I have several intensely no-nonsense relatives who swear that they have had "supernatural" experiences (including my father, a devout atheist and skeptic). I think a lot of "ghostly" phenomena can be explained, as demonstrated by the gravestone anecdote above, but quirky but logical causes, and I've never had anything that weird happen to me. My grandmother saw all kinds of things after my grandfather died and we attributed them later to depression and undiagnosed, early-stage, Alzheimer's. I was home alone once when I was a kid and I swear I heard someone run up the basement stairs, but I told myself it was simply the cheaply-built, wooden steps popping back into place. I don't know. I sure wasn't going to go look. Likewise, I don't know for sure what my grandmother saw so, while I think that dementia is probably what was going on, I don't think it's fair of me to insist that she didn't see any of it. I've also occasionally had sleep paralysis and, while it's creepy as heck, I knew what was happening. So, I guess I don't believe in ghosts, really, but I don't absolutely not believe, either.

A friend of ours died of ovarian cancer a couple of years ago. She promised she'd haunt us but she hasn't and we're sort of disappointed. ;-)       I was sort of hoping my cat would make one last visit, too, but I think she was probably ready to go and she hasn't been back.