What to Expect If You See a Ghost or Apparition

In the minds of many people, ghosts or apparitions are something to be afraid of. In fiction we often see accounts like the fictional one below:

But a  study challenges such stereotypes. The study (The Spectrum of Specters: Making Sense of Ghostly Encounters) was done after interviewing 39 people who claimed to have encountered ghosts. One surprising finding was that 6 of the people interviewed were professors. That doesn't exactly fit the stereotype that people who see ghosts are intellectually unsophisticated.

Another way in which the study busts stereotypes is by finding that 62% of the survey respondents said they observed ghosts along with a friend, coworker, or family member. This challenges the stereotype encouraged by skeptics, that a ghost sighting is typically just a hallucination by a single person. Of course, with their ever-fertile creativity at explaining away things, skeptics will simply argue that such cases are examples of “mass hysteria” or “hallucination infection,” or some such thing.

Another stereotype challenged by the study is that ghosts are mainly seen in haunted houses or spooky places, a stereotype advanced by paranormal TV shows in which people investigate ghosts in places like graveyards or abandoned prisons or mental institutions. But the study found that 64% of the participants encountered ghosts “during mundane or normal times in their lives.”

The study also concluded that “nearly all of our participants identified either a positive or nonthreatening encounter with a ghost.” This busts the “terror of ghost encounters” story line pushed by some cable TV shows. In fact, many people who claim ghost encounters claim to have had a very peaceful experience. One person has explained such a discrepancy this way: “Peace doesn't sell; terror sells.” (I can't remember the exact person who said that.) This finding should actually come as no surprise to those who watched the long running show Celebrity Ghost Stories, on which celebrities often reported very peaceful and gentle encounters with ghosts, particularly apparitions of recently departed relatives.

To help clarify this issue, I emailed a professor for more information related to one of his papers. I did not anticipate any response, because it seems that when I email authorities in academia, I typically get no response. So I was surprised to get a very helpful response from University of Northampton psychology researcher Chris A. Roe when I asked for details about a paper he co-authored, dealing with a survey he did of people reporting anomalous observations. Roe included a copy of a very interesting paper he co-authored regarding the exact experiences of people reporting either apparitions of the deceased, or a sense of making contact with the deceased by sound or touch or a vague "sense of presence." The paper is entitled "Perceptual Phenomena Associated with Spontaneous Experiences of After-Death Communication: Analysis of visual, tactile, auditory and olfactory sensations," and is authored by Marjorie Woollacott, PhD, Chris A. Roe, PhD, Callum E. Cooper, PhD, David Lorimer, MA, & Evelyn Elsaesser. 

The paper analyzes survey data from about 1000 subjects who responded to a survey dealing with "after death communication," a term meaning a variety of anomalous experiences that a person might interpret as being an example of communication or contact between the living and the dead. About a third of the respondents reported a kind of "sense of presence" without sensory contact. Question 20 of the survey was: "Did you perceive the presence of the deceased, without seeing, hearing, or feeling a physical contact of the deceased, or smelling a fragrance characteristic of the deceased?" 34% answered "yes."

The survey results get very interesting when we come to Table 5 of the paper. Question 39 asked, "Did you see the deceased?" Some 46% answered "yes." Most of these (60%) said their eyes were open when they saw such a thing. Question 41 asked, "Did you perceive the deceased as a whole or only a part of the body?" 60% answered "as a whole," 25% answered "only upper part of body" and 1% answered "only lower part of body." Most reported seeing such an apparition within reaching distance, with a third reporting the sight occurring a few meters away, and only 3% reporting seeing such an apparition appearing "in the distance." This ratio tends to lend credibility to the substantiality of the reports. Reports of seeing an apparition far away tend to be unreliable. 

Question 46 asked asked about whether the apparition looked solid or semi-transparent. 62% described the sight as "like a living being," 12% described seeing something "semi-transparent," and 11% answered the sight was a foggy silhouette.  Again we have a ratio that tends to lend credibility to the substantiality of the reports. Reports of seeing an apparition that is a mere foggy shape are easier to explain away than reports of seeing someone looking a living being. 

Question 48 asked whether the apparition matched the appearance of a person at the hour of death. 17% said yes, and 55% said no. Question 51 asked whether the figure looked the same age as when the person died. 51% said yes, 32% said the figure looked younger, and only 1% said the person looked older. Question 52 asked whether the figure looked brighter than the surrounding environment.  35% answered yes. Question 53 asked whether the figure seemed to materialize in front of the witness. 28% answered yes. 

Question 54 asked whether the apparition was moving. About an equal number said the figure was moving as said it was not moving.  Question 55 asked how the sighting of the apparition ended. 15% said it faded gradually, 28% said it dissolved instantly, and 18% said it was not there when the witness blinked. 

