They're here...

With Halloween nearly upon us, I have been recently scouring the ‘Net for videos of ghosts and/or hauntings. If you’ve ever searched the endless hours and hours of video footage then you know that 90% (at least) of what is out there is bogus. Totally fake. A hoax. I have always had a mild interest in the supernatural but because I was raised in a religious home, it was never allowed to be discussed. The Bible has a few scant references about ghosts, but for the most part does not really define if ghosts are real or not. I had been taught that any supernatural manifestation of any kind that was “not of God” was demonic and evil. These days, I’m not so sure. I’m not saying that the Bible isn’t true. What I am saying is that maybe the fundamentalists didn’t get it right. We can’t put the world around us into a little, predefined category that suits us and makes us feel safe. As the Joker said in the Batman movie from 1989, “Let’s broaden our minds”.
I would be the first to say that I am pretty skeptical and don’t take things at face value. I like things to be proven to me. It’s my belief that a person should seek out the truth of any given situation; make up their own mind. As I’ve grown to accept things that I wouldn’t have in the past, I’ve had some pretty interesting experiences. Now, I don’t expect you to believe what I would tell you about my experiences; just believe that I believe it really happened. Because really, at the end of the day, it’s a personal occurrence. I could open it up for debate, but because we all have different belief systems and practices, there would be arguing and debating; but no understanding, acceptance and learning.
Are there really ghosts and hauntings? Who can really know? We have evidence all around us, but no proof. The Amityville haunting is a hoax; The Exorcist is based loosely on a true story, Poltergeist (noisy ghost in the German language) was a great story but totally missed the point of “noisy ghost”, and on and on. We love our scary, haunting, ghost stories (my favorite being “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Disney). Why are we so fascinated with ghosts and hauntings? Is it because we want to believe there is an afterlife? Does that make us more determined to discover the truth? What do you think?