Is Your Office Haunted? 266
WormholeFiend writes "You know Halloween is around the corner when websites like Forbes.com releases a story wondering about the supernatural. From the article: 'Maybe the spirits have decided that spooky mansions and creepy battlefields are passé. Maybe they want to cash in on the glamour of corporate life. Maybe they just wanted the sushi.'" Anyone out there have any encounters with a spiritual Milton?
Yes it is! (Score:2, Interesting)
It has a built in motherboard, case fans, dvd burner, internet, wireless keyboard and mouse, the works. Pretty powerful for just being a pumpkin IMO... They even posted the instructions on how to build your own if you are so inclined Heh..
I see dead people (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:To those who doubt the paranormal (Score:3, Interesting)
Office Halloween pranks gone wrong. (Score:2, Interesting)
At a firm I once worked at we had a jokestress named Maria. She was pretty good natured, and every Halloween she's pull some sort of a prank. Usually they were quite benign, such as a plastic skull in the coffee container, or some such.
However, one Halloween she decided to go a bit further than usual. She thought it would be entertaining to dress the photocopier up as a Hawaiian skeleton (I'm not sure why). So she bought much white paper, and some flower necklaces, and stuff like that. She dressed the photocopier up, and some people were amused by it.
Just before lunch a slight problem arose. Some of the flowers had gotten sucked into the machine through the paper intake. Apparently some of the flowers jammed something inside, and things started t really go wrong.
Jim, who was one of the systems administrators able to fix copier problems, thought he could get it unjammed. So he opened the side panel of the machine to work on it, but apparently forgot to turn the power off. The paper feed mechanism somehow caught onto his tie, and started pulling him in.
Luckily somebody was around kick out the power cord, but not after the machine was even more broken, and the toner tank ruptured. Jim was covered in that awful powder, and he ended up tracking it all over the office on his way out. Maria was swiftly dismissed.
Amazon.com (Score:2, Interesting)
I used to work.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I used to work.. (Score:2, Interesting)
I was watching the Bravo channel last night, and they were running down the list of 100 best scary movie etc....there were some real gems in there that I need to go back and check out.
Back to the point of your post is that I normally don't get "freaked out" by movies...I'll occasionally get the jump kinda reaction , but never really the scared feeling until I was about 25 or so....now I can freak myself out if I just think about a certain fear for too long...
My biggest fear ever, and this is clearly from too much tv, but is to be in a room with lots of windows and no blinds. (I can't sleep in a room without something covering the windows).
I have this fear that (in true horror movie fashion) that I will look over at the window (dark outside of course) and there will be nothing there, look away and then look back to someone (thing) pressed against the glass.
Think about this for longer than 5 minutes and I suddenly have a need to go find a bar thats open late...
We think it is. (Score:2, Interesting)
I have been working the night shift on and off for the past four years here and most of the time it just seems like a empty building.. But every once in a while you can look out the window of the computer room in to the hallway and see a shadow pass and no one here out there or even in the building..
I have walked down the hallway and had cold chills run up my back. The wost spot is when your in the bathroom and you can here doors out in the hallway open in shut and no one is here except for me and the other operator that has to stay in the computer room. (manned 24/7)
The worst account I can remember is from a exworker named Sheneika, she left the computer room and went to the bathroom,, about 3 minuets later she came running in to the computer room cussing the other worker for banging the hell out the the bathroom door.. Ted said he didnt do it ad didnt leave the room.
So they start checking the sercurity cameras. ( I work in a lottery office)
So they look at the cameras and watch Sheneika walk down to the bathroom and about 3 minuets later she comes tearing out of the bathroom running full steam back in to the computer room.. Ted never heard any noise but she said it was like some one kicking in the door.
This place will give you the creeps.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
'Haunting" experiences in the office (Score:5, Interesting)
Another night
Welp, now for the anti-climactic bit. Niether were ghosts. The outline of a figure I saw? Trick of the eye. That corner had some boxes and loose stuff piled up. Looking straight on at the pile, it didn't look anything remotely like my coworker. I think what happened was a trick of my peripheral vision. As most of you know, the outer areas of human eyes are keen on detecting motion more than they are with recognizing images. Can't claim to be an expert on the topic, but I think the human brain is constantly looking to recongize patterns, and when it finds one that seems to be relevent, it fills in the blanks. Hence, I saw my coworker. If anybody's curious, he's alive and well.
I suppose I could go into a little more detail about my theory here. There's a technique called 'EVP'. It's used to record the voices of ghosts. If you ever get bored one night, do a search for EVP and find some samples. It isn't definitive proof of the existance of ghosts, but at the very least it's a fun way to kill an evening. (usually there are stories attached to these sounds...) I visited a site once that had a number of EVP samples. Unfortunately, ghost speech isn't terribly easy to make out. Though it does sound human, it's barely more than garbled garbage. What they did was they presented a sound and said "first you listen to it and then try to work out what it's saying, then click on this link to see suggestions of what people think they've heard." The reason they do this is to prevent you from being 'suggested' into believing what you're hearing. After listening to a bit, I worked out why. The sound file downloaded and looped over and over again. I couldn't make it out. Then I read the first suggestion. Suddenly, I was hearing it! Neat! Then I read the second suggestion. And.. wait.. now I'm hearing that one. They were two very different sentences. As a matter of fact, I thought I could hear a different inflection in the words used by the 'ghost' that time around! It was the same sound looping over and over again, but now it was sounding different. Okay, I took the scenic route to this point, but I think what I was hearing was not the sound directly, but my perception of the sound. My brain thought it heard a particular sentence, so that's exactly what made it into my conscience mind. I think the sight of my coworker was a similar phenomenon.
