Police respond to a racket in a school in Brazil

[Yazata]

We don't know enough about ghosts to be able to expect any sort of behavior from them.

So why attach all the ghost mythology to them? Why conceptualize them as 'ghosts' in the first place?

Why not just say that person X had a peculiar visual, auditory or bodily sensation at place Y, for no known reason? Why not just say that the video shows the empty fire-hose cabinet's door repeatedly opening and banging shut for no obvious reason?

If we frame the question that way, then the next question might be, what are the most likely reasons the door might be moving? I personally think that hoax probably tops the list. I'm inclined to weight the actual existence of ghosts rather low on the likelihood list.

For all we know they may be half insane, frustrated by being stuck here and taking out their anger on nearby objects. We should be grateful that they try to get our attention at all. And this video is a compelling example of that.

When we talk like that that we have suddenly started attributing human psychological characteristics to whatever unknown cause was making the door move. Probably the most straight-forward way to do that is to hypothesize conventional human beings behind the movement, which is what I'm inclined to do with the hoax hypothesis. I don't begin with the implicit assumption that they are disembodied human spirits. (Something that I don't believe in.)

The relevance and applicability of all this to how we conceptualize religious miracles and how we weight them as evidence of religious truths should be obvious.

Many Christians think that there's a vast body of evidence for God, Christ, Mary and the Saints, in 2000 years of religious miracles. (Other religions had their own miracles for thousands of years before that, probably back into the stone age.)

But many of us (including MR I'd guess) don't see these events as evidence of religious truths unless that assumption is baked in initially. At most they are evidence of events that we can't explain at the moment. Some of us might weight the religious hypothesis as having such a low likelihood that many other possible explanations would seem more likely. (Imagination and fabulation, mistakes, wishful thinking, hallucination, mental illness, outright lies...) We all have encountered those things in the course of our lives. Gods, not so much.

[Zinjanthropos]

Have noticed MR usually links to a video that’s already been associated with or purported to be a ghost sighting. Can’t recall seeing any vids that MR claims to have filmed.

So I’m thinking that a great deal of trust is put onto the vid creator and other believers. I can’t think of a more unreliable source than another human being, a creature not noted for their honesty, sincerity or accurate eyewitness accounts. Sounds like I’m also describing Bible scribes and maybe there is some common ground between them.

I wonder how someone who never heard of a ghost might react to a door slamming in a hallway. A five year old without a head full of spectral knowledge might just calmly walk down the hall, hold it shut or try and close it. No fanfare, no fear, just do the most sensible thing and stop the noise.

[Magical Realist]

We don't know enough about ghosts to be able to expect any sort of behavior from them.

So why attach all the ghost mythology to them? Why conceptualize them as 'ghosts' in the first place?

Why not just say that person X had a peculiar visual, auditory or bodily sensation at place Y, for no known reason? Why not just say that the video shows the empty fire-hose cabinet's door repeatedly opening and banging shut for no obvious reason?

If we frame the question that way, then the next question might be, what are the most likely reasons the door might be moving? I personally think that hoax probably tops the list. I'm inclined to weight the actual existence of ghosts rather low on the likelihood list.  

For all we know they may be half insane, frustrated by being stuck here and taking out their anger on nearby objects. We should be grateful that they try to get our attention at all. And this video is a compelling example of that.

When we talk like that that we have suddenly started attributing human psychological characteristics to whatever unknown cause was making the door move. Probably the most straight-forward way to do that is to hypothesize conventional human beings behind the movement, which is what I'm inclined to do with the hoax hypothesis. I don't begin with the implicit assumption that they are disembodied human spirits. (Something that I don't believe in.)

The relevance and applicability of all this to how we conceptualize religious miracles and how we weight them as evidence of religious truths should be obvious.

Many Christians think that there's a vast body of evidence for God, Christ, Mary and the Saints, in 2000 years of religious miracles. (Other religions had their own miracles for thousands of years before that, probably back into the stone age.)

But many of us (including MR I'd guess) don't see these events as evidence of religious truths unless that assumption is baked in initially. At most they are evidence of events that we can't explain at the moment. Some of us might weight the religious hypothesis as having such a low likelihood that many other possible explanations would seem more likely. (Imagination and fabulation, mistakes, wishful thinking, hallucination, mental illness, outright lies...) We all have encountered those things in the course of our lives. Gods, not so much.

My basis for believing in ghosts is based on all the numerous firsthand and entirely credible eyewitness accounts there are of them, from haunted houses to abandoned orphanages to deserted prisons to civil war battlefields. The accounts are repeated and consistent, describing the same phenomena over and over again. Footsteps in an upper room, bangs and slams, voices and screams and moans, electrical sensations in the air, objects moving by themselves, glowing orbs and lights, spectral cannon fire and gunshots, apparitions, etc and etc. If people were just projecting psychologically over mundane occurrences then there would not be this remarkable consistency in the phenomena.

Then there are the paranormal investigations of which I've seen hundreds, with evidence caught on video and audio. When you see chairs move or glasses shatter or doors open and close in shut up buildings over and over again on these investigations there is no other conclusion BUT paranormal activity. Furthermore, there are numerous historical and modern accounts by families of poltergeist hauntings in their own homes, confirmed by police reports and investigator accounts.

