16 Signs That Your House is Haunted

Many people have trouble believing that strange occurrences or eerie noises in their homes are ghosts, as opposed to being signs of well-lived-in house.  But what happens when doors begin slamming shut for no reason, when you hear footsteps upstairs when you know that nobody else is home, or when the toothbrush you just put down on the sink is no longer there and is nowhere to be found? How can you determine if your house is truly haunted?  There is no real definition of a "true" haunting, but there are multiple signs that could be red flags that you are not the only thing inhabiting your home:

1. Unexplained Noises: footsteps, knocking, banging, rapping, are all signs that a house may be haunted.  These noises can be subtle or very loud.

2. Doors Opening and Closing: more often than not, these experiences are not seen directly.  A person may hear the noise of a door opening or closing, or walk into a room to a cabinet that has been opened without explanation. 

3. Lights Turning Off and On: similarly to doors opening and closing, these events are most often not seen directly, but instead they walk into a room with a light on or off, which they are sure they had left in the opposite position.

4. Items Disappearing and Reappearing: this is called the "DOPler" effect (Disappearing Object Phenomenon).  This can occur in several ways.  One is when a commonly used item is not found in the place that it is always left.  Another is when an object is not in the place it is usually left, and after a person looks for it all over the place, it is found in the place that it should have been the whole time.

5. Unexplained Shadows: this describes the seeing of "Shadow People."  These can be unexplained shapes or seen in the form of a person.

6. Strange Animal Behavior: It has been said that animals can see what people can't see.  Dogs barking without explanation, or pets staring into empty space are signs of a ghost.

7. Feelings of Being Watched: the strong feeling of having someone in the room with you, when you are certain that there is nobody else there.

8. Mild Psychokinetic Phenomena: televisions, and battery operated toys being turned on by themselves.

9. Feelings of Being Touched: the feeling of someone brushing past you, or the feeling of someones hand touching your shoulder are both signs that something else may be occupying your house.

10. Cries and Whispers: sometimes muffles voices or crying can be heard without explanation.

11. Cold or Hot Spots: cold spots where there are no air vents, windows, or doors are classic signs of a haunting.

12. Unexplained Smells: the distinct fragrance of a perfume or cologne that you are sure you do not have in your house

The following are very rare, but do occur:

13. Moving or Levitating Objects: plates flying across the dinner table.  Take a look at the video in the blog post, "The Proof is in the Tapes."

14. Physical Assault: scratches, slaps, and hard shoves.  While, these are very rare, the do occur, most often with demonic spirits.

15. Other Physical Evidence: such as writing on the walls or hand prints and footprints.

16. Apparitions: while full body apparitions are very rare, they are the most conclusive evidence of a haunting.  They typically appear and disappear quickly.

Supernatural Supermarkets

Some of you may have seen it on the news or heard about it on the radio, but for those of you who haven't, it seems like a supermarket in Brompton, South Australia has caught ghost activity on tape.  After doing a bit of research about the grocery store, I found that about 30 years ago a boxer was gunned down and killed in front of the store.  Since that time, it appears that his spirit has been haunting the store, specifically the sweets section.  Recently, the current owner of the store decided to position security cameras in order to catch this activity on tape.  In this video you can see, from various angles, boxes of goodies fly across the aisles of the store.  There is no explanation for these occurrences. 

I also found this video that was shown on CNN.  It was recorded by a security camera at a gas station in Ohio.  There appears to be a ghost floating around the tape. As the reporter states, videos like these "turn non believers into believers."

Commercial

This is a short video I put together.  You may recognize the child's voice as Cole from the movie "The Sixth Sense."  The boy's famous words "I see dead people," have become some of the most repeated when it comes to the discussion of ghosts.  Listen to this compilation of Cole's confession.  Everything he is saying is true and relevant to the existence of the ghost world. 

Imaginary Friends or Friendly Haunts?