And the figure across the street? Somebody with an odd sense of humor. It's a cardboard cutout. For whatever reason, they put it up against the window on the 3rd story of the building. The light was dim enough that it was very tough to make out, but the next day I was able to see it quite clearly. I mentioned seeing his eyes. It felt like they were following me almost. Again, trick of the eye.
I don't know what I think about ghosts. I can't say I firmly believe they exist, I can't say they don'
Re:snicker... (Score:2, Interesting)
Portland courthouse (Score:3, Interesting)
The other thing is that this guy was a real veteran security guard who had worked there for many years, very level-headed and dependable. But that night he left the building and went home without even clocking out, then called in to say that he was quitting and never going back. He wouldn't even report to the building during the daytime to turn in his keys and other stuff. His supervisor had to go to his house and pick them up.
Hickam AFB (Score:3, Interesting)
Even if it isn't spooky it's certainly both sobering and historic.
Actually - YES! (Score:3, Interesting)
But everyone in town "knew" the house was haunted. I talked to several people who used to work there when it was a restaurant, and one of my friends actually lived in the upstairs part for several months. He told me that one night, he heard a loud crash from the kitchen area downstairs. He started to go down the stairs to investigate, and heard a series of identical smashing noises. When he got to the kitchen, a box of fluorescent bulbs had been opened and smashed all over the place. He said he sometimes heard strange noises and often felt uncomfortable there.
A former waitress told me that several times, she would set down a tray of dishes in one place, turn around, and then when she turned back it would be moved. The former owners told me all kinds of similar ghost stories. Every Halloween the local paper mentions the building as being the most haunted place in town.
One day, a van full of soldiers on leave from a nearby base pulled up. Apparently, they'd seen my office on some TV show about haunted houses, and had come to check it out. I gave 'em the full tour. One woman, as soon as she set foot upstairs, turned around and went outside to wait in the van. Freaked her out, I guess.
Now, geek that I am, I was always the last person to leave the building at night. And very often, I stayed until the wee hours, all alone in the building. And not a damn thing ever happened. No weird sounds, no smashing bulbs, absolutely nothing.
Although I had to admit... I didn't mind going into the scary old basement when I was alone at night, but going upstairs at night used to freak me out something fierce. Dunno why, it was beautiful and well-lit, but damn, it was just creepy. Daytime wasn't so bad, but at night - forget it.
One night, someone forgot to close a back door properly, and the alarm went off late at night. I showed up to deal with the cops. Since a door was open, they insisted on checking out the building. The cop knew the reputation of the building and was a little spooked himself. When we got upstairs he really got nervous - he told me that he just didn't like it up there. He couldn't believe that I'd work in such a spooky place late at night by myself. I'm like, you're a COP. Which of our jobs is more dangerous?
I like to think that we did such a good job restoring the house that the ghosts took off. Or maybe I scared the ghosts off. Who knows. I'm still a little disappointed, though, that nothing ever happened while I was there. I figured if there were strange things going on all the time, I'd set up a bunch of webcams and such... but nope.
Oh yeah, later, I found out that one of the previous owners had passed away in one of the upstairs bedrooms. On the other hand, the first owner died when he fell down the basement steps, and the basement, aside from just being a spooky old basement and crawling with spiders as big as your hand, wasn't nearly as ooky as the upstairs. So go figure.
Re:Office Halloween pranks gone wrong. (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course I'm wondering why Maria was the only one dismissed....
Re:Fishy (Score:2, Interesting)
Radio waves do exist, and they existed then.
:p
Indeed they did. So did quantum mechanics and x-rays. But no one had a clue that they existed.
The lack of understanding has NOTHING to do with the cause and effect.
And the lack of observable (at the time) effect, for example with x-rays, has nothing to do with the fact that they still existed, whether we knew about them or not. Similar to paranormal events. To think that we have anything more than the feeblest of grasps on the nature of reality at this time is the height of arrogance. We didn't know much back then, and we sure don't know much now. You are simply making my argument stronger.
If for example ESP existed, then it would be demonstrable regardless of our understanding of it.
Sigh. Could a person 200 years ago, given the knowledge and skills they had at the time, have demonstrated quantum theory? No. Can we demonstrate esp powers with what we have now? No. Might we in future? Maybe. Getting it?