That in a nutshell is why I attribute this fire hose compartment door slamming by itself to paranormal causes. My personal ontology is rather open-ended, acknowledging the fortean nature of our reality and the abundance of unknown beings and forces out there that we have simply not discovered yet. From ufos to ghosts to shadow people to bigfoot, people are seeing these things all over the world and it can't all be hoaxes or perceptual errors. The phenomena are objective, recordable, and repeat across a diverse range of eyewitness accounts and differing locations over the past century.

As for Christian accounts of "miracles", I'm not familiar with that many claiming to witness these. At least nothing more compelling than answered prayers, wet statues of Jesus, and images of the virgin Mary baked into tortillas. That's not even comparable to the amount of paranormal activity that is reported and recorded. If people claimed to see angels and Jesus on a regular basis and recorded it on video, then we might have something. But that's not happening. At least not on this side of the psych ward.

[Leigha]

I’m coming back in ghost form after I die to slam a door repeatedly. Not just any door but an unused cabinet’s door located in a basement. One that covers an 8” recess in the wall of a decrepitly old building in Rio full of daycare children. Ya, that’s what I want to do when I’m dead, slam the shit out of a door to nowhere. 

lol

Some ghosts might have anger management issues.

MR, you know that I'm open minded to this stuff, but my skepticism comes into play when in eye witness vidoes, objects move, doors slam, etc. A ghost that is for all intents and purposes ''translucent,'' where is the energy force coming from to move objects, etc?

[Magical Realist]

I’m coming back in ghost form after I die to slam a door repeatedly. Not just any door but an unused cabinet’s door located in a basement. One that covers an 8” recess in the wall of a decrepitly old building in Rio full of daycare children. Ya, that’s what I want to do when I’m dead, slam the shit out of a door to nowhere. 

lol

Some ghosts might have anger management issues.

MR, you know that I'm open minded to this stuff, but my skepticism comes into play when in eye witness vidoes, objects move, doors slam, etc. A ghost that is for all intents and purposes ''translucent,'' where is the energy force coming from to move objects, etc?

From nearby electrical sources. Investigator's camera and equipment batteries are often drained of power immediately when in a haunted location. And lights are known to flicker there too when activity happens.

my skepticism comes into play when in eye witness vidoes, objects move, doors slam, etc.

Why would you think that? It's what is reported and recorded of ghosts all the time.

[Leigha]

I’m coming back in ghost form after I die to slam a door repeatedly. Not just any door but an unused cabinet’s door located in a basement. One that covers an 8” recess in the wall of a decrepitly old building in Rio full of daycare children. Ya, that’s what I want to do when I’m dead, slam the shit out of a door to nowhere. 

lol

Some ghosts might have anger management issues.

MR, you know that I'm open minded to this stuff, but my skepticism comes into play when in eye witness vidoes, objects move, doors slam, etc. A ghost that is for all intents and purposes ''translucent,'' where is the energy force coming from to move objects, etc?

From nearby electrical sources. Investigator's camera and equipment batteries are often drained of power immediately when in a haunted location. And lights are known to flicker there too when activity happens.

my skepticism comes into play when in eye witness vidoes, objects move, doors slam, etc.

Why would you think that? It's what is reported and recorded of ghosts all the time.

I guess if I'm just being honest...it would be hard to do that being alive (repeatedly slamming a heavy door)...let alone after we're dead. 

[Magical Realist]

I’m coming back in ghost form after I die to slam a door repeatedly. Not just any door but an unused cabinet’s door located in a basement. One that covers an 8” recess in the wall of a decrepitly old building in Rio full of daycare children. Ya, that’s what I want to do when I’m dead, slam the shit out of a door to nowhere. 

lol

Some ghosts might have anger management issues.

MR, you know that I'm open minded to this stuff, but my skepticism comes into play when in eye witness vidoes, objects move, doors slam, etc. A ghost that is for all intents and purposes ''translucent,'' where is the energy force coming from to move objects, etc?

From nearby electrical sources. Investigator's camera and equipment batteries are often drained of power immediately when in a haunted location. And lights are known to flicker there too when activity happens.

my skepticism comes into play when in eye witness vidoes, objects move, doors slam, etc.

Why would you think that? It's what is reported and recorded of ghosts all the time.

I guess if I'm just being honest...it would be hard to do that being alive (repeatedly slamming a heavy door)...let alone after we're dead. 

Doors aren't that hard to slam. They're on hinges so all it takes is a little pushing or pulling on the doorknob.

[Syne]

When it is as commonplace as all the other possible explanations. As common as pranks, hoaxes, strings, visual anomalies, etc., and as widely and oft experienced as any other common occurrence. Then simply by sheer volume, the odds of it being genuinely paranormal would start to rival common experiences.

LOL! By that logic rare phenomena and anomalies could never be compelling because they're not commonplace. That's bass ackwards. A tornado is compelling precisely because it is so once in a lifetime. Ball lightning is compelling because it is hardly ever seen. And the paranormal is compelling because rarely is it ever caught on tape.

People rarely claim to "know" the source of most anomalies, hence the name. If you just called these "anomalies" (instead of "ghosts"), no one would have any cause to refute you. And things can be rare while also being experienced, at least once, by a very wide swath of the population. Many people have experienced, and some even studied or chased, tornadoes. There are scientific explanations of ball lightning.

That you think those are comparable to ghost experiences is just sad.