He Knew All Four of Our Names Jury is out
A man none of us had ever seen stopped at our table, greeted each of us by name — including the nickname only my late father used — and thanked us 'for Tuesday.'
Are Ghosts Real? The Skeptic's Take
For some of these cases there is a boring explanation — and we wrote it down. Every story here carries a short rational counter-take: sleep paralysis, a draught, a trick of memory, a coincidence that was never that unlikely. Read the take, then read the story and decide for yourself. Newest takes first.
THE BORING EXPLANATION: The least spooky version starts with an unromantic fact: Friday regulars are not invisible.
THE BORING EXPLANATION: My first boring question is whether “forty” is a head count or a family number, because weddings breed round figures like damp breeds mushrooms.
Forty Uninvited Relatives on a Chartered Bus Jury is out
At 6 p.m., a coach pulled up and the father of the groom unloaded forty extra relatives he'd invited personally — to a wedding catered, seated and budgeted for ninety.
THE BORING EXPLANATION: Before we spend the hotel’s money on a Time Slip, I’d want to know how independent those “three witnesses” really are.
Checked Out a Day Before I Left Jury is out
The hotel's system, the card machine and the housekeeper all agree I left on Thursday. My memory contains a full, detailed Friday in that room, and the receipts to contradict everyone.
THE BORING EXPLANATION: The least spooky reading here is also the most depressingly common: a small caterer overtraded, took deposits to cover old debts, then hit the wall all at once.
The Caterer Evaporated at Noon Jury is out
Two hours before a 150-guest reception, the catering company's phone was disconnected, their premises empty — so the guests, led by three aunties, cooked the wedding dinner themselves.
THE BORING EXPLANATION: Before we crown this a Precognitive Dream, I’d want to do the dull work, because the dull work is where half the ghosts go to die.
Word for Word, Nine Days Early Jury is out
I dreamed an entire phone call — my brother's voice, odd phrases, a joke about penguins — and wrote it down. Nine days later he called and read my transcript aloud without knowing it.
Are ghosts real? On this site thousands of people swear something happened to them, and the jury votes on whether to believe it. This section does the unglamorous half of the job: it asks what else it could have been.
Sleep paralysis explains a great many bedroom apparitions. Infrasound below 20 Hz makes people feel watched. Memory rewrites itself every time it is recalled. Coincidence is far more common than anyone's intuition allows. None of that proves a story false — it just has to be ruled out first.
Every entry here takes one recurring claim from the archive and walks through the ordinary explanation before the extraordinary one. Sometimes the ordinary one does not fit. Those are the interesting cases.