You know, the most interesting thing to come out of this discussion for me at least, has been the amount of responses and modding and the type of modding. This tells me that the slashdot crowd is TERRIFIED of this topic, for reasons I have yet to fathom. As for you, you are producing circular arguments that have no bearing on what I say, and I see no likelihood that your mind will ever be changed, which tells me a good deal about you, also. Still, you did hook a good deal of karma out of it, although I think the well has run dry, but you'll be up to a base 2 in no time.
Re:Amazon.com (Score:3, Interesting)
We spent some time at night wandering around the ship, looking for unlocked doors and just trying to explore as much as possible. Pretty cool girlfriend, I have to say. The big ballrooms are kind of spooky at night. Somewhere deep in the ship, I passed by what looked like some kind of utility door and tried the knob. Locked. But as soon as I stepped away from the door, I heard it buzz, like an electronic lock being opened. I stopped and looked around. We were totally alone. I stepped back towards the door and the buzzing stopped. Locked. Pulled my hand away, and it buzzed again. Then I saw the security camera up in the corner. I thought that was pretty cool... instead of security coming to hassle us for trying to infiltrate the ship, they had some fun with us instead. Gotta respect that.
We did eventually find a way to get into the closed pool area at night. That's supposed to be haunted, but it's now a tourist attraction during the day. It took some work to get to it, but it was very cool... very dark and creepy. Unfortunately, my girlfriend freaked out and wanted to leave right away, saying she felt really cold... the best part was, though, that getting into the pool area was a one-way trip. The doors locked behind us. We had to figure another way out, and it wasn't easy.
Anyway, if you're in Los Angeles, go stay on the ship. The museums are good, the food is good, and the atmosphere can't be beat.
Sometimes though, you gotta wonder.... (Score:1, Interesting)
Until one day... during my science class, a vial which was located on an upper shelf inexplicably *levitated* itself to the middle of the classroom in such slow motion that everyone's attention was immediately diverted to this strange phenomenon. Without warning, the vial then flung itself into the chalkboard at the front of the classroom at an extremely high speed, shattering itself.
That poor science teacher never came back after that. Although I don't believe in ghosts at all, even to this day, I can't explain how in the world something like that could happen, or how something like that could be engineered.
Swamp ghost (Score:3, Interesting)
This strange light was only know about by a few hunters in the area until around my high-school years. Then a small group of my friends and I found out and would visit the place a few times each year. The word spread and it became a bit of an attraction and even became part of an initiation ceremony for a fraternity at a nearby college. Several of our parents even saw it. This was all in the 90's. Since then the area has been logged and the road has been blocked off.
I personally saw the light several times. And I know about 2-dozen more that have seen it...kids, youths, adults, professionals, a youth pastor, etc. I am a mechanical engineer so I have studied physics and thermodynamics and have a pretty good grasp on the physical phenomena that might have caused this. I have also studies various "swamp light" phenomena. But I cannot find a plausible explanation for what I saw. I'm not saying that the light was supernatural but I am saying that it is very difficult to explain. For example, I have seen:
Seeing the light was one of the coolest experiences of my life. I hate that the area was destroyed by logging. Even on nights when we didn't see the light we could still scare the crap out of each other just because of the surroundings.
My Experience (Score:3, Interesting)
The library has three interconnecting rooms in a shared-use building, all charities. The old shelves were metal, and I went down one night to dismantle them. Just before I left, my wife told me that the place used to be a funeral parlour. Sure enough, one room had metal-lined walls, and there were two enormous metal-lined doors lying in a back corridor.
It was November, the raid was dripping all around, and the heating system was making very strange noises. Very spooky. The shelves were held together by square bolts, so I had to use an adjustable spanner. I soon got into the groove, and had an efficient system for dismantling the shelves. I'd work with the shelves upside down, and the metal shelves would form a tray that I'd keep my tools in.
So, it's night, spooky noises, dull lighting, no music, and my thoughts turn to the fact this used to be a funeral parlour. Then, I get a big suprise: the spanner, which was set to the correct size for the square nuts, was fully open - about 25 mm instead of 10.
Lots of silly thoughts went through my mind, especially curious ghosts examining my tools. I checked where my car keys were, mentally planned my exit route, and, a little spooked, I carried on working.
All was fine for about five minutes, until the spanner didn't fit again - and this time, it was fully closed! I was so, so close to legging it, but I told myself that there was no such thing as ghosts, that any tortured spirits would haunt their homes and not the funeral parlour they lay for a few days. So, I stuck it out, although I was very "observant" from then on.
An accident as I packed up provided an explanation. I stepped over a toolbox, and landed on the adjustable spanner. It slid forward and the little adjusting wheel moved - closing the spanner jaws. When I'd been working on the shelves, sometimes my spanner would slide along the shelf, and it must have closed on one occassion, and opened on the other one.
I'm so glad that I didn't run out of there in fear, especially after the spanner moved for the second time. I kept telling myself that there is always a logical explanation for all events, and it turned out that there was!
Absolute negative statements are.... difficult (Score:3, Interesting)
How can you prove that they don't exist?
Are you saying that non-material things are non-material, or that the non-material does not exist?
What about duty, honor, love? Do they exist? Are they natural?
Slashdot is a poor place to make an absolute negative assertion.
Respectfully,
Anomaly