Welcome to the Ghost Signs

Ghost signs is a website dedicated to the collection of Ghost Stories, Ghost Images and Ghost Discussion. Please tell us of your encounters with Ghosts and Poltergeists.

What are Ghosts:

Ghosts are often depicted of a human size and shape, but typically described as "silvery", "shadowy", "semi-transparent", "fog-like", or similar. Sometimes they do not manifest themselves visually, but in terms of other phenomena, such as the movements of an object, spontaneous throwing of a lightswitch, noises etc., which supposedly have no natural explanation.

In the West, those who believe in ghosts sometimes hold them to be souls that could not find rest after death, and so linger on Earth. The inability to find rest is often explained by unfinished business, such as a victim seeking justice or revenge after death. Criminals sometimes supposedly linger to avoid Purgatory or Hell . It is sometimes held that ghosts reside in Limbo , a place, according to non-orthodox Catholic doctrine, between Heaven and Hell where the souls of unbaptized infants go.

In Asian cultures (such as China ), many people believe in reincarnation . Ghosts are those souls that refused to be 'recycled' because they have unfinished business similar to those in western belief. Exorcists can either help a ghost to be reincarnated or blow it out of existence. In Chinese belief, apart from being reincarnated, a ghost can also become immortal and become a demigod , or it can go to hell and suffer for eternity, or it can die again and become "ghost of ghost".

Both the West and the East share some fundamentals about ghosts. They may wander around places where they frequent when alive, or where they have died. Such places where ghosts frequent are known as " haunted "; the rounds they go on are known as "hauntings". Ghosts do not have a physical body like human beings. They often wear the sort of clothing in which they would have been seen when alive.

Buddhist Samsara includes the concept of the Hungry ghost realm . Sentient beings in that realm are referred to as Hungry Ghosts because of their attachment to this world.

Famous ghosts

It seems likely that the real estate that enjoys the most distinguished ghosts as tenants is the Tower of London , which is haunted by:

• The headless ghost of Anne Boleyn ;
• The ghost of Thomas Becket allegedly appeared during the construction of the Traitor's Gate;
• The ghosts of King Edward V of England and Richard, Duke of York , the "Princes in the Tower";
• The ghost of Lady Jane Grey ;
• The ghost of Sir Walter Raleigh ;
• A troupe of ghosts who re-enact the execution of the Countess of Salisbury ;

Several other ghosts make the Tower their home; phantom troops of soldiers appear there, and a lady in mourning with no face.

The White House in Washington, DC is said to be haunted by the ghost of Abraham Lincoln , and by several lesser spectres. The ghost of the Roman Emperor Caligula was said to haunt the Lamian Gardens of Rome , where his body had been hastily and unceremoniously buried after his assassination .

In the Biblical account of the Witch of Endor , King Saul of Israel has the witch conjure up the ghost of the prophet Samuel to consult him on his precarious situation; the prophet's spirit gives the king no assistance, and foretells his doom instead.

Ghosts in fiction

In many stories, ghosts are often depicted as haunting the living until a certain desire is met or some grievance was settled by the haunted.

• In Shakespeare's play Hamlet , a ghost taking the form of Hamlet's recently deceased father appears to Prince Hamlet one night. The ghost says that he was in fact murdered by his brother Claudius, who now (by virtue of having married Hamlet's mother Gertrude) occupies the throne. The ghost exhorts Hamlet to take revenge on Claudius. When Hamlet sees the ghost, he is not sure if it is in fact his father's spirit, or a demon whose aim is to deceive him.

• Julius Caesar 's ghost appears to Mark Antony in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to warn Antony of his impending defeat.

• There are ghost superheroes who fight for justice such as DC Comics ' The Spectre and Deadman .

• In the Ghostbusters film and television franchise, the protagonists use special technology of their own design to hunt and capture/exile the ghosts they encounter.

• In The Matrix , ghosts are explained as obsolete or malfunctioning programs which choose to hide in the matrix to escape deletion. A program's other option is to return to "the Source," which is like the heaven of the matrix.

• In Ghost in the Shell , ghost is a word used to describe a person's inner being, similar to the concept of a soul .

• Other famous ghosts in fiction include the Headless Horseman , who appears in Washington Irving 's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow . Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn visit a haunted house in Mark Twain 's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer . Algernon Blackwood was a British writer of horror fiction who is well known for writing ghost stories.

• Other authors who are well known for writing ghost stories include M. R. James , J. Sheridan Le Fanu , H. R. Wakefield , and E. F. Benson .

• One way to produce ghosts on stage is Pepper's ghost technique.

• Several ghosts exist in Harry Potter books, including Nearly Headless Nick , the Bloody Baron and Moaning Myrtle .