About half of the people reported some touch experience going on (Question 33).  44% reported that they could hear the deceased (Question 27).  But 57% of these reported that the words heard came as if by telepathy (Question 31). 28% reported a scent being involved (Question 64). 

Another paper co-authored by Chris A. Roe is the paper "Factors Moderating the Impact of After Death Communications on Beliefs and Spirituality," which can be read here. The paper analyzes data from a survey of about 1000 people. Table 1 of that paper gives summary results similar to the ones discussed above, with some interesting additions. We read that 90% of those reporting such experiences "knew the deceased." We read that only 12% were frightened by such experiences, and the great majority comforted by them. We read that 20% of the experiences occurred as "crisis ADCs." The term refers to experiences occurring around the time of someone's death, often in which one person seems to get a spooky sign or indication of someone else's death occurring elsewhere, often before learning of such a death by conventional means.  

From such answers and data, and from my long study of accounts of apparition sightings, I can make a rough sketch of what you might expect if you ever see a ghost or apparition. You will probably have such an experience not in some spooky "haunted house" you rarely visit, but either outdoors or in your own residence or the residence of family members. The figure you see will very probably be someone you recognize, probably a deceased family member or deceased friend. You will probably see a full bodily figure, although there's about one chance in four you might see only a partial figure.  The figure will probably appear close to you, closer than three meters. The figure will probably look solid, although there is about one chance in five you will see  something looking see-through or misty. There is about one chance in three that the figure will look rather luminous or glowing. The odds are about even that you will see the figure moving, and the odds are about even that the figure will seem to speak to you vocally or telepathically. You might detect some scent reminding you of the person.  It's quite possible although unlikely that the figure detected will correspond to someone who you did not know was dead, and if that happens you will probably soon learn by conventional means of the person's death. There's a good chance that you will watch the apparition instantly disappear or fade away. If such an event occurs, it will probably occur not very long after the death of the person corresponding to the apparition, rather than very long afterwards. You will be likely to get the impression that the appearance served to send some kind of message. You very probably will not be frightened by such an experience, and will probably be comforted by the experience. It is quite possible (although unlikely) that someone with you may share your experience of sighting an apparition.  Some examples when an apparition was seen by multiple people can be found here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

In an article in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research , on page 427, we have the interesting diagram below, one suggesting apparition sightings occur most frequently about the time of someone's death, but with quite a few sightings occurring well after someone dies:

There is another type of paranormal event that might occur to you, something not as dramatic as an apparition sighting. The event might unfold like this: you suddenly "out of the blue" are struck by the feeling that someone you know well is in danger or has died. You might be so seized by this sudden feeling that you try to immediately check on the status of the person connected with the feeling. You may then soon find out the person was injured, or suffered a great hazard, or you may find out the person has died.  In his 1970 book "Telepathic impressions: a review and report of thirty-five new cases," Ian Stevenson discussed several dozen such cases. For example, on the page here we read that in 1939 a woman named Lottie was "suddenly overcome by a feeling of anxiety" on April 12, 1939 between 10 and 10 AM. She later learned that her mother had committed suicide a few hours before this sudden feeling, at another location.  

There is another type of paranormal-seeming event that might well occur to you, something not as dramatic as an apparition sighting. The event might unfold like this: you suddenly observe some inexplicable-seeming thing that seems to have some connection with a deceased person you knew. You may be left with the impression that some immaterial agency has briefly interacted with your environment.  There may be some strong element of synchronicity involved.  Here are two examples suggested by things I experienced:

• On the birthday or death day of some deceased person you knew, you may see a mysterious flickering of lights, or maybe a circuit breaker mysteriously turning off, or maybe a clock acting spooky or maybe a smoke detector mysteriously going off even though there is no sign of anything around that may have caused that.  
• You may notice some physical item you associated with the deceased person, at some spot you recently observed without seeing such a thing, causing you to say, "How on Earth did that get there?" You may be left with the impression that something appeared "out of nowhere" or was moved around by some invisible agency. 

(At the very moment I was typing the word "synchronicity" in the statement above, something spooky happened.  Five minutes earlier I had started to watch the first episode of a series on HBO Max, and suddenly --just as I typed "synchronicity" in the sentence above -- my TV mysteriously reverted back to an HBO Max startup screen, just as if some invisible presence had pressed some button on a remote that was an arm's length from me.) 

If you experience any events like those I mention above, I recommend making a written dated record of what you saw, as soon as possible after the events occurred.  For some interesting surveys concerning how many people have such experiences, see my post here.