Did you ever wonder why Casper befriended the young Wendy?  Or why in movies like Paranormal Activity 3, the children are the main victims of paranormal entities?  I, for one, have wondered this, and so i decided to do some research about why children seem to be more prone to paranormal experiences than adults are.  I found that recently, a study was conducted to help answered this exact question.

The study was conducted through an e-mail survey, in which the researchers asked specific

questions of the subjects and their parents.  The questions asked included information about the child, such as age, whether the child has had a near death experience, and where and how often the child sees the ghost.  The questions also include ones relating to the child's experience with the ghosts, such as the content of the interaction - if the ghost asked favors of the child, if anybody else in the family had seen the ghosts, and if the child felt threatened or was told not to tell their parents about the visits.  The final set of questions asked about the appearance of the ghosts.  Each set of questions asked subjects to elaborate on each answer, in order to fully understand the child's ability and experiences. 

The study concluded that the for the most part, a child's ability to see, hear, and speak to ghosts peaks anywhere between 6 months and 4 years of age.  This seems to be because this is the age before children are told that what they are seeing is a ghost, and to them it is as normal as interacting with the living. After the children become aware of this, or told that ghosts are just "in their imagination," they tend to ignore their ghosts and lose their abilities.  This tends to happen between the ages of 5 and 11 years old. 

The study also concluded that, according to descriptions by children and family, children are more than likely visited by family member that passed away long before they were even born.  The children tend to see these ghosts in full body apparition form, and are therefore able to fully describe the figure to family.  It is believed that these family members are simply watching over the children until they feel that the child no longer needs their protection (take a look at "Why They Hang Around" to find out more about this, and other reasons ghosts stay in the living world).  This would also explain why most children lose their abilities between the ages of 5 and 11, for this is the age that children begin going to school and learning more about right and wrong.  They are better able to take care and look after themselves.

The study includes several examples of answered surveys from several subjects, as well as photos submitted by subjects.  One mother filling out the questionnaire notes that her 3 year old sees her grandfather that had been deceased for 13 years.  The 3 year old tells her parent that "he keeps her safe."

It is a simple conclusion.  Babies and children are not the only people who see ghosts.  They are simply the only people who admit it.  They have not been told that ghosts aren't real, and are therefore open to seeing and speaking to apparitions. 

Sorry Skeptics . . . This One's Real

One major problem skeptics seem to have with investigative evidence is that fact that some videos and photos appear to have been tampered with.  While it is impossible to say that every video documenting the existence of paranormal entities is legitimate, it would also be incorrect to say that none of them are. 

In an earlier post, The Proof Is In The Tapes, I showed a video clip from an episode of ghost hunters.  In the clip, a brick goes flying across a room after the TAPS investigative team asks for proof that there is an entity present.  If you read the comments on the video, many skeptics claim that the video had to have been tampered with.  Here is the video, again:

In this next video, a professional video analyst takes a look at the clip to see if it had been edited in any way.  After investigating several theories, the analyst give his opinion that the video WAS NOT tampered with in any way.  The analyst provides further explanation in the video:

There you have it, the video was not tampered with, and the brick was, in fact, thrown by something unexplainable. 

Many times, pictures of ghosts are also said to be photoshopped or edited.  This website is extremely helpful in this matter.  It has two categories of pictures - one in which there is no explanation for the orbs or figures in the photo, and one for which there is.  There is also an explanation of how the picture was edited, and how to tell whether a figure in a photo is a result of dust on the lens or if it is an actual entity.

This one photo, in particular, caught my eye.  It was in the real column on the website.  If you look closely, you are actually able to see a face in the figure.

Check out some of the other pictures for yourself, and read the explanations of how the pictures couldn't have been tampered with. 

Haunting Statistics

Just how many people out there actually believe in ghosts?  Are most of them men or women?  Does belief in ghosts and hauntings change with age?  What about from country to country?  I find that these are questions that many believers find themselves wondering. After doing some research, I found several interesting articles on the subjects of who, exactly, believes.  And, well, for the skeptics, statistics just don't lie.


Over the years, many polls have been taken to answer many of society's most pressing questions.  The belief in ghosts is one of these.  This article from MSNBC reports that in 2007 1 in 3 people in America believe in the existence of ghosts.  That's one third of Americans - the same amount of Americans that say they are baseball fans.  Even more staggering than that is that 23% of Americans actually have SEEN or HEARD a ghost themselves.  3 in 10 Americans have reported waking up in the middle of the night sensing a strange presence in their rooms (check out my earlier post, Haunted . . . that's 3 people right there!). 

In this article,  CBS news breaks down these statistics further.  They report that two years later, in 2009 up to 48% of Americans reported to believe in ghosts.  Of all the people that believe, 56% were women, and 54% were under the age of 45. 

Take a look at the breakdown of believers for yourself:

                             All

                                  48%

                                  Men

                                  38%

                                  Women

                                   56%

                                  Under 45

                                   54%

                                  45 and over

                                   41%

Now, I think it is interesting to compare American results to the results from another part of the world.  This poll was taken in the UK.  It reports that 57% of people believed in ghosts.  That number is staggering compared to the American statistics.  I'm not sure as to why the numbers would be so different, but, according to the survey author of the UK poll, Jan Walsh, "the minds of the British public are open to all kinds of other-worldly phenomenon." 

This poll shows that in Canada, nearly 50% of people believe in ghosts.  Again, this is higher than the American results, although only 18% of Canadians say that they have actually had an experience with an entity.  Similarly to America, about half of the believers are women. 

The differences between the paranormal beliefs of Americans versus the beliefs of other countries around the world are interesting.  But, it appears that of the people that believe, most tend to be women and young in age.  Check out the poll over on my side bar and let me know if you belief in ghosts or other paranormal entities!

Almost Science

One problem many skeptics may have when it comes to the existence of ghosts and other spiritual entities is the lack of scientific evidence.  While it is true that even the most definitive evidence collected by paranormal investigators may never be accepted by scientific communities, a scientist by the name of Dr. Barrie Colvin has spent the past five years studying paranormal sounds.  His findings may not be "accepted" by the scientific community, but his research was, in fact, published.  The article is titled, "The Acoustic Properties of Unexplained Rapping Sounds" and it appeared in in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, volume 73.2 pages 65-93, in 2010. 

Dr. Colvin, who has said he did not believe in life after death, himself, has studied haunting noises recorded from various ghost hunts that were suspected, by the investigators that recorded them, to be poltergeist activity.  By using high-tech, scientific equipment, Dr. Colvin measured the wavelengths of these recorded noises and compared them to similar sounds commonly made by people, animals, and other common noises heard during every day life. 

As stated above, Dr. Colvin is a scientist, as well as a skeptic.  He was expecting the wavelengths to appear identical.  He found that, although the noises sounded the same, they "looked" completely different.  For example, with a typical, human made "rapping" sound, the loudest part (or largest wavelength) occurs at the very beginning of the sound, and slowly fades out.  In a poltergeist rapping sound, the longest wavelength is at the beginning, but not the very beginning.  Instead, it starts off quietly, gets louder, and then softens again.  When Dr. Colvin and his colleagues tried to come up with an explanation for this difference, they found themselves completely dumbfounded.  

                                                          wavelength from human made rapping noise            

                                                        wavelength from poltergeist cases rapping noise

In the conclusion of his article, Dr. Colvin writes, "there is no obvious reason as to why the raps occur or indeed how they occur. However, I do believe that the evidence for raps that are produced by currently unknown means is strong.  Furthermore, the evidence supporting the notion that the raps can be used as a means of communication is also strong."

Dr. Barrie Colvin has now formed the Paraphysics Research Group, and is continuing to find scientific evidence of the existence of the paranormal.