living guy. Psychics only tell you what you are wanting to hear.

Plenty of unexplained phenomena out there in the natural world. Love reading new theories and explanations for what occurs naturally.

Yes, that's mostly the case.
Most of them are fake and they just scam people. Most of them.

Tati, I'd like to hear your experience. I doubt it'll change my mind, but I'm not going to try to change yours, either.

Frankly, I'm in a rotten mood today (not that that's anyone else's problem, but I'm just sayin'), so the first person who chimes in with "You know that probably was just the wind and not your brother" is going to get fucking punched. So, although I do think that's a good idea for the thread, Billy, I'm gonna bow out of the conversation for the time being - maybe another day.

Lets just say that i have a relative that can see things. I'm not talking about reading your body language or your reactions to things in person either. I can call her up, tell her the name of a person, and she will describe this person from head to toe without even knowing who it is. She has described homes, cars, situations, people, from way back and they've all come to fruition. She will even tell you the person's mannerisms, their problems, and all this stuff. And it's even stronger if you are in front of her. I've taken friends to meet her and moments after being introduced, she was talking about stuff that i was even unaware about my friends.

It literally fascinates me. Because i am an agnostic person and i can't explain it. But i can't deny what I've experienced either.

Aliens - absolutely. I don't know if they visit here, I like to think they do. Because what the hell were those Meso-American natives worshipping anyways? There just has to be something else out there. Has. To. Be. I guess my mind would refuse to hear otherwise.

Cryptids - eh, unsure. But hey, they just found like...150,000 gorillas in the Congo, so maybe they're just really, really good at hiding.

Ghosts - I can believe there are ghosts out there. I've never experienced the presence of one, though. Same can be said of psychics, though I imagine there are far more shucksters than there are real ones.

And magic - no. It's just cleverly masked science, to paraphrase Kevin Spacey. But that is not to say that weird shit doesn't happen, it just hasn't been explained scientifically yet.

I wish Sasquatch was real.

Jersey Devil!

I believe fifty-dollar bills are bad luck.

Give me yours. I want all the bad luck I can get.

Yeah, I am expecting that as well, so I'm keeping the second story to myself. It's no less convincing to me, but I don't need a bunch of Armchair Venkman's being condescending about it. And smile, at least you're not in Mauritania!

I wonder how many NJ chewers really believe in the New Jersey Devil?

Just go to the Short Hills Mall, they're fucking everywhere!

Oh...you mean like, the actual Jersey Devil...thought you were talking about airheaded Jersey girls who will literally suck the soul from you.

Yeah, I mean the actual Jersey Devil.

In that case I'll say that I enjoyed The Last Broadcast but know very little else on the subject.

Fair enough, all I have is that I think there was a Ghostbusters: Extreme episode about it. I think.

I can say that growing up with the "legend" when I was a kid, it still kind of creeps me out as an adult. But I don't know if that's so much believing, as it is that sense of fear from when I was little. I can say for sure that when I was a kid, that was the surest way to get me in the house once it got dark out, even if I was in my own yard - the thought that the Jersey Devil might be nearby. The only night that felt safe out in the dark was Halloween, and that was because we were in bunches, on the streets and not near the woods, and generally home by 8 PM.

What's interesting is I bet not a lot of people know that Jersey has some real rural areas.

You know, I was forced to visit Jersey once and didn't think much of the experience. This, however, leads me to want to see what these malls you speak of are like.

Are you from the Pine Barrens area, Lisa? I was under the impression that was that horrid chimera/harpy thing's main hangout.

Yup - I mean, it's a weird state, because you can live right by the woods and right by the seashore all at the same time - NJ is funky that way. I grew up about five minutes from Atlantic City, but in a more wooded suburb. If you heard about the Jersey Devil and you lived with even some smallish woods near your house? From grades 1st through 8th, that was like a fucking heart attack waiting to happen as soon as it got dark outside and you heard something weird in the trees.
No, I was about five minutes outside of AC, but like I said - it's a weird little state in that you can have little wooded areas that close to the shore. The Pine Barrens were it's hang out supposedly, but that didn't matter if you even had a small forestly area near you, plus an active imagination, plus had heard the story about the Jersey Devil chapter and verse as a kid. Or if you hung out with kids who were further from the shore, and were consequently over their houses alot - my best friend in grade school lived a little further inland, so she had more trees surrounding her. My cousins lived in Northfield, probably a five minute drive from Atlantic City, but had woods behind their house. We'd venture into them a bit during the day, but once it got dark, we'd haul ass back to my aunt and uncle's house as fast as we could.

Aliens: Has to be something out there somewhere, but they didn't have a hand in the pyramids. They could be far more advanced than us and still unable to reach us from another galaxy or whatever. All the reports about little grey men and UFOs strike me as bullshit, mostly because they seem to happen in really boring/isolated places and they are just too anthromorphized. There's no reason that intelligent life should be even vaguely humanoid, or their technology to resemble ours. Hell, it seems possible to me that we'll miss our first encounter with microscopic extraterrestial life because we won't even recognize it as bacteria. In short, I think that if we ever find aliens, they will be much more alien than even our better sci-fi writers have dreamed.

Cryptids: There's no doubt been a couple of species that have gone extinct in the modern era without being properly documented, and a few serious beasties that live in the deep sea (I believe the existence of 30 ft.+ giant squid was only confirmed in the last few years), but as far as Nessie and Bigfoot go, nah. Too many people looking for too long, which lends itself to hoaxes and mistakes, giving it a self-perpetuating thing going on.

Psychics: Some combination of the highly intuitive and highly unethical. It'd be pretty cool if some people's brains were developing new senses or ways of processing impulses, but I really don't think so.

Ghosts: Nope. We're terrified of death, along with the dark and many, many other things. Sometimes we roll these things together and let them get away with us. Through in some legitimate hallucinations, wishful thinking and childrens' tales (kids seem inordinately involved in ghost stories, don't they? I can't think of a ghost movie that has an all-adult core cast, as opposed to slasher, monster or zombie flicks), and we start to see patterns in random blots of ink.

Astrology: This is one that a crazy number of people buy into, at least somewhat. I think it's mostly crap, but if there is any nugget of truth to it, I'd put it down to the season into which a child is born (meaning their first impressions of life outside the womb), can have a hand in shaping the personality type. Like, those who are born in the dead of winter may begin to absorb the world as being a colder, darker, generally less inviting place than those born in summer, and that can set them up to develop certain character traits. Mostly, though, I think people read about their "sign" and nod because 1) the characteristics are always put in the vaguest terms, so it can apply to as many people as possible, and 2) even when completely inaccurate, they are always phrased in such positive ways that the more wrong it is, the more the reader wants it to be true. For example, it would never say "Gemini: you can be quite a dickhead to your friends," but "Gemini: you're known among your friends as very strong-willed." The Gemini reading this would recognize it as true about himself if it happened to be accurate, but (here's the beauty of positive phrasing) the more timid he actually was, the more he would want to think it was true. No one wants to reject compliments, genuine or not, and the Zodiac signs are generally complimentary to everyone.

Life on other planets and nothing else. I don't necessarily believe they've visited, nor do I make any assumptions on what they're like, exactly how intelligent they are, etc., but it only makes since for there to be other, living, sentient beings in the universe.

Only reason I ever look at Astrology is because I need something to new to look at during the day. Yes I'm that freakin bored.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineys

There was a famous Eugenics study of the residents of the Pine Barrens that concluded the area should be cut off from the rest of the state to prevent further spread of imbecility and such. Lots of really rural inbreeding type stuff. The Jersey Devil legend is likely to have sprung from half-feral people living in the Pine Barrens.

For the NY/NJ Chewers, www.weirdnj.com. I'm sure most have been there, but it's a great little site. I discovered it years ago, haven't been in some time. I should go back through it today. The "Devil's Tower" I think it is, gave me serious chills.

Well there ya go. Only other time I ever heard of Pine Barrens was due to that Soprano's episode. But just what I needed to hear, Jersey hillbillies. Yeesh.

Oh, yes. We have rednecks in NJ.

The Pine Barrens are massive, and filled with scary dirt roads and people off the grid.

--->--->

Up over there near Pennsyltucky, there's a whole pile of them.

You don't have to go far to find hillbillies around here. It's called Bakersfield, Lancaster and Palmdale.

Ed, if those places scare you, I hope to God you never go near Redding, CA. Whenever I venture very far into rural California, I find myself wishing I lived in some alternate reality in which the Dustbowl never happened. If I were in charge of editing school textbooks, the section on the Dustbowl would be entitled something like "When Our Nation's Hillbillies Fled to California".

Aside from aliens, I have trouble believing in almost any other type of paranormal creature/urban legend.

Which, if this was a movie, means I'd probably be the one to get killed by one.

Oh Riverisde and San Bernardino counties? Well no shit on those.

No, no, this is eight hours North of SoCal. If you ever want to have a Deliverance experience without leaving the state, just keep driving North until you hit the Cascades.