Have I got a ghost?

He's around in Maldon too. He rings our doorbell from time to time, but conveniently, he uses a different ring tone to our real doorbell, so we know it's a ghost rather than the local yoof.
 
It is fairly rural around here and not many houses. There are no USA bases for miles around. Also why was I only getting sound and no picture on my TV? and who were the Americans I heard talking? I had a look in the TV Times and there was no such programme on at that time.

Also last Wednesday evening I found my garden hose turned on - It is unlikely to be vandals on a late midweek winter evening


You are right, it is far more likely that it is a ghost! :ambivalence:
 
We definitely have a ghost in our house. She keeps turning the central heating up and leaving the fridge door open. Fortunately, being female, there is no way she is ever going to get control of the telly....
 
Single handed ocean sailors often experience 'ghosts'. Generally it is a type of mild hallucination caused by sleep deprivation. Tends to occur during moments of high drama when it is hard to get a decent sleep.
On a recent ocean trip lasting 10 months for about 7 months I was constantly bothered by a German U-boat commander who seemed to like playing with my windvane steering, which was made in Hamburg. Sometimes he would awake me when i had just got to sleep by calling out 'alarm'. He informed me at one stage that his submarine had been sunk by an ASW aircraft out of Ascension Island. Interestingly enough after I had called at Ascension Island this time last year I heard no more from him, even during some nasty equinoctial gales in the North Atlantic.
But all a figment of my imagination, but certainly very entertaining.

Was he called Korvettenkapitan Wilhelm Rollman by any chance ;-)

http://worldwar2database.com/gallery/wwii0202
 
One of my favourite bits of Ambrose Bierce is his reasoning about ghosts, which is odd, since he wrote ghost stories.

Here: http://grammar.about.com/od/classicessays/a/The-Clothing-Of-Ghosts-By-Ambrose-Bierce.htm

Thanks. I was amused by this sentence of Bierce's: "The materialized spook appealing to our senses for recognition of his ghostly character must authenticate himself otherwise than by familiar and remembered habiliments." as pretty much the opposite, a reference to a specific pair of red pyjamas, convinced the Professor of Logic and Jungian James Hyslop that his friend William James had communicated from beyond the grave. The story is here (for example): http://richardlawrencecohen.blogspot.co.uk/2005/05/afterlife-tease-william-james-and-red_04.html . FWIW I share the view of that blogger.
 
I see you live in Colchester - Are you anywhere near Mersea? Could it be the same ghost?

Also last week my electrically operated garage door was open - The first time I thought I must have forgotten to close it, but it happened again two days later

Have you checked your garage, could be postie leaving a parcel!
 
Thanks. I was amused by this sentence of Bierce's: "The materialized spook appealing to our senses for recognition of his ghostly character must authenticate himself otherwise than by familiar and remembered habiliments." as pretty much the opposite, a reference to a specific pair of red pyjamas, convinced the Professor of Logic and Jungian James Hyslop that his friend William James had communicated from beyond the grave. The story is here (for example): http://richardlawrencecohen.blogspot.co.uk/2005/05/afterlife-tease-william-james-and-red_04.html . FWIW I share the view of that blogger.
That's the trouble with anecdotes; they are invariably anecdotal.

I do wish people bloggifying would desist from writing in white on a dark background.
 
Was he called Korvettenkapitan Wilhelm Rollman by any chance ;-)

http://worldwar2database.com/gallery/wwii0202

No he called himself Volker, but I was never sure if that was his first or last name. When we were on St Helena I did quiz him about the RFA Darkdale which was torpedoed at anchor there and boasts quite a magnificent memorial. But he refused to comment. I tried to research him when I was on St Helena but the wifi was costing me £6/hour and the only u-boat book in the library dealt with the sinking of the 'City of Cairo', which he also denied all knowledge of.
The problem with ghosts like dreams and hallucinations is that they don't always lead you where you want to go or provide answers to the puzzles they create.
 
I was having dinner with quite a big customer many years ago. The house I lived in with my then partner was about 400 years old. The customer asked if it had a ghost, and "D" responded with, "I dont know, but something keeps putting the willies up me!" Fortunately everyone laughed = phew!
